Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.

Jill DeWit:   Happy day.

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 seeing something in a property that’s not really there. Yesterday, we ended the show on talking about Jill’s friend seeing something on a first date in a guy that’s not really there.

Jill DeWit: Oh, my God. Whether it’s a property or a man, it’s kind of the same thing. Seriously. It’s really kind of the same thing. Oh, my gosh. I had this job a couple of years ago, right when I met you, and I don’t know how it happened, but I became the love counselor. You know why I think why? Because I was having a very good beginning of a solid relationship with you, Steven. So, it started with two girls and then it was four girls, and then it was like every Monday morning these girls would be gathered around my desk, sitting on my desk, gathered around in my office with their coffee, pouring over the details of what went on with you and I over the weekend.

Jill DeWit:  And I’m like, these poor women were starving for a good, solid relationship. So I would try to coach and talk to them about this. And all the things they were doing wrong was staggering. I mean, girls that would let guys move in after a month and then they wonder and then there’s money missing. I’m like, are you flipping kidding me? And they’re still trying to make it work. How does that make sense? And what happened… Well, usually how it was is that they would have one good date and they would say, this is it. I met the man of my dreams. I know it, I can feel it. I sense it. This is it, it’s the guy. And so then date two, things that would normally should set up a little bit of a red flag, didn’t even see it. And the date three, date four, they started ignoring all the red flags.

Steven Butala:  This is a show about real estate by the way. And we will get… Because that’s what happens with these deals.

Jill DeWit:   It’s true. That’s what I’m saying. It’s the same thing. It’s all tied together. And then they’re in too deep, and this happens in real estate too.

Steven Butala:  It’s too late.

Jill DeWit:   Then it’s too late. You made all the mistakes.

Steven Butala: It’s real easy to get them to move in.

Jill DeWit: Yeah.

Steven Butala:  It’s real hard to get them to move out.

Jill DeWit:   That’s right.

Steven Butala:  I don’t know that from experience. I read it in a book one time.

Jill DeWit: Yeah. Oh my goodness. That’s funny.

Steven Butala:  Before we get into it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.

Jill DeWit:    That’s good, it’s like call it.

Steven Butala:   No, I do want to… We’ll get into it.

Jill DeWit: Okay.

Steven Butala:    We’ll just make it a real estate thing too.

Jill DeWit:   Okay, good.

Steven Butala:  Everybody can identify with what you’re talking about on both sides.

Jill DeWit:    Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yep. Do men do that? Men don’t… You don’t go into it going-

Steven Butala:    It’s funny listening to you say this stuff because what men, it cracks me up to hear women talk about men, because men walk around this planet constantly getting rejected by women.

Jill DeWit:  Interesting.

Steven Butala: Whether you’re in a 22 years in a marriage, or whether you’re two weeks into it, there’s this constant sense of… And it’s generally… It’s never happened with you actually, but this is the real world out there. They’re just like, “Well, she’s upset again today. I didn’t do that right. A restaurant I chose was not… Even though she told me to choose the restaurant.

Jill DeWit:   How am I going to let her down tomorrow?

Steven Butala:  Even though she told me to choose the restaurant, it’s clear that this isn’t working for her, this restaurant, and just a myriad of details like that, that cause… And then, it’s funny to hear you talk about women sit around and say, “Oh, the guy’s great. He did this. He did this.” Even though he’s a total loser because that’s not how men walk around.

Jill DeWit: Oh, no. It really maybe… I don’t know.

Steven Butala: Men walk around like, “This one’s unpleasable too.” Seriously.

Jill DeWit:  Well, you know what? I got to say sometimes not to pick on, this is not a counseling show.

Steven Butala: It is now.

Jill DeWit:  I know. I think you manifest it. If you walk around like that, it’s like walking around saying the sky is falling. Well, then it is going to fall.

Steven Butala:  See, it’s my fault. See what she said? I’m doing it.

Jill DeWit:     Well, if you’re trying, it’s going to happen. Okay. That’s not fair. If you walk around poking somebody and you expect, if you poke a lion, and you don’t think that lion’s going to bite you, that’s not fair.

Steven Butala:  Every single commercial that you see during Christmas and stuff for engagement rings, because that’s the season.

Jill DeWit:   Yeah.

Steven Butala: It’s all, a guy has a woman a ring or does whatever. And there’s this look of excitement and glee and just total encompassed happiness-

Jill DeWit:     And tears.

Steven Butala:  … and reaction from the female. And that’s why I’m convinced half the guys that are like, “She’s so unhappy that the only way I’m going to make her happy is to give her this diamond ring.” Not that I know this from experience. I’ve only read about it in a book. A lot of decisions I think on the part of men are like, “She’s so unhappy. I got to get her cheered up somehow. Let’s give her a wedding ring.”

Jill DeWit: Well, now let’s back up. Jewelry is great. That does cheer everybody up, slash however. You shouldn’t be doing it for that reason. You should be doing because you want to.

Steven Butala:   If you’re in those marriage years, whatever it ends up being for your world. In your 20s or 30s, like early 30s, have you ever received a piece of jewelry in your late 20s, Jill, from a guy that you’re not married to that you kind of want to get married to or you’re thinking about it anyway and it’s just a massive disappointment?

Jill DeWit:  Wait, say this again.

Steven Butala:   Yeah. Let’s say I give you, I’m 32 years old. You’re 30.

Jill DeWit: Okay.

Steven Butala: I give you a necklace. The box comes out, the whole thing, and it’s like, “Oh.”

Jill DeWit:  Oh. Because I was hoping for an engagement ring. Oh, this ties into the girl seeing something that’s not there. Yeah, he’s not that into you. He’s necklace into you and bracelet into you, not engagement ring into you.

Steven Butala: You know, one of the reasons that he’s might not be that into you is because you’re crazy.

Jill DeWit: Then he shouldn’t be there. Okay. Men, don’t buy jewelry for a woman that you want to break up with, by the way, that’s not going to change them. That’s not fair. That’s a man trying to change a woman. You can’t do that.

Steven Butala:Okay. Maybe he’s just waiting.

Jill DeWit: Waiting for her to what?

Steven Butala:  This can’t get any worse.

Jill DeWit:  Self-destruct?

Steven Butala: This can’t get any worse. So maybe this piece of jewelry will just make it better for like 20 minutes. I’m just asking for like 20 minutes.

Jill DeWit:  You want more than 20 minutes. Hopefully you want 20 years. Or two years.

Steven Butala: Men and women are so different on this topic that, I mean, this is clearly the best relationship I’ve ever had-

Jill DeWit:  Me too.

Steven Butala: … and ever could hope for, and I’m still confused most of the time.

Jill DeWit:  Me too. It’s okay. It keeps us on our toes. All right. Back to the question. Jay says… I think you did the intro already, right? Yeah.

Steven Butala:  Yeah.

Jill DeWit: Okay, so Jay wrote, this is on our land investor online community. “Hello. I’ve been listening to Steven and Jill’s podcasts nonstop since discovering Land Academy.”

Steven Butala: My condolences.

Jill DeWit: “I noticed that in the past couple of weeks, Steven and Jill have been talking about acquiring as much land as possible in the current economic downturn. I haven’t heard much comment on how well sales are going. I assume that they know their purchase will eventually sell, so they’re not concerned with how fast. However, being new to this and being concerned with cashflow issues, I’m wondering how long I should expect to sit on a properly priced new land acquisition, like one to 10 acres. I know this varies by location and a huge host of other factors, but in general, for those who have favorite counties in which they have been buying and selling prior to the downturn, how much of an increase or decrease in buying are you doing? And how much of an increase or decrease in sales frequency are you seeing in your counties compared to pre-downturn? Thank you.”

Jill DeWit:  And then Steven, very sweetly put in one of the answers, one of the responses from one of the people in the community, Laurie wrote… Or there’s probably several in there by now.

Steven Butala:   There’s 20.

Jill DeWit:  That what I thought.

Steven Butala: A lot of people have a lot to say about this topic, including Jill.

Jill DeWit: Yes. Laurie wrote, “Hi. I’ve been seeing huge increase in willing sellers in property and in so-so places has sold in hours rather than weeks. But you’re right, it depends on many factors including location, land size, characteristics, marketing, et cetera. Because of this, there’s no way to answer your question about how long you should expect to hold a property, but use the local experts to get some intel. A realtor in your target area can tell you if your sales are slow, and whether they’re being swamped by new listings. Both bad signs. Make a few calls to the places you’re thinking of mailing, it’d be well worth the time. Best, Laurie.” That’s a great little tip.

Steven Butala: May I?

Jill DeWit:  Yes.

Steven Butala:  Jill and I just bought a 12 acre property on a state road, a paved state road with houses all around it, for 5,000 bucks. The retail value before the virus was 120-ish, $120,000. We’re going to sell it for probably 60 maybe 70. Now you tell me listener, if that was a good deal, and how long it might sell. It’s just common sense. All this is common sense. If you’re going to buy property that’s way out in a rural area and for a very small amount of money, and it’s also surrounded by other for sale properties, it’s going to take you pretty long to sell it. All this is common sense, common entrepreneurial sense. What the show is about, is that second property I just mentioned. You start to see something in that deal that’s not there because you want to get into the business so bad.

Jill DeWit: Let’s jump into the show.

Steven Butala:   They stop exuding something that’s not there in a real estate deal or a husband. This is the meat of the show.

Jill DeWit:  I can help you undo the real estate deal. I cannot help you undo the marriage.

Steven Butala:  Hopefully it doesn’t… Hopefully neither one of those things get to the point where you have to undo them.

Jill DeWit: Okay. Slash however. We’ve been around long enough, it’s kind of a cute story, and this person knows who they are and I’m sure they’re listening now. It’s so sweet. There’s a member in particular that was very good vocal and got involved and things are great. He’s with us and he’s unmarried. Now he’s remarried.

Steven Butala: Oh really?

Jill DeWit: All through the whole time he’s been with us. It’s the sweetest thing.

Steven Butala: That’s hilarious. I didn’t know that.

Jill DeWit: Yeah, it’s really good. Yeah. So anyway, it’s funny. So seeing something, a deal that’s not there, that’s one reason that it happens. I want to get into this business so bad. Hey, I found a piece of property I could afford. I bought it. There’s a lot of things you need to do to assess the property, to make sure that it’s a good deal going into it.

Steven Butala: The underlying psychology to this problem where you’re seeing something that’s not there, both with real estate or with men, is because you want the outcome so bad that it’s blinding you at what’s right in front of you.

Jill DeWit:  Right.

Steven Butala: And so, I’m going to tell this anecdotal story very quickly. A lot of years ago, many, many years ago, way before Jill; real early in my career, I was at a dinner party. Well, it was more of a kegger, but we’ll call it a dinner party.

Jill DeWit: How’s that the same?

Steven Butala:  And all of us were friends there. We all knew each other and we were just having a lot of fun. It was a backyard bonfire-

Jill DeWit:  Kegger.

Steven Butala: … Arizona thing.

Jill DeWit:  Dinner party. Were there red cups involved?

Steven Butala: Yes.

Jill DeWit:  All right. This is not a dinner party.

Steven Butala:  In fact, there’s no food there at all.

Jill DeWit:  Thank you. A bag of chips and red cups is not a dinner party. That’s what you think, it’s a dinner party.

Steven Butala:  So we’re all sitting around. I just bought this house, really nice house in North Scottsdale, backs right up to the mountains, and so it’s just one of those Arizona nights. Everybody’s asking, there’s expensive cars in the garage. And as people are asking me these questions, like, “What the heck?” And I said, “Well, this is what happens. You buy by sending some letters out,” put out the whole business model. And there’s this one person there, she’s a nurse, and she kept saying the sentence over and over again, which is how this topic and this problem happens. That’s the problem with real estate and man. “How do you know that you’re buying the right, that it’s going to be okay? How do you know that in this acquisition,” what she was asking me over and there’s… I learned after the 40th time, there is no answer for her.

Steven Butala:  She will never ever, she’ll never understand it about men, and she’ll never understand it about real estate. “Yeah, but how do you know?” Well, there’s this, this, this, this and this. You look at the data, you look at this, their property sold two weeks ago for that next door. I’ve got utilities. It didn’t matter that my answer, “Yeah, but how do you know what’s going to happen? Is it going to be okay?” Yeah, well, it should be okay. This, this, this, this and this, and just blinded. So, what ends up happening is in their… I’m sorry, love. In their soul, they don’t have the confidence or the interest in making a good decision and making an unemotional, intelligent decision about property acquisition or man acquisition. However it does, it’s the same thing.

Jill DeWit:  Well, that was going to be my question. What do you think she’s looking for?

Steven Butala: Another business.

Jill DeWit: Oh. Oh, you don’t think she’s looking for a validation like, “If you drive on it and you find a four leaf clover, then you know.”

Steven Butala: No, I grew up with a lot of people just like this in my immediate family, who are very, lacked confidence when it came to making business decisions and big decisions and moving forward. Between Jill and I, we can mop up anything. I don’t care how bad the mistake is or whatever, and she’s not judging me. I’m not judging her. I’m not afraid of making a bad acquisition decision. Happens every year. We still have property later on from a while ago that maybe we should, in hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have bought it, but I don’t like look at her and say, “Wow, we should have never done that deal.”

Steven Butala:  We just reduce the price and we’ll resell it or whatever. There’s all kinds of stuff, I have a lot of confidence in myself. So that is the answer that I should have given that nurse. That was the correct answer. I have a tremendous amount of confidence in my ability to assess a piece of real estate and look at the chances of it being, let’s say there’s a 98% chance that we’re going to come out of this thing okay, like that deal I just described for five grand on the state road. That’s the answer. That’s the answer to this whole thing. So these girls sitting on Jill’s desk, earlier, they don’t have any confidence.

Jill DeWit:   No.

Steven Butala: They don’t have any confidence in their ability to A, independently assess the situation for the fact that this guy’s-

Jill DeWit:A loser.

Steven Butala: … stealing money, and B, if it all does go wrong, they don’t have the confidence and the experience to say-

Jill DeWit: This isn’t right.

Steven Butala:  “Ah, I’m going to terminate this whole deal.”

Jill DeWit: It’s funny. It’s like they think they’re the picker, but they’re the picky because they’re just letting it happen. This guy picked them. They think they picked him. No, they didn’t. And you know what he’s doing? He’s pushing. He’s like going, “Let’s see what I can do here and get away with.” And they’re just taking it. He’s like, “This is great.” I’m sure of it.

Steven Butala:  So am I.

Jill DeWit:  It’s really sad. But I like what you said. I’m going back to the property thing because this is the Land Show. You touched on the… Oh, the confidence, and I’m not afraid. You’re right. We both go into it knowing that sure there’s a 10% chance I missed something. But I know based on experience, if I’ve got this kind of access, I’ve got this kind of attribute, I’ve got, this is the price I’m buying it for, and this, and I can look around. There’s not enough… And this is what we teach, it’s called due diligence. Doing your due diligence and knowing this is a good acquisition.

Jill DeWit:   I know to go and look real quick and eyeball the area just to make sure there’s not a thousand properties for sale, because then I don’t want this one. There’s little things like that.

Steven Butala: Just data.

Jill DeWit: And checking title. I know all those little things and it’s not hard. So, maybe sure, you have a checklist. It’s easy to say if you do these 10 things, but there’s still something in your gut that has to still come from you to say, “I’m buying it. Done. I’m going to buy it. And if I do it wrong, I’ll fix it, and thank you.” I need to knock on something. I haven’t had anything… If I didn’t, maybe I didn’t double my money. Oh, well, I still made money. That’s what, we jokingly call it a screwed up thing, but it’s not. Come on, you still made money. You’re fine.

Steven Butala: At the very end, right before you say yes to an acquisition. The sentence that runs through my head, and it’s probably subconscious, it’s not even conscious is, how can I lose in this thing? You tell me on that deal that I just described on the state road for five grand, how can I lose on it?

Jill DeWit:  Right.

Steven Butala:   I mean, barring the fact that there’s some kind of native American burial ground under there or there used to be a gas station there, but you know what? I checked both of those things. That isn’t the situation.

Jill DeWit:  Right.

Steven Butala:  And so what? Let’s say it all explodes. I lost five grand. So what?

Jill DeWit: Right. Exactly.

Steven Butala: That’s why we do a million deals and not one.

Jill DeWit:  This is true. Those other 20 that I just did this month, they make up for it. Move on.

Steven Butala: And here’s my final point. The reason that we’re in relationships, to tie this all together, in a good relationship, not a bad one, is if I do make a mistake like that, or Jill makes a mistake like that, we at least we did it together, and we’re going to laugh about it. She’s not going to yell at me. I’m not going to yell at her. I’m not going to say you suck at this, and vice versa. We’ve all been in relationships like that. That’s the problem. And you know why that happens? Because it was one of those girls sitting on Jill’s desk, because they didn’t see what was right in front of them for some reason.

Steven Butala: And it’s the same thing with real estate deals, and we do it every Thursday. Jill and I do the Land Webinar where people ask us, “Would you do this deal?” And half the properties that we review, I’m sitting there saying, “There’s just no way I would do this deal.” A lot of them for just no price at all. And why? Because there’s so much property for sale. If that property I described, that acreage on state road, there’s 42 properties, right there all for sale, and we’re all competing with each other, I wouldn’t have purchased it. Not even for five grand.

Jill DeWit:  Exactly. 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 Pricing 101: Take no prisoners. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.

Jill DeWit: Give me a little insight to tomorrow’s show, please.

Steven Butala: Yeah, so Pricing 101, especially now, this is very viral specific. There’s a couple of people that have surfaced recently who I’ve helped on pricing. Let me summarize it like this. When you go to price a mailer and you’re in the real estate acquisition business like we are, it’s not a public service. I don’t do the mailer and then look at the data and then price the mailer, and say a sentence like this to myself. “Well, God, I hope this doesn’t offend anybody. I’m a real estate owner too, and I want to make sure that they can maximize the value that they get out of this. I want to be a good Samaritan about this.” No, that’s the end of your career right there.

Jill DeWit: Okay, let’s leave it on that because that’s funny. That’s really, really good. Okay. The Land Academy Show remains commercial free for you our loyal listener. So wherever you’re watching or wherever you are 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.