Buying an Island with Boat Access Only (LA 1254)
Buying an Island with Boat Access Only (LA 1254)
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 are buying an …, Wow, how’s that for subconscious? Today, Jill and I talk about buying an island with boat access only.
Jill DeWit:
What were you going to say we are buying?
Steven Butala:
Today Jill and I are buying an island with boat access only. How great would that be?
Jill DeWit:
Wouldn’t that be great? Awesome. See you. Good luck finding us. That would be good.
Steven Butala:
I was talking about satellite. I was talking about somebody who really knows about this recently about the future of cell towers. This guy, his family own a ton of cell towers.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
You know who I’m talking about?
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
I’ll tell you later. It’s somebody that we know very well that … Because we haven’t ever talked about business socially. It’s a good thing.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Anyway, that this-
Jill DeWit:
What does he drink, then I’ll know who he is. Right?
Steven Butala:
His wife doesn’t drink at all, because usually she’s the designated driver, which I really respect. And he drinks, I’m not sure. No, he drinks red wine and they live [crosstalk 00:01:08].
Jill DeWit:
They live North of us?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, that guy?
Steven Butala:
So …
Jill DeWit:
Cool. I never knew what he did.
Steven Butala:
The satellite technology is, from a satellite perspective, that the mobile technology, I say this because we’re talking about living on an island, satellite technology is there, from what I understand, in the sky. It’s the devices that we have, can’t be this small. They have to be pretty intensely large to make it effective.
Jill DeWit:
Like the old brick?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Here it is. You heard it here first, we’re going back to the old bricks.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine?
Steven Butala:
So, apparently we’re a long way away from having a satellite receptor in our pocket.
Jill DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Butala:
But that’s not what the show’s about.
Jill DeWit:
Why does that work with my watch? Because I can do a satellite subscription, but I think maybe it ties into something else. I don’t know.
Steven Butala:
So, it’s satellite … So I wonder if you can truly get the data package-
Jill DeWit:
Because I got the Garmin watch because I’m a geek.
Steven Butala:
I wonder if you can get the real large size, high speed data pack. It’s like 5G style in a device that’s that small? It’s one thing to send GPS coordinates.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
Which is what I think you’re talking about, right?
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
It’s not data packets. You can’t watch YouTube on your watch from a satellite.
Jill DeWit:
No, but I can monitor my elevation, my speed, I can … It’s pretty good now without the satellite subscription, but it would be awesome with the satellite subscription, it would be that much more accurate.
Steven Butala:
Garmin makes a watch that’s four digits, it’s not cheap, and we’re talking about it. Jill’s a perfect customer for that.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Butala:
She’s a pilot, she’s got … Because we’re all about customer data here [crosstalk 00:02:43].
Jill DeWit:
I like all techy stuff.
Steven Butala:
Because we buy and sell real estate. So, we need to … If you can hone in on your customer, whoever they are, I don’t care if you sell water heaters or real estate, you’re going to do well. And so, they have this figured out.
Jill DeWit:
I knew the Apple watch wasn’t singing to me. And then when this came out, I’m like, “That’s the one.”
Steven Butala:
The features on that are amazing. And she will endlessly … Here’s my point. Jill will endlessly, with a tremendous amount of patience and enthusiasm, go through a book that’s about an inch thick-
Jill DeWit:
It’s a lot to figure it out.
Steven Butala:
And set settings and do all … I lose interest in that in about a minute and a half.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Actually probably 30 seconds.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
There’s a big, huge compliment in that Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
All of that wrapped up in a pretty package.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, thank you.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it today, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
Melanie asks, “Help. My name is Melanie. The best way to describe me is to say I’m a California girl lost in the mountains of Colorado. I moved to Colorado 11 years ago and I love it. Somehow I’ve ended up in the city, but my heart belongs in the vast land of the Rockies. That’s how I got into this. I have always wanted land. The more I looked, the more ideas were popping into my head. There’s so much undeveloped land here and I feel like it should be shared with those who love land. So, here I am. I’m looking forward to a successful adventure in the land business.”
Jill DeWit:
Okay, so no question. That was cute.
Steven Butala:
Melanie, you just described to me the real reason I got into land in the early ’90s is because I was tired looking around at all this beautiful land. I grew up as a little kid going to Northern Michigan in a hand-built log cabin. Every summer, every vacation, and it’s in my soul. And so the more you look around and you see all this vacant land, it’s like, there’s got to be some type of real estate play here because I love it anyway. I don’t want to be a cattle farmer for a lot of reasons. And I love computers. So, here we are. Here we are in our 1300 show.
Jill DeWit:
Right?
Steven Butala:
With, I don’t know how many thousands of members and hundreds of thousands of listeners on the show, talking about land. So, I put this in there, because my hats up. I chose this question today because that’s why I’m here too. And I think the more passion you can have about anything, the better you’re going to do at it.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
She’s looking at her watch. I don’t know if you’re looking at your watch in admiration or like, “What the hell time is it? Because he’s really taken a long time to talk [crosstalk 00:05:10].”
Jill DeWit:
I’m not. I’m just distracted because it’s like … I’m letting you go with this.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic, buying an island with boat access only. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
This is why this came up. So, I was reading a thread somewhere in our online community about someone saying, “Is this a good idea, buying an island? Hey, buying an island.” And I just remembered back when I was thrown into this situation. One of the wonderful things about Steven is the way he expects, especially in the past, would just recklessly … And I’m using the term correctly. Recklessly buy properties and throw them to me to sell. And one of the ones was [crosstalk 00:05:59]
Steven Butala:
I remember those days fondly.
Jill DeWit:
… On an island, boat only access. And I’m like, “What the heck do I do with this?” And I was trying … It was the funniest thing, because I’m looking at it going, “How is this going to work?” And we didn’t even have the products that we have now. I didn’t have neighbor scoop where I could just put in state county APN and find it.
Jill DeWit:
I mean, I had to dig to get coordinates and then I got it. And even Google Earth wasn’t as good back then. And I’m looking at this and looking at this, I’m going, “There’s no bridge. How the heck do people get over there?” I was trying to figure this out. And then it becomes … I was new in my career. Then I learned about the whole thing about, … And it was … I think it was Oregon. It was either Oregon or Washington. I want to say … I can’t remember what it is. And then I found out about how the water level on this island would change. So, during the summer months, when it wasn’t as rainy, you had more property basically. But then the rainy months, the water level would rise. So you had to account for that.
Jill DeWit:
So whoever I sold it to, I wanted to make sure I properly conveyed this. It was the funniest thing. So what I devised, I figured out all I could. I started calling everybody I could. I got through the County thing. And then I looked on the map and I found … You know where I’m going with this.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
There was a log business across the river. So, I start calling the neighbors to find out what’s going on and how does this work? And what does it look like from where you’re standing kind of thing. They were so cool and so nice and helped me out so much. And then I eventually, not eventually, we sold it not too long. I just had to figure out what this was and how to properly … This is my whole point, for me, of this topic is this is one of the times that it was appropriate to dig.
Jill DeWit:
Sometimes we say you don’t need to get to know it that much. You don’t need to get that deep into it. It’s about volume. But this one was kind of unique. And I wanted to learn what I was getting into here. So I dug. I spent an extra day figuring out what’s possible. We made a great posting and sold it to the right guy really quickly.
Steven Butala:
For a lot more than we paid.
Jill DeWit:
Right. And the right guy was, of course, a fisherman. He loved the fact that it was only boat only. He would row over with a tent, I’m sure, and hide from his wife. That’s what I think was going on. Who knows? But anyway, it was so funny.
Steven Butala:
No, I think the real big issue to reiterate Jill’s point in, because I think it’s so important, Jill and I have done a lot of consulting calls recently with people that are saying … They start the call off with, “Well, I sent some mail out and it didn’t work.” And I said, “Well, what do you mean it didn’t work?” “Well, 19 people called back. We got four purchase agreements back and …”
Jill DeWit:
I didn’t buy anything.
Steven Butala:
I didn’t buy property. And I say, “Why?” And they say, “I don’t know.” So how did it fail? Here’s why. Because they didn’t Jillify it. They didn’t call the person, get the deal to happen, make the property go through. They didn’t follow through. I’ve never, ever heard of a full blown mailer that just failed. Never. There’s always something that could have been. There’s some deal that can be resurrected out of what happens with these deals.
Steven Butala:
So, that was my big picture point on this. You can buy anything. You can buy an island in Oregon with boat access only that has pretty dramatic seasonal rainfall changes and elevation change, not elevation, but usability. The land usability changes. So, that’s point one.
Steven Butala:
Number two, who the hell would buy an island with boat access only? Well, Jill found the guy. How did she do that? By reaching a million people. Or not a million people. Reaching the people that it makes sense to buy an island through the internet, through Facebook marketplace, through Facebook groups. And that’s just to mention a few. That’s a very specific person. They probably like fishing, they probably like camping.
Jill DeWit:
They own a boat.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Perfect. They’re off the grid. That doesn’t bother them at all. He’s never asked any questions about utilities. He doesn’t want utilities.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? The guy … You think that, “Uh oh, there’s a refund coming.” Uh-uh (negative). That guy is long gone and so happy. Who knows? You know, it’s great.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
So there’s … And then my third and final point is this. When you can make your land unique, I probably said this a million times on this show and elsewhere, if you go onto LandWatch or anywhere else, or the MLS, and you look at 20 properties in, let’s say, I don’t know, on the West side of Phoenix, the pictures all look the same, you can’t tell any difference. The maps hopefully are a little bit different, but that’s about it. But if you drop a mobile home on one and say, “Hey, I don’t know. Someone left this mobile home there.” You’re going to completely separate yourself. Well, if you have an island …
Jill DeWit:
that’s unique.
Steven Butala:
In the, no pun intended, in the sea of listings out there, you’re going to really separate yourself.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
So, make your posting separate.
Jill DeWit:
Speaking of which, how about with this whole virus thing, by the way? Talk about nobody bothering you.
Steven Butala:
Exactly.
Jill DeWit:
How great is that?
Steven Butala:
Exactly. I would just guess here to say that if we had this property now, we’d probably sell it for triple what we sold it for back then.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
Because of this local situation. So, rural market, rural marketing, rural click-throughs on all the websites like Zillow and Trulia and the sites that track them, realtor.com and Redfin are up 50%. Some of them are up 80% because people want to get out of the cities. And I think that’s going to be a longterm effect in this [inaudible 00:11:39] for sure.
Steven Butala:
So we talk about when’s the right time to buy houses? When’s the right time to buy land during an economic downturn or during these virus times? Now’s the time to buy land.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
It was almost an immediate effect. There was almost a seller, slight panic about money when this announcement happened, and our acquisitions tripled that first week. Houses, not so much, because there’s a bunch of stuff at play there, but-
Jill DeWit:
It’s coming.
Steven Butala:
It’s coming.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I know it. Everybody, if you turn on any … If you watch anybody talking about houses, they all agree. It’s coming. Everybody says, “Sit tight.”
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
We have a little bit … There’s a little bit variances as to the exact … When the bottom will be, but everybody’s got to … We’re all pretty much on the same page.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, except real estate agents.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And they’re the loudest. So they have a lot of … The National Association of Realtors is excellent at that organically and paid for placing ads at the top of Google or just postings at the top of Google that say sentence … Here’s a few example titles. Well, we’ve hit the bottom of the real estate market. Now’s the time to buy.”
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:12:50] they run it again next week.
Steven Butala:
Here’s all the economic data to support that. Everything’s fine.
Jill DeWit:
And now it’s … And then next week it’s, “Now it’s the real bottom.” And then in 90 days it’s, “This is the real, real bottom.” Seriously.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There’s 15% unemployment. And the forbearance statistics, which is something that’s brand new this time, have never been higher. And we’ve got … The whole economy is showing signs of the Great Depression, 1929 statistics. But we’ve hit the real estate bottom and you should buy a house this week.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Or better yet, you should list your house.
Jill DeWit:
That’s it. Exactly.
Steven Butala:
And then there’s a picture of the person who wrote the article and they’re about 13 years old. It just cracks me up.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Happy you could join us today. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We’re right here on the Land Academy show. Tuesdays and Thursdays, we are on the House Academy show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the House Academy show is called, “What acquisition financing options do you have during this virus time?” You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve got to say, now that I’m sitting here, I’m watching the people walk behind me. It’s already weird again. It’s like we had a good 60 days where they closed the beach and the strand behind us, imagine that. It was the weirdest thing. Then I got used to it. It was so quiet. So now I’m distracted every time a bike goes by or something, but it’s such a good feeling to see everybody out.
Steven Butala:
If you’re watching this, it would be great if you could email us when it’s over. The number of people that are wearing masks versus the number of people who are not.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I see no mask. None. I have yet to see one since [crosstalk 00:14:33]
Steven Butala:
There’s only very few in the morning.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Real early in the morning. I was down here putting all this together early in the morning today, and the vast majority of people don’t have masks on.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
Which I think is great.
Jill DeWit:
It’s funny.
Jill DeWit:
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Jill DeWit:
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Steven Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit:
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Steven Butala:
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