This is 2020 How to Plan Your Decade (1146)
This is 2020 How to Plan Your Decade (1146)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, it’s 2020, how to plan your decade.
Jill DeWit: Happy new year.
Steven Butala: I love this kind of stuff.
Jill DeWit: Yay.
Steven Butala: This is one of my favorite days of the year, if not my favorite.
Jill DeWit: You know what I love about today, which we did this morning? It’s silly. One of the things that, I mean, I’m telling you, you know, my tradition, I’m one of the first ones up. I’m here to say, I get coffee going, I get some fruit, maybe some cinnamon rolls, maybe I make coffee cake. Today I went lazy on it because we have people in town. And I plop my butt down and I watched the Rose Parade. And some year, I haven’t done it in a long time, we are in Southern California, the Rose Parade’s of course in-
Steven Butala: It’s not that far.
Jill DeWit: Pasadena.
Steven Butala: Pasadena. Probably like, five miles away.
Jill DeWit: It’s not that far. So anyway, some year I might, you don’t have to go, I won’t drag you there, but I’ll go again because I know you don’t want to go.
Steven Butala: You know, I’ll go. I’m happy. First of all, I love Pasadena. I always have.
Jill DeWit: Pretty.
Steven Butala: In Brentwood and all that, which is all the same area. If we want to take the electric bikes someday. Next year.
Jill DeWit: That’s a lot of trek. That’s a little bit of a trek.
Steven Butala: I’d still do it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: I’ll pack the lunch. I think that’d be fun.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, I don’t want to do that.
Steven Butala: See?
Jill DeWit: No. I’m not going to do that. I’ll take a car.
Steven Butala: When you take a car-
Jill DeWit: Not going to ride my bike.
Steven Butala: First of all, driving in Los Angeles, don’t get me started.
Jill DeWit: Not taking my bike. I don’t want to die.
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: Ian asked, how would you go about finding [inaudible 00:01:48] on market, new listings versus property sold and the number of properties active on the MLS that Steven talks about in Land Academy 1.0, if the county I’m looking at isn’t among the top 1,000 counties listed on realtor.com/research/data, which is where Steven has directed everyone to go? Which is correct.
Steven Butala: I have a lot to say about this.
Jill DeWit: I know. One member recommended contacting a realtor in the area.
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: Any recommendations on how you would approach a realtor in the areas since I’m not looking to use a realtor?
Steven Butala: You wouldn’t.
Jill DeWit: But would like that info. Thanks. Hi, I just want to pick your brain for free?
Steven Butala: No.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Steven Butala: [crosstalk 00:02:27] And real estate agents don’t know about data.
Jill DeWit: They only know what they think they know. They know the last four they did or what they heard in their office, right.
Steven Butala: They know how to do their hair nice and what window treatments are going to look better. [crosstalk 00:02:42].
Jill DeWit: And the current Lexus lease rates.
Steven Butala: And they can multiply 6% of any money in their head.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, exactly. That’s right.
Steven Butala: Leave real estate agents out of your entire operation, unless-
Jill DeWit: That’s funny.
Steven Butala: You have a very specialized land person in a local area that has a lot of transaction experience and they have a pickup truck or something.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: Those types of real estate agents really actually add some value; and they’re far and few between. When you find one, hold on to them. There’s two places to get data to answer your question here, Ian. Redfin, and Redfin is now downloadable. So if you type in a zip code for instance, and you look at land that’s listed, you can check two boxes. You can say I want all the land that’s listed for sale on the MLS and all the land that is sold within three months, six months or a year, download and it’s all free. It really has changed how I price things. And so Jill, a couple of days ago, is going to do a module on sales. The two biggest top questions we get from our members are, please talk more about sales, I’m a little confused about it, and I need to know more about pricing. So I’ll address all these things in this month-
Jill DeWit: First quarter.
Steven Butala: Yeah, first quarter, let’s say.
Jill DeWit: You’re going to do a thing and I’m going to do a thing.
Steven Butala: But the two places to get data are Redfin and Realtor. Here’s the difference. Realtor.com is owned and operated by the National Association of Realtors, which has 100% coverage across this country. In the weirdest places in Alaska, you’re going to have coverage there. So this is not necessarily correct. Redfin is a full blown independent venture capital based company that has agreements with several of the local MLSs. There’s like 350 MLSs in the country, there’s not just one. And the local MLSs reports you and are governed by the national MLS, which is the National Association of Realtors. Redfin is intentionally only concentrated on about a thousand markets, because they don’t care about rural markets. There’s just not enough activity. We love rural markets in Land Academy. So if you’re working, especially for House Academy, go to Redfin and download the data.
Steven Butala: But I’ll tell you this, here’s the real answer to the question. If you can’t get enough data in a county that you’re working, just move it to go to another county. This is all about data. If you don’t know that by now, you haven’t been listening. This is all about data and putting money in your pocket.
Jill DeWit: Is that why we’re here?
Steven Butala: It is. Today’s topic, this is 2020, How To Plan Your Decade. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: You have a lot to say about that. Thanks. It was very refreshing. I just kind of got to sit here and relax a minute.
Steven Butala: It’s refreshing?
Jill DeWit: Refreshing.
Steven Butala: Not many people say, hey, it’s really refreshing that you’re talking about data.
Jill DeWit: Well, it’s refreshing that I didn’t have to talk about data.
Steven Butala: Usually it’s like, you’re making me nauseous again.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Please. Are we there yet? Can we please stop? Oh my gosh. I just have to share. So we, because this is how we roll, elected to drive back from Wyoming, between Christmas and New Year’s. Right?
Steven Butala: Why? Because we’re land people.
Jill DeWit: [inaudible 00:06:16] right. And did we see the country? Boy did we see the country. We saw us a little more country than we cared to at some spots. There was like, you know when you’re out there and there’s no cars passing you? Like, wow, we are out here. And what’s great about it though, let’s all be honest, if you’re in the business like we are, there’s a lot of people that love that.
Steven Butala: I love it.
Jill DeWit: When you say you’re going to drive for 20 minutes and not see a car, they’re like, yes, that’s where I want to be.
Steven Butala: I love that.
Jill DeWit: I want to be so off the radar that good luck finding me. It’s hilarious. So we drove back, but it ties into, how was it? It was like, we were in the car [inaudible 00:06:55] and then we had some weather delays. We had six states on the way back from Wyoming.
Steven Butala: Yeah. Some of the snow passes were closed.
Jill DeWit: I counted.
Steven Butala: In California.
Jill DeWit: And we saw some crazy weather. But it was good.
Steven Butala: In a 48 hour period, we were in California, Nevada, Arizona.
Jill DeWit: California, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho.
Steven Butala: Idaho.
Jill DeWit: Wyoming.
Steven Butala: Wyoming. I think we’re missing one.
Jill DeWit: California?
Steven Butala: Utah.
Jill DeWit: Utah. Yeah, it was good-
Steven Butala: This was a bucket list trip for me. I have never driven that far-
Jill DeWit: Yeah,.
Steven Butala: Through the West and you know, it’s just ranch after ranch. It’s just like dreaming. It was dreamy for me. Anyway-
Jill DeWit: It was dreamy for me on the first day.
Steven Butala: I used the word nauseous.
Jill DeWit: A little bit on the second day. And then on the third day, there were no pictures.
Steven Butala: I used the word nauseous just now and Jill brought this trip up.
Jill DeWit: Yes. That’s what I think of.
Steven Butala: Just say nauseous.
Jill DeWit: Nauseous.
Steven Butala: What is nauseous? Is it nauseous?
Jill DeWit: Nauseous.
Steven Butala: Or nauseous.?
Jill DeWit: I think it’s nauseous. There’s that like, t-i-o-n in there.
Steven Butala: Say pizza.
Jill DeWit: Pizza.
Steven Butala: Some of the words you say are just, they’re different.
Jill DeWit: Well, how do you say pizza?
Steven Butala: Pizza.
Jill DeWit: That’s not the same?
Steven Butala: No. You say it all cute.
Jill DeWit: Say mom.
Steven Butala: Mom.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that’s different.
Steven Butala: What’s this show about?
Jill DeWit: There’s the Michigan in you. I have a lot to say here. It’s 2020, happy New Year. Yay. Hope you’re home and with your family and having a good time, and hope you watched the Rose Parade like me. And we’re going to talk about, just lightly, I have a list of things, and I’d love to hear your list, on how to plan your decade. That’s what’s so fun about these big numbers. When you hit a 2020, the tens, 2030, 2010, I don’t know if everybody does this, but we look at it as a decade now. I’m not just thinking about this year, I’m thinking about the decade. And that gives you 10 years of time to get some things done. So, go big. So that’s my item number one. We’re talking this decade level; not year, decade. Set some big goals. I will have that house, I’ll have $5 million in the bank. I’ll have, whatever it is.
Steven Butala: Keep going. This is good stuff, Jill.
Jill DeWit: The life I want. We will be mortgage-free, I will write a check for my kid’s tuition for the whole year, on one check. Those kind of things. I want you to set big goals. Next thing I want you to do, is prioritize. Some are more important than others, let’s be honest. Forget the stupid diet things and that kind of stuff. I know that’s important and that should be, but I’m talking, this is decade level, it should be bigger than that. Healthy, that could be on there. That could be something big; I’m going to spend 10 years and I’m going to be the healthiest person I can be, kind of thing. I mean, I’m not saying you don’t have to include those, but I’m thinking business stuff. Prioritize. Then I want you to break them down into manageable chunks.
Steven Butala: Absolutely.
Jill DeWit: Because if you sit and focus on the end goal every day, it’s overwhelming. But if you have it down to a chunk, like, all right, I want to have $5 million in the bank. Come on. So what do I got to end every year with? Half a million. All right, well that’s not hard now. Now, I can do that. And then just keep going for it.
Steven Butala: Then divide by weeks and months and the whole thing. That was part of what I was going to talk about. You have to write it all down and put it in a calendar. Whatever goal you have-
Jill DeWit: Say it out loud.
Steven Butala: Whatever goal you have, start 10 years from now, then divide those 10 years up and then …. For me, it’s time and money and resources. Those are the three things. I mean, that’s beautiful that Jill is all, lose weight and whatever. That’s not what this show is about.
Jill DeWit: No, that’s not what it’s about. That’s why I said I didn’t want to discount that.
Steven Butala: This show is about getting ridiculously rich, is what this show’s about.
Jill DeWit: But it’s more than that.
Steven Butala: Buying undervalued real estate. And so-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Steven Butala: You can literally divide the amount of money that you want to make up, divided by time and resources, resources meaning how much mail do I have to send out-
Jill DeWit: Fair.
Steven Butala: And what resources do I need, especially now with Neighbor Scoop? What resources do I need to be a part of? Maybe it’s Land Academy, maybe it’s House Academy, whatever it is for you. Maybe it’s not. Maybe you’re going to go do it yourself. That’s fine too. But have a plan. Have it all in writing, have it organized. And for me personally, put it in a calendar. We use Microsoft 365. Put it in a calendar so that you know tomorrow what you’re supposed to do to get to that goal. And you know what? Five million is nothing. She’s threw that out.
Jill DeWit: It’s really not that much, thinking about it.
Steven Butala: Don’t shoot for 5 million, shoot for 500 million, and maybe you’ll have 100 million, if you do it all wrong.
Jill DeWit: There we go. That’s all. It’s all correct. And I always then say too, review and adjust every so often. That’s really important. If you’re not on track, tweak it so you [inaudible 00:12:03] be on track.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: If you’re not hitting your goal, you’re not hitting your number, you may go, all right, I got a double time this right now, or I got to do bigger properties, bigger dollar amounts, whatever it is.
Steven Butala: Here’s a few reasons why you wouldn’t hit your goal. This is a big one for me. This is the single reason that I don’t accomplish what I set out to accomplish and put it all into a system. Because I don’t like what I’m doing. You know what? I hate operations, I hate it. And if I’m involved in operations, Jill’s heard me say this too many times, if I’m involved in actual day to day operations with any company, it’s going to fail. And it’s not because I’m bad at it, it’s just that I can’t stand it. I’m not an operations person. I’m a big picture, start up, methodology, systems, data, that kind of thing. And I love doing that and we succeed at it.
Jill DeWit: Know what I see? I agree with you. I see people that don’t hit their goals for two things. Number one, they’re afraid. And number two, they second guess themselves. They’re like, oh, I can’t possibly do that. They say that. I’m like, don’t say that, yes you can. You don’t like my answer.
Steven Butala: No, that’s so foreign to me.
Jill DeWit: Oh. Well, because you’re not that person.
Steven Butala: No, I know you’re right. I’m not disagreeing with you.
Jill DeWit: That’s great, because you’re not that person.
Steven Butala: I just think anything’s possible.
Jill DeWit: I know. And I’m not that person. But some people are those people.
Steven Butala: So they second guess themselves? Like, what? Like, they’re not sure they could do this?
Jill DeWit: Like this $5 million, $10 million or $20 million, whatever it is, they’re like, that’s great for you guys, I can’t do it. Heck, yeah you can.
Steven Butala: Why?
Jill DeWit: That’s my point. They second guess themselves. They say that I can’t possibly do that. Come on. That happens all the time. You see people all the time that like, yeah, you guys can do that and you guys can do this stuff. I can’t do that because I don’t have the support, I don’t have the time, I have little kids. Gosh, I don’t have whatever behind me to do it. Well, you know what? We were there once. We did it, you can do it.
Steven Butala: Yeah. The other thing too that’ll throw a wrench into whatever you’re trying to accomplish, in my opinion, is the people you’re surrounding yourself with. And I mean personally and I mean staff. So, nothing will throw a wrench into a perfectly good operation when somebody puts in their notice.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And you have to prepare for that. It’s like, sports teams have, there’s people on the bench for a reason in case somebody gets injured. So you really need to plan for that and go deep on your second and third string.
Jill DeWit: Sometimes it’s you.
Steven Butala: And it will eventually.
Jill DeWit: Sometimes it’s you. You’re jumping in like, I guess I’m the substitute teacher today.
Steven Butala: So, I’ve said this on the show before, and Jill’s heard me say it a bunch of times. Steve jobs, famous for saying, you do everything right in your career, at some point you’re just going to become a recruiter. And so you really have to surround yourself with the right employees. If you get some good employees, treat them right, treat them right financially. Very regularly, Joe will walk around our office and kind of ask people if they’re getting what they need or are they accomplishing what they want to accomplish? It’s really interesting, and Jill’s famous for this, sitting down with people and saying, what motivates you? It’s shocking. Money really motivates me. It is shocking to me how much people don’t say money.
Jill DeWit: Most people don’t.
Steven Butala: They’re motivated-
Jill DeWit: At least the ones that work for us, they don’t.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: So that’s really surprising to me. Some of it’s flexibility. Time off. Sometimes they’re motivated by-
Jill DeWit: Just recognition.
Steven Butala: Yeah, recognition.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s another good tip. I like that too. Know what motivates you. For you it’s money, obviously, seeing it. For me, it’s accomplishment. I get motivated two ways. One, I’m like, I did it, kind of thing. I accomplished something. Maybe it was something physical I accomplished or a project that I took on that was big. What is so funny?
Steven Butala: I just went to a dark place.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Steven Butala: Physical accomplishments.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Butala: That was a beautiful place for me.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Steven Butala: But kind of a dark place.
Jill DeWit: Were you involved?
Steven Butala: Yeah. I know I’m blushing right now. I can feel it.
Jill DeWit: Wow. That was great. Okay. The thing that motivates me is when I get feedback. I’m the same as everybody else. It’s not necessarily money for me. I get feedback from you. Our community-
Steven Butala: You know what motivates you?
Jill DeWit: That they are killing it and it makes me so happy.
Steven Butala: Lifestyle.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Lifestyle does-
Steven Butala: You will change how much you work and what you do and change your goals.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Steven Butala: There’s a lifestyle in Jill’s head, we have it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It’s very true.
Steven Butala: And it’s been in her head for a long time. The long lifestyle was not Scottsdale. It was this behind us.
Jill DeWit: I will work.
Steven Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I’m sure there’s a lot of you watching right now, this is just like me. If there’s a path and you know if you do A, B, C and D, you could afford that life, that home, that view, that whatever it is that you want, you’ll do it. And that’s me.
Steven Butala: And then just put the A, B, C and D into the calendar.
Jill DeWit: Yup. And I just do them.
Steven Butala: And you’re going to get it.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. And I work hard to maintain it.
Steven Butala: And you’re going to fail. We haven’t talked about that.
Jill DeWit: You’ll figure out another way.
Steven Butala: So if you fail, you just laugh at it.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s part of my, review and adjust every so often. Because some things you might go, all right, I came at this one wrong, I need to reassess it, and you got 10 years to work through it, because this is a decade goal.
Steven Butala: Now’s a good time to bring this up. When you fail at something, you’re going to fail at something, even the people in the advanced group that are making a million bucks a month, have a mailer that goes out that just didn’t go the way they want it to sometimes. Sometimes two in a row. Well, you know what none of them do? None of them sit there and say, I’m a failure, or this doesn’t work, or I’m going to bag it. None of them. They don’t even have a glimpse of that type of thought. What they do is, they go back and they say, all right, I missed something. Maybe I picked the wrong county, [inaudible 00:18:05] asset type, I didn’t price it right. Maybe it was everybody’s on vacation that month. Some version of that. And they analyze it; but they don’t sit around and dwell on the fact that it didn’t work or that they wasted any money. If that happens, you’re not going to make it to the advanced group. So, put it in the calendar, expect for some failure, adjust it like Jill said, and just pound it. Just pound it until you get what you want.
Jill DeWit: Great advice. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show. And don’t worry, Tuesdays and Thursdays we are still around over on the House Academy Show.
Steven Butala: Tomorrow the episode on the House Academy Show is called The Female Way to Flip a House with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: It’s going to be funny.
Steven Butala: I wonder if it’s different how men flip.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Steven Butala: I bet it is.
Jill DeWit: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. That’s going to be funny. I don’t know where you’re going.
Steven Butala: It’s 2020, man.
Jill DeWit: I know. I know.
Steven Butala: You know, so-
Jill DeWit: Do you feel any different?
Steven Butala: No, I completely don’t. But I’ll tell ya, for 2020, in 10 years, it’s going to be 2030 and I’m going to be in my sixties.
Jill DeWit: And we’re going to be right here doing the show.
Steven Butala: It’ll be like a soap opera.
Jill DeWit: Could you imagine?
Steven Butala: It’s like, 16,000 episodes later.
Jill DeWit: What episode would we be on? We’d be like Alex Trebek on …. Somebody, please pull the plug.
Steven Butala: Great example. The guy’s just in pain. He’s in pain on Jeopardy.
Jill DeWit: He stopped looking like he was having fun a while back.
Steven Butala: He’s been doing shows for 50 years.
Jill DeWit: 30 years, or I don’t know.
Steven Butala: He’s been doing game shows.
Jill DeWit: I don’t know. Poor guy.
Steven Butala: That’s tough. He must have a bunch of ex wives he’s got to pay or something.
Jill DeWit: Oh man. I can’t afford to quit.
Steven Butala: Anyway, I’m going to be in my sixties. So I really use that, like there’s stuff I want to do in my fifties here; my mid to late fifties, there’s some stuff I want to do. There’s some stuff I want to do in my sixties. So I really, and it’s not the stuff I wanted to do when I was in my twenties.
Jill DeWit: True.
Steven Butala: And I think this is a really positive thing because you are going to use less of your brawn and more of your wisdom and your intelligence about data and some other stuff. And I think-
Jill DeWit: I like that.
Steven Butala: You could really, really accomplish a lot. Especially when you’re in a group like this, there’s a lot of young people.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Steven Butala: And they’re looking to meet to help make decisions for them and to profess this theoretical wisdom and provide this data and resources and money, and then they go out and do the work and we’re in a good situation.
Jill DeWit: We are.
Steven Butala: And so are the people in this group. I hope they see it that way.
Jill DeWit: I’m sure they do. Land Academy Show remains commercial free for you, our loyal listeners. So wherever you’re watching, wherever you’re listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are, Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala: We are Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit: And inspiration-
Steven Butala: To buy undervalued property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in 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.
