Separate Your Self From the Less Motivated (LA 1208)
Separate Your Self From the Less Motivated (LA 1208)
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 DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about now is the time to thrive. I don’t need to say what’s going on in the world right now.
Jill DeWit:
Nope. I do know we’re on day seven or eight depending on how you counted of 15 so I feel good about that. We’re halfway there. You think I’m kidding?
Steven Butala:
No, I [crosstalk 00:00:29], I agree with you. We got at least some time behind us, but that’s, Jill brings up the perfect point. That’s what this is all about. How long is it going to happen? What’s going to happen specifically to the real estate environment? What’s going to happen in my personal bank account? And on and on and on. So that’s kind of the unofficial theme this week. I will try to share the experiences that I’ve had. This is my personal third downturn and all throughout this positive economic time that we just experienced, I’ve been saying some version of this, “Ah, don’t worry. This next time, it’s not going to get bad as the last time. The last time was like a real estate market crash.” So now I hope I’m wrong. No one could see this coming. So you can’t be moping around saying to yourself, “Wow, what did I do wrong?” You didn’t do anything wrong. Just have to adjust.
Jill DeWit:
No. And you know what? If you think this is it in your lifetime, you’re never going to experience it again. No. This is probably going to happen again in your lifetime. So, and how you handle it and how you carry yourself and how you treat everybody around you. I mean, this is important stuff.
Steven Butala:
Couldn’t agree more.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
Happy Jill is a perfect person to fall back on here when these times happen.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, come on.
Steven Butala:
I’m serious. I’m not exaggerating at all. You’re like the happiest person I’ve ever met.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
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:
Linda says, it said, “New member from New York here. I would love to explore other places, which is one of the reasons why I’m here. I have family across the U.S. I think the hardest part for me is what area to start with. I am excited to be here and learn, so hopefully I can help others succeed.” Very cool.
Steven Butala:
Great question. So this is the Land Show. So we have this saying in our group and some of the people that are listening right now are just like, “Oh, he’s going to say it again.” Let the data decide for you. So we’re not, this is, there’s no real version of putting a dart board up and just have a dart board of the United States, throw, it hits Montana. Oh, that’s where I’m going to send mail, right? We do the exact opposite of that. We look at all the data, really try to make sense of it and we can make sense of it. We’ve been doing this 16,000 deals and a bunch of years later. We know what’s going to happen when we send mail out pretty much anywhere.
Steven Butala:
So and if you’re brand new, make sure you go through all the education once or twice. Make sure you, you did the absolutely right thing by posting this on landinvestors.com. When we talk, when Jill and I do these questions on the show, we don’t talk about really or show the nine or 10 responses that we typically got or somebody will get from experienced members in our group.
Steven Butala:
So, to directly answer your question, you have to look at the data, look at what’s available from a county standpoint. Sometimes you find the greatest area in the planet to send mail out, passes all the tests, but the people at the county only work on Wednesday.
Jill DeWit:
And you might not want to start there or you, or their mapping system stinks. Things like that.
Steven Butala:
That’s one of the reasons that we’ve, Jill and I together over the years have developed these tools like Parcel Facts…
Jill DeWit:
Neighbor Scoop.
Steven Butala:
And Neighbor Scoop, which by now –
Jill DeWit:
It’s open. Yeah. Neighbor Scoop is alive and well.
Steven Butala:
It’s, we record all these shows on Thursday morning and Thursday later in the day we have our live webinars for both House Academy and Land Academy. So I was just on Skype with our tech person and I’m saying, “Can I use these tools for our live shows?” As she said, “Yeah, absolutely. It’s ready to go.” So it’s that fresh and that new. So just do your research, continue what you’re doing. And I think the markets where you should be sending mail should pop right out. Don’t you think? Is this any more of a mystery?
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I was going to say. No, I was going to say, okay Linda, you’ve got 10 you’re thinking about, let’s just say. Well great, put them all in a spreadsheet and run all the tests. Do all the things that we tell you to do. Everything from is property moving there? Is it priced within your price range? What are the days on market, obviously? Buyers, is there not too many available properties? There’s all kinds of things.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Listen to those Thursday calls too because we, especially Land Call, because we do this thing called “Would You Do This Deal?” and probably review 20, 30, 40 properties every single week. And that gives you a really good feel for some of the places where I think it’s just they’re less attractive because there’s so much property for sale and some of the places that are really attractive to send mail and where there’s not a lot of property and, but there’s high demand. So the property that is listed for sale sells quickly. That tells you where to buy.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, now is the time to thrive. This is the meat of the show.
Steven Butala:
Crazy stuff happens in this world. I’m sure, whoever you are, you’re barraged by this thing the way Jill and I are. I can tell you the last time we had a pretty serious economic recession, I call it a real estate depression because that’s what it was. We were in Phoenix and it was, the sky is falling.
Steven Butala:
So what Jill and I did, and what I think you should do, is sit yourself down and you’re going to either handle this like a champ or you’re going to kind of crawl in a hole and die or some version in between. And I really think now’s the time to thrive. You can see these people behind us. This is not the green screen or it’s not, there’s a lot of people out doing a lot of stuff. I know for a fact the gyms are closed that are close to our house, so I see a lot of people exercising. See these people [crosstalk 00:06:18].
Jill DeWit:
That’s awesome. And their kids, I just watched it today.
Steven Butala:
You have little kids.
Jill DeWit:
Did you see that? There were like four or five guys out there all doing burpees and throwing balls and everything. I’m like, “Good for you guys.” They just moved the gym to the beach. It’s even better anyway. I hate to say it, we might all adopt this new thing, seriously. I’d rather do gym on the beach anyway.
Steven Butala:
If you have little kids, or if you have children at all, or nephews or nieces or little children in your life in any way, you know that you snap your fingers in they’re out of high school. So this is the greatest, I’ll get to the real estate piece of this in a second. This is the greatest. The kids probably think this is the greatest thing I ever. Get to spend time with their parents and they don’t know anything, as they shouldn’t. So now is the time to really, the building blocks of Land Academy and House Academy, they start with this thought, this crazy thought, or maybe a wild hair in somebody’s head. That certainly did with me and I’m sure Jill about my day job’s just not cutting it for me. That’s the first little spark that happens. Well, it turns out you’re probably not going to your day job right now at all.
Steven Butala:
So after that spark, it’s like, “Well, all right, I’m not going to do this day job forever. I got to go there right now.” I get it. I’m going to start searching around in the internet to try to find, let’s call it a side gig just to see. I don’t want to buy at a convenience store. I don’t want to get into any type of side business that requires a tremendous amount of time and money. None of us do. That to me equals risk. The more money I have to spend upfront, the more time I have to spend up front. That’s all risk because if it fails, you have a lot more to lose. But foundation of Land Academy and House Academy is no real risk. So it’s founded on learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, education, get as much educated as you can, wherever you get educated, whether it’s, I hope it’s not just Jill and I. Get the tools that are needed to succeed.
Steven Butala:
The number one tool for me is access to good, solid data, and then start implementing, implementing mailer campaigns and set up the tools for yourself that makes sense. The inbound call tool, the due diligence tool, maybe you set up a network of people who can sell property for you if you’re into that. So there, these are all things that happen outside of your regular job. Well, it turns out you’re not going to your regular job right now anyway. So here’s my big picture point. Now’s the time to thrive. So you might be the kind of person that looks at this as a massive opportunity. I personally do. There are things that I’ve wanted to do that I couldn’t do. And I’ll name them if you want, that I’m going to get done during this kind of, this opportunity.
Jill DeWit:
I would like to know.
Steven Butala:
I have so many half-written books, it’s silly.
Jill DeWit:
Oh yeah. Same here.
Steven Butala:
And so even to the point where Jill spent a lot of time last year finding a publisher and finding a network of people here in Los Angeles to make sure that what the-
Jill DeWit:
Stuff gets done.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Well it gets marketed. What the heck good is a writing a book if it just sits there. So that’s even done. So I’m preaching to myself here a little bit, like, “Come on, get this stuff done.” So here’s my point. And then I’m sure Jill has a lot to say. I hope she does. You either have this personality where you’re going to look at this thing like an opportunity or look at Land Academy like an opportunity or House Academy or you don’t. And this is kind of putting your feet to the fire. If you’re not going to do anything about this now, you’re probably not going to do anything about it at all.
Jill DeWit:
I’m curious if, who those of you, for listeners, obviously how you handled it the last time and if you’re doing something different. I hope you are. Does that make sense?
Steven Butala:
Are you asking me if I’m doing anything differently?
Jill DeWit:
No, well, actually I should. Yeah. I’m going to ask you what’s different, right? What’s different this time versus the last recession or the last similar situation?
Steven Butala:
Nothing.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
We’re all, everybody’s not going to work. I mean, everybody. I just wrote a blog that said, in the worst of times, there’s 10% unemployment. In the best of times there’s 5% so it’s that 5% gap that we were dealing with back then. We, Jill and I, happen to live in a real estate driven economy, the way Detroit’s an auto industry driven economy to a fault, to the point where it’s a single point of failure. So it hit us really, really hard. But what that ended up being and I’ll, this again, this whole week is all about how to deal with this real estate recession that’s coming. The single best piece of advice and the best thing that I did in this last, the most recent recession was essentially creating House Academy because we were just in the Land business.
Steven Butala:
So I was crazily obsessively looking at little micro markets in the Phoenix market. And this can happen. It’s going to happen everywhere. It’s happening everywhere. And find out where the opportunity is in the housing market because everybody needs a place to live, number one. And number two, the people who have money in these environments just come out of the woodwork. They don’t necessarily have the talent that we have or the people that are in our group or our listeners, watchers have. The talent that we have is manipulating data, watching these markets and go to these fat cats. We have a bunch of [inaudible 00:11:42] who are, they have more money than sense and telling them, “Hey, I’ve got this house under contract or this piece of land under contract for 10% of what it’s usually worth.” It’s in the best it’s something, the sales pitch was an elevator pitch for me because we didn’t have a ton of accumulated capital.
Steven Butala:
Hey, this house, I’m going to buy it, I’m going to buy it. I’m going to paint it and put a new floor in and new appliances in for $25,000. All of that. In the best of times these properties were selling for 225. Four months it was selling for 225. I can buy it for $20,000 in it’s exact same condition. Do you think this is a good idea? “Oh, that’s great, Steve. What are you going to do with it now? You can’t sell it.” You think I can sell that asset for 40 grand in the worst of times? Yes. And we did, over and over and over again. Does that make rural vacant land the greatest candidate or the greatest property to buy and sell during a recession like this? Maybe not. Is it possible? Heck yeah. I just watched.
Jill DeWit:
I’m not worried. I’m watching all of this at all. Especially with rural vacant land. This is the Land Show. Yeah. I’m not worried at all.
Steven Butala:
I was watching on YouTube, there’s a series of videos on alternative rural lifestyles like barium containers and stuff, and it’s they’re all getting millions and millions of views a day now. And they’d been on the internet. They’ve been on YouTube for a decade.
Jill DeWit:
Right, exactly.
Steven Butala:
You got to think out of the box here.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, totally. I don’t really don’t have anything to add by the way. This is the Steve show today.
Steven Butala:
It doesn’t have to be. I’d like to hear what you really think.
Jill DeWit:
No, no. It’s good. Well, I have a few silly things. I’ll save it for the after show.
Steven Butala:
No, no, go ahead. I’d love to hear what you have to say about now’s the time to thrive.
Jill DeWit:
Oh mine were only silly things. There’s nothing that I could say in a pure business sense that’s going to… really, that was beautiful. I can’t improve on that at all. So…
Steven Butala:
Oh, come on.
Jill DeWit:
Seriously. No, my only notes were, “Hey, by the way, everybody, I see people on social media coming up with things to do. And I’m like, this is your list of things to do?”
Steven Butala:
Like what?
Jill DeWit:
Like start spring cleaning. I’m like, really? And here’s how to… I’m like, you know what? Instead of spring cleaning, why don’t you isolate the things you need to sell and sell them? Don’t clean them. Sell them if you’re not using it. I’m not kidding. And people were talking about reading that book. I’m like, well, you know what? If you’re going to read a book, make it about owning a small business, make it all business-related books and things like that. That’s what I have to say. Or and like we’re doing right now, learning how to flip land.
Steven Butala:
I’m going to tell a story about when I was a kid just out of college and I was a commercial real estate broker in full commission. There was a terrible recession in Detroit. Couldn’t have timed it worse. Graduated from college, went to do into commercial real estate, because I had an uncle at the time. He was very successful in commercial real estate and we were over his house. This all started, my whole career started with this guy. It was a 20 minute conversation. He said, “You kids are real young and this is a terrible recession.” And he just basically gave the speech that I gave. He’s like, “This is the time that you start all this stuff because you have the luxury of not being married. You don’t have any children. You don’t have any mortgage or any real responsibility at all. Now’s the time to do this because when, by the time you learn anything for real, it’ll be up and running and you’re all set.”
Steven Butala:
And so I took his advice to heart and I went and got a full commission job and one of the guys there said, “Yeah, times are tough.” He was an older guy, in the same job, he had the same job I did, full commercial real estate broker. And the guy said, “What recession are you talking about? I know a guy who owns six or seven Burger Kings.” Depending on where you are from the country you know what that is. It’s a smaller version of McDonald’s. And he convinced this building owner of these Burger Kings, it wasn’t the operator, to renovate these buildings in conjunction with… So my point is, you sat down with this guy, he already established a relationship, that’s thought completely out of the box. “I’m going to go talk to this Burger King, a triple net Burger King owner.” And it’s because these buildings are 25 years old. They need to be cleaned up and people are still buying here hamburgers.
Steven Butala:
So he did. And that, and he kept saying, “What recession? What are you talking about?” And what he was saying is think out of the box. This doesn’t, if you’re going to victimize yourself, that’s up to you. This can be, all the major components of completing a real estate deal are present now more than they were two years ago. Cheaper property. You’re going to this, later this week, Jill and I are going to do a show called, there’s a massive uptick in people on the internet because they have more time on their hands, which means you have more customer base. So a cheaper property, a higher customer base. Landlords, we’ll talk about later this week, thrive in markets like this. They love to buy cheap assets. They have tons and tons of cash. So we’ll talk about that. So it’s got all the components. The only thing that’s probably missing if you’re brand new, to create the perfect storm of real estate, is your own education and now’s the time to do it.
Jill DeWit:
Excellent. Thank you. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we are right here on the Land Academy Show. Tuesdays and Thursdays, you can find us on the House Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the House Academy show is called, brokers have their pulse on all of these little micro market changes. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Oh my God, Steve.
Jill DeWit:
This has been nice for me. I’m just going to drink my coffee, hang out.
Steven Butala:
I thought you always say never do deal with brokers and real estate agents are terrible. Yeah. In times like these, their eyeballs are just above the water line. So they’re actually, they sit down a little bit more than usual and they listen and they bark and speak when you tell them to.
Jill DeWit:
The 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:
Information…
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration…
Steven Butala:
to buy undervalued property.
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here. Happy Friday. 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 how you should separate yourself from the less motivated during times like these.
Jill DeWit:
I have to say, I want to point out what’s going on behind us. Case you didn’t notice. I just watched a mom and two kids pack with their lunch packed going, you know what? We’re going to go spend the day on the beach. Look at that guy walking by there. You see bicyclists. I’m really happy, this doesn’t have to be shut into your home and not breathe fresh air by the way. If you shut in your home, you’re not getting out having some fresh air. I’m going to argue that’s worse for your health and everything going on.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. This is not the time to gain 20 pounds or explore new brands of alcohol.
Jill DeWit:
Wait a minute. Does that mean we can’t still do our Vodka tasting later we have planned tonight?
Steven Butala:
I think that if you’re done with all your work.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, thank you.
Steven Butala:
Look at that, I sound like your father again. If you’re done with all your work, your grades are good, you’re happy with your revenue.
Jill DeWit:
Right? You can have some fun.
Steven Butala:
Your teachers aren’t mad at you, your wife’s not mad at you. I think you should explore that. Try to find the bottom of the bottle of scotch. I play that game often by myself.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, but that’s true. Yeah. Day drinking,.
Steven Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe not. Okay. Still save that for Sunday brunch. I’m kidding.
Steven Butala:
No, I know you joke. It just cracks me up, the stuff that you see on the show instead of, just between us.
Jill DeWit:
It’s not every day.
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:
Weston wrote, I have an approved purchase agreement from a seller through direct mail. Yay. In going through the due diligence and researching the deed, I came across this situation. It’s a warranty deed. The grantor, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, his wife, as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. Awesome. Property’s in state of Florida. Cool. Property was not a primary residence for them. Cool. For I’m unsure of the state that they lived in upon their death.
Steven Butala:
Oh, they’re dead.
Jill DeWit:
And the son Bradley, currently his residence in California.
Steven Butala:
It’s a puzzle.
Jill DeWit:
So both members have since passed and their son Brad Smith, who my mailer was addressed, has agreed to sell the property to me. Does the term joint tenants with rights of survivorship apply to the two individuals on the deed or to the next of kin as well? I plan to self close this property. As this property would be sold between the $5,000 to $6,000 with current mark conditions as of recent events. So sounds like it’s probably a buy for $1000.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Sell for $5,000 or 6,000. any help would be much appreciated in taking the correct steps to ensure that their son Brad has the authority to sell or transfer the deeded title of the property. Boy, I sure wish they put Brad on there years ago. It’s funny when I have this, whenever I’m talking to people and a sellers and they’re of a certain age, I actually tell them, I’m like, hey, I know you’re not selling to me but Mrs. Smith, please promise me you’ll update your deed. Because you’re are 98 and make sure that it’s easy for the kids to take ownership because it’s not always.
Steven Butala:
Here’s the deal. And some massive misconception.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
In our country because everybody thinks of this. My mom and dad died. I have a signed will in my hand and it says they’re giving me everything and I don’t have any brothers and sisters. So I get everything and I own the property, which is absolutely true with the VCR and-
Jill DeWit:
Mom’s ring, maybe.
Steven Butala:
All their furniture and even cars.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
There’s a real… Yeah, mom’s rings and cars and even with stocks and stuff. Stocks and bonds, there’s a process to go through. I personally unfortunately had to go through all this and undo it. So I’m a personal experience on the right and wrong way to do this. With real estate, it just doesn’t work that way. So you have to have the conveyance deed executed by the people who are actually on the deed. It can’t be an heir. Without going through a bunch of stuff.
Jill DeWit:
And an attorney, usually.
Steven Butala:
So if John and Judy Smith, which is actually their name here, own a property with joint tenants with rights of survivorship, and son Smith thinks he owns the property, Brad is his name, he can’t convey that property.
Jill DeWit:
Right, he can’t just sign away with the will.
Steven Butala:
That’s right.
Jill DeWit:
Unfortunately.
Steven Butala:
And so this is a huge deal. It’s a huge, again, it’s not a good thing, but it’s a huge sales opportunity. So Jill’s very well versed and so am I to some extent, in solving this problem with sellers. And it can be a huge opportunity to buy a property really inexpensive way, less than it’s worth because you’re just, you got to legally undo this. In California for instance, there’s an affidavit of heirship that you can file with property as long as it’s uncontested and there’s a bunch of rules and you can undo it pretty quickly if you know what you’re doing. In Arizona, you have to go back into probate. And so our database is packed full of literally thousands and thousands of transactions that are sitting there that are great deals.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And the person on the other end of the phone is ready to sell it and it’s exactly the situation, but they don’t own it. And the cost of us to undo it in Arizona specifically, if it was in California and be a done deal, we’d already done the deal.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
In Arizona, the cost of us to do it, it’s too expensive. So in Florida, I can honestly say, I have no idea how to undo this. It’s just not a state that I’m familiar with and hopefully you did the right thing by putting it in a land investors, because we have a lot of people buy and selling real estate in Florida.
Jill DeWit:
Bet by now, there’s six answers in there from people who have done it in Florida.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. But the takeaway from this. If you’re a land or property investor in general, is that property doesn’t convey just because you die. The deal with joint tenants with rights of survivorship, that was all set up if one of the people die.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
So if John dies, that second he dies, without doing anything, Judy owns property a hundred percent.
Jill DeWit:
Right. And Judy can sign and that’s it. Game over.
Steven Butala:
What they should’ve done and people make this mistake all the time, is that all three of them should have owned it as joints.
Jill DeWit:
That’s where they dropped the ball unfortunately. They should put their kid on there.
Steven Butala:
And he would have been able to sign it away.
Jill DeWit:
And that’s what I was going to say. That’s how I coach people. I’m like, just promise me that if you’re going to hang on to this property until you pass, please make it easy for the kids.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And I hope that I get that message through to people because they think, I’m sure they think that, Oh, I have a will. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Yeah, I kind of do, unfortunately. Because I’ve been there.
Steven Butala:
Even if you have a mortgage, this is now becoming an estate planning thing.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, sorry.
Steven Butala:
No, no, no, it’s not you at all. Even if you have a mortgage, did you know that you can convey property? So if I have a mortgage, house and a mortgage and my mortgage is $200,000, my house is worth 300,000, I’m the one who is on the deed. I can convey that deed to Jill. Jill and I aren’t married so I can convey that deed, now she owns the house, but I pay the mortgage. So I still, there’s a personal guarantee that’s a with all mortgage documents that I’ve ever seen. So now I’m responsible for paying the mortgage, but I don’t own the house at all.
Jill DeWit:
It’s a good deal.
Steven Butala:
It’s very possible. So my point of saying this is that if Jill, let’s say a more likely scenario is, Jill and I are married. We own a house together with joint rights of survivorship. We have a mortgage together. It’s all tied up into one big marital freaking mess, like most marriages, but-
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Butala:
Jill and I could say we have three kids, which we do, and we could convey the property with joint tenants to all three of our kids.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
And so if we pass away together, the kids own the house.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
And they’re going to have to deal with that. The mortgage isn’t actually going to be tied to that asset too, so they’re going to have to deal with that too. But they’d still, let’s say again, if it’s $200,000 mortgage, $300,000 house, they theoretically have $100,000 of equity in it. Jill just spaced out. Did you see that?
Jill DeWit:
I did.
Steven Butala:
She’s like, what is he talking about?
Jill DeWit:
Carry the two.
Steven Butala:
Made sense to me.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what happened.
Steven Butala:
Well, for the three of you who are listening and watching and who thought that was useful. You’re welcome.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. The rest of you. I got you. I feel your pain.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic. Separate yourself from the less motivated. This is the meat of the show. This is a nice title for me to say. And I don’t even know if you can say this, socially acceptable anymore, but times like these, separate the men from the boys or the women from the girls. I don’t know how you say it, but you know what I mean.
Jill DeWit:
I do.
Steven Butala:
You don’t want to be the person that breaks down in a ball of tears when this kind of stuff goes on. You want to be wonder woman in this scenario.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Just because right now there’s industries with huge layoffs like travel and all of that. Just because your place is closed and now you got all this, your home doesn’t mean to, I’m seeing people cleaning house and doing silly things. I’m like, no. Think about what you could be doing that’s positive. Even if it’s nothing more than helping your kids master fourth grade and start getting into fifth grade.
Steven Butala:
That’s great.
Jill DeWit:
You know what we’re doing personally, I ordered SAT books for our kid. So guess what? You’re not going to kill it with all your assignments you have. We’re going to get a headstart in your SATs and your ACTs and we’re going to be ready for them. The minute we can go take those tests.
Steven Butala:
If this is all it takes to crush your spirit and make you not see this as an opportunity.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Then real estate investing is not for you anyway.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
So I have a great friend who’s a lifelong friend, who’s the CEO of Kitchell. He’s either the CEO or the CFO.
Jill DeWit:
Big VP.
Steven Butala:
He’s one of the one or two in the slot.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I’ve known him through all these recessions and during the last one he said, every single commercial contractor, I mean we lost them all. He’s like, there are us and three other people were left at the end of the last recession because we actually know what we’re doing. So it just cleaned itself out.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
So am I being uncompassionate here? No. I’m just saying whatever it takes, be the guy that’s strong. Be the person that’s on top. Not the guy, the person. And forge through this. Stay the course. How many times, how many cliches can I use in one phrase?
Jill DeWit:
Wasn’t going to say anything? That’s good.
Steven Butala:
This is not-
Jill DeWit:
The glass is half full. Throw that in there.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. We have tons and tons of positive options. Now is the time to thrive. Now is the time to find investors or people that rarely see the value in cheap undervalued real estate like you do.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
And appreciate your talent for sending out mail and negotiating deals.
Jill DeWit:
I would align myself with those people too. There’s some people that are going to be. There’s always the Debbie downers, I would not hang out with those people.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I’d really get a good team together. And that’s one of the beautiful things about Land Academy in our community. We have a huge group of people right here that are not stopping doing deals. Now’s the time to partner up and take down more deals.
Steven Butala:
So how do you find them? The first way to find them is within our group. The second way to find them if you’re very geography based and most of us are, is that they already own a ton of real estate in the market that you’re in. You’re already downloading the data to do a mailer. You can see that if somebody’s LLC or their naming conventions for their LLC, all line up and they own 22 houses in that market or 200 pieces of property in the County where you’re mailing. You want to track that person down. You have the time now. You theoretically have more time, find it, develop it. And on yesterdays show, I gave you a perfect, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, gave you a perfect sales pitch about it.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
Hey John, I own a house. Just bought a house down the street. I paid less than you paid. I’m just checking it out. See if you want it.
Jill DeWit:
How about commercial brokers or something like that? Like I would be aligning myself with people that I’ve worked with in the past and said, all right, we’re going to kill it now. You doing business? Heck yeah. What do you got? Well, what do you need? That’s one of the things that we are doing too.
Steven Butala:
That’s another thing. If you’re a marginally talented real estate agent, you’re not going to be a real estate agent at the end of this.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
If you’re a great real estate agent.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Butala:
All the competition is going to be gone by the time this thing’s done.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true. I-
Steven Butala:
Is that a terrible thing to say? No.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Butala:
It’s not a terrible thing to say.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
You know what, Jill might phrase it a little bit more differently, but I don’t have a problem. It’s like sports. I mean, do you think Michael Jordan walks around saying, Oh, I kind of, I hope I didn’t hurt the defenseman’s feelings by scoring on him just then.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I don’t think that happens.
Jill DeWit:
Good point. Yeah, we’re all going to back off.
Steven Butala:
Maybe even a little too good at playing basketball. I’m going to light up a little bit. I’m going to have some compassion for these people who don’t play basketball as well as I do.
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny. That’s good. I think we got that.
Steven Butala:
So do I.
Jill DeWit:
All right. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. We’re right here on the Land Academy show. Tuesdays and Thursdays you can catch us on the House Academy show.
Steven Butala:
Next week. Join us on the Land Academy show for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven Butala:
I don’t get the hate for having an opinion on this show like I used to when we started.
Jill DeWit:
That’s because people can’t call in and give it to you right now.
Steven Butala:
Or maybe we lost all those people as listeners anyway, and the ones that are like, yeah, guys, probably right. Or just the ones that are left.
Jill DeWit:
You know what?
Steven Butala:
Honestly, when we started this show.
Jill DeWit:
I do sometimes.
Steven Butala:
I got so much hate.
Jill DeWit:
I do sometimes. Not that much really though, but you know what, I just see it as tough love. I’m open to people’s real and sincere comments and obviously we are happily sharing our real and sincere comments.
Steven Butala:
Why?
Jill DeWit:
And some stuff just needs to be said.
Steven Butala:
Because we let you win. Jill and I don’t do this. We don’t make any money doing this. I want you to win.
Jill DeWit:
It needs to be sad.
Steven Butala:
I want you to come out on top on this.
Jill DeWit:
You might be mad at me for kicking you and saying get off the couch. Knock it off. Do this, do that. Take a shower and whatever.
Steven Butala:
Wow, listen to Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Seriously.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, take a shower.
Jill DeWit:
But you know what, at the end you’re going to go. Thank you. Because it was right. Because we were right.
Steven Butala:
In the back of my head, I keep thinking, because Jill and I have been doing this now for five plus years. The Land Academy/ House Academy thing. Well, every week, be it one or two emails that say something like this, I just want to thank you guys, you have no idea. I’ve been a member for whatever. Sometimes even non-members. I want to let you know, we’re killing it now. We make X, Y, Z. My wife just quit her job a year after I did some great success story.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
Under the guise of you don’t know who we are and you never will. It’s just thank you.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
So I think this thing that we’re going through, this virus thing, is going to produce some amazing success stories.
Jill DeWit:
I agree.
Jill DeWit:
The Land Academy show remains commercial free for you, our loyal listeners. So wherever you’re watching, wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there.
Jill DeWit:
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 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:
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