Success Lies within Your Natural State (LA 1296)
Success Lies within Your Natural State (LA 1296)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the land Academy show entertaining land, investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting still from the road, still sitting in Northern California, kind of northern, in the middle.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I today talk about how your success lies within your natural state to which-
Jill DeWit:
Not Wisconsin.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill is constantly confused by my titles.
Jill DeWit:
I am. Aren’t you.
Steven Jack Butala:
And if she’s confused… This is what I think. If she’s confused, the whole listening audience must be like, “What?”
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because she gets me.
Jill DeWit:
Normally.
Steven Jack Butala:
She’s a headstart, anyway.
Jill DeWit:
I have a headstart.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the whole premise of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I get you and I like to think I complete you.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my God.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just kidding because you complete me.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s going to be one of those spiritual shows.
Jill DeWit:
You’re the one that wrote it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s the deal. Again, I am going to sound like your father. You don’t want to fight yourself your whole life. If you hate data and the thought of just sitting in a dark room just nauseates you, which is fine, this business model might not be for you. Or if you’re bent on it, find somebody like me to be your business partner. So that’s the premise of this. The motivation or inspiration behind me writing this title was Jill. We were forced to do a bunch of stuff. Jill was forced to deal with a bunch of insurance company crap earlier this week, which turned out… Actually, it turned out fine and Jill was in her natural state. She was on the phone for probably three hours talking to insurance companies and car rental companies. And man, we came out way ahead, actually. And so if it were just me dealing with that, I would’ve gotten through it, but I would have been a pretty angry person.
Jill DeWit:
Oh gosh. [crosstalk 00:01:57].
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not my natural state, so this really translates into being successful at whatever you’re doing.
Jill DeWit:
You just touched on something I was going to say real quick. Some people do this. Some people get into a business and a life. It’s not their natural state and they suffer through it their whole lives and it makes me sad.
Steven Jack Butala:
It makes me sad too. The profession of a medical doctor comes to mind because the vast majority of medical doctors I’ve ever seen in a professional setting, not in a social setting, are just so unhappy. I think the academic… That profession, for some reason, the academic part of it and the research part of it is so intriguing, or just for me anyway. And then you got to deal with patients and it’s just like…
Jill DeWit:
I know that would be hard for you. Patients and patience, both.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit:
But you have many, many, many, many great qualities, sweetie. I’m not picking on you.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know I don’t take it that way.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. All right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have thick skin, that’s one of them. I’m with you.
Jill DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
I just got to zing stuff in there once in a while.
Jill DeWit:
What? Okay. Actually we’re getting along. It sounds like we’re [inaudible 00:03:18]. No, we’re good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny, because we’re not at home. This is great. We’re on the road having fun and we’re not sick of each other yet.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not yet.
Jill DeWit:
Next week it could change, or tomorrow. Tiffany wrote, “Hello, all. I’ve got maybe an interesting question. Not sure if anyone’s ever dealt with this or not, but here it goes. I got a call from a seller today who wants to sell her over four acre property. It does have some back taxes on it, but the property actually has two mobile home properties still on it with a well, septic and power to each. One used to belong to her mom, and one that belonged to her aunt. They have both since passed on, but the property’s in her name. However, she did disclose to me that unfortunately her aunt was actually killed in a very back part of the property in the woods.” What?
Steven Jack Butala:
How’s this for your spiritual show, Jill?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, what? “So my questions are, would that stop you from doing the deal? If not, would you disclose this information to potential buyers?”
Steven Jack Butala:
No, it would not stop me from doing the deal at all.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And no, you don’t have to disclose it.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
And the vast majority of the… Real estate laws are governed by the states for the most part, so it’s a state specific thing. I don’t know what state this is in. I know in Arizona and California, for whatever reason, that’s just not a requirement to disclose. If there’s lead-based paint, one square inch of lead-based paint on a house in California, you have to… There’s a book you have to fill out.
Jill DeWit:
But this-
Steven Jack Butala:
But very specifically this murder thing or death thing, because I really think that a lot of people die in their homes, you just don’t have to disclose it.
Jill DeWit:
It could have been a snake bite.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s been very positive of you, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
It could have been a bear.
Steven Jack Butala:
It could have been death by chocolate covered kittens and puppies.
Jill DeWit:
It could. It could have been those cute raccoons jumped her like we saw last night. Okay. Anyway, well let me go back. Well also too, not that I’m trying to bend the rules because I’m really good at bending the rules too, by the way. But I’m not an agent. I’m an investor. I buy a property. I sell a property. So one of the beautiful things about not being an agent, I don’t have to do 80 million forms. I don’t have to do this. I don’t have to do that. Am I digging a hole? You’re looking at me like…
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll wait.
Jill DeWit:
I’m just sharing that. Even if I knew that, I don’t have to share that.
Steven Jack Butala:
I have to disagree.
Jill DeWit:
Really?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Disclosure is a big deal in real estate. If you know some stuff-
Jill DeWit:
How would I know that? I buy a piece of property… Let me go back up. I buy a piece of dirt because I want to do something with it. I don’t know… No one told me what was going on.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, then you don’t know about it, then you don’t have to disclose it. Here’s my point-
Jill DeWit:
But I read an article and I found out what happened in the back 40.
Steven Jack Butala:
You shouldn’t be reading articles. Stop reading articles and stop… For some reason, Tiffany knows that somebody died in the back of this property.
Jill DeWit:
Because the seller disclosed it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what happened.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And how many times have you said this? “Oh, stop, stop, stop, stop. I know where… This is a beautiful story. I do want to buy a property and I think we’ve agreed on the price. What do you say we do the deal? I just don’t want to know.”
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because if you can… You know how sellers are, especially people that are a little bit lonely. They’ll sit there and say, “Oh, the EPA came out in 197…” Stop right there. I don’t want to know any of this stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
You either want to buy it or you don’t, so there’s a line with that stuff. So the general rule in real estate is if you know about stuff, especially if you’re an agent, but if you’re an owner, you need to disclose it, so don’t know about stuff.
Jill DeWit:
Well, there’s so many circumstances. It would not deter me anyway. It doesn’t really matter.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me either.
Jill DeWit:
It could have been a disgruntled ex and it could have happened in the grocery store parking lot, it just happened to be in the woods. You know what I mean? Come on.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a far cry from getting licked by raccoons to death.
Jill DeWit:
Well I know, but I’m just saying there’s so many circumstances that I don’t know. You know what I would say… How about this?
Steven Jack Butala:
This doesn’t impact anything.
Jill DeWit:
No, it really doesn’t. If you feel like you need to say it like, “By the way, just so, just so you know because I know, the person actually passed on in the woods behind the property.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Just leave it at that. I don’t know any details because I stopped him and honestly she didn’t.
Steven Jack Butala:
You don’t have to disclose this at all, and I wouldn’t.
Jill DeWit:
Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you know there’s asbestos or something, you have to disclose that
Jill DeWit:
They don’t have to research and dig it up. Wouldn’t that be… Here’s the article. Here’s the police report. No.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what? I’m going to say this too, and I’m going to wrap up the question here, Jill. Oh, the social part of buying and selling real estate, and the relationships that you establish with these sellers and buyers, just cut it out. Jill is very good at cutting it off where it should never go.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re here to be professionals in buying and selling real estate and make some money. We’re not here to talk about the philosophical reasons why someone might have gotten killed in the back of their property, ever.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like ever, so… Especially at live events for some reason, there’s people that have a lot of emotional stuff to say. Have you noticed that?
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Jack Butala:
No?
Jill DeWit:
I mean, not like that, but no. I just only notice it in a very positive way. The two, well, technically three… Did we do three?
Steven Jack Butala:
Three.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Live events. The stuff that was shared with me was heartfelt, “This is my situation. This is how my situation’s better. Thank you.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.
Jill DeWit:
That’s not your experience?
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. That’s been my experience. You know what this topic is… There’s a lot of stuff that goes on, especially with houses and it fuels real estate agents, and that’s at the root of why it makes me a little bit perturbed.
Jill DeWit:
All right. Moving on.
Steven Jack Butala:
To talk about window treatments and all kinds of stuff and that’s not realistic. I never got into real estate to talk about interior design.
Jill DeWit:
I understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s part of what… That’s where this is going. There’s a social, “Do you know the history of this house?” No, I don’t. See, stop it. Success lies within your natural state. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve got to add something funny about that. There has been one situation in the history of since I’ve known you, that you did find out the backstory of a house that we lived in and I got to tell you, it was pretty flipping cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead and share because I agree.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, Mister, “I don’t really care to know the history.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Throwing me under the bus here.
Jill DeWit:
He’s going to eat his words right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know where it’s going.
Jill DeWit:
We moved into this house by the beach and come to find out after we had lived there several months, we’re having a party and we met our next door neighbor, timing doesn’t matter. Anyway, she said, “Do you know who used to live here?” We’re like, “No. Don’t have no idea.” We should have said, “Uh oh, don’t tell me.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I said.
Jill DeWit:
Oh.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I don’t want to hear it.” That was my first reaction. I thought it was Tiffany’s dead in the woods story.
Jill DeWit:
No, no. It was Quentin Tarantino and Mira Sorvino back when they were filming Jackie… He was filming “Jackie Brown.” And they were there for a couple years they said. Anyway, it was just kind of funny, “Okay.” So you’re like, “We’re never moving.” It was so funny. That was really cool. So anyway, that was our funny thing. Okay, so success lies within your natural state. You…
Steven Jack Butala:
Just give me a couple of minutes of airtime here.
Jill DeWit:
Sorry. I’m all excited. I’m jacked up right now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Every single one of us listening to this has had a job that you don’t want. And you have a couple of choices. You stick around in that job until you can find a better one because you need the dough. It’s every single one of us in the last year, born with a silver spoon, in which case you’re not listening to this show or watching. But eventually, you move on when you find a better job that you can actually swallow. Hopefully you do. Some people never do. If you start out with this career because you just want to make money… And yesterday we heard from a guy who… I think his name was Lucas, who has a love for data and understands land. Loves land, understands data. That’s his natural state.
He’s going to sit there for hours and hours. Forget to go to the bathroom, forget to eat, forget to bathe. And that’s who I am too. I will spend 36 hours and just fall asleep at the computer on this stuff. I always have been like that. And since I was a teenager with an Apple II PC, and that’s a natural state. Jill has a diametrically different natural state, and that’s why we’re good at this.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s why we really, really, really excel. And I’m not bragging, I’m saying… I can give you name after name after name of people in our group that have just… They started and four months later, they’re making a million bucks a month.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
And if you ask them, they said, “Well, no, it was never really the money part, although I do want to become independently wealthy through doing this. But no, it’s the data piece,” or in Jill’s case, it’s the sales piece or… What is it for you? I mean, how would you describe it? Because whatever it is, you have it.
Jill DeWit:
It’s the deal piece. Whether it’s talking on the phone or emailing or something like that, it’s just the getting the deal secured piece. Once we secure it and we shook hands and we have a price, I know it’s going to happen and then I lose interest. I’m like, “Ah okay, now it’s in the system. Close the deal. Let me know how it goes, whatever. I’ll watch the numbers.” But it’s just the initial deal. When it comes in, I want to know who responded. What did they think? Do I call them? What did they say? Okay, here’s what. I’m going to counter with or what they counter with. I’m going to look at that. It’s just all of that.
And I love… It’s funny that I’ve like… What I was thinking about this show, one of the hardest things for me has been to convey to you, and I have to remind you sometimes is that, “No, Steven. I like talking on the phone.” You’re like, “You don’t have to do this.” You’re so sweet. You are always saying this. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to work this hard. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do that.” And I’m like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I like it.” It’s the stuff that I like doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t count the… And this is a compliment. I can’t count the number of times where we’ve been somewhere and we’re… She’ll take a phone call. The software that we have for the phones, you can see whether it’s a business call or a personal call and she will leave the environment, come back 45 minutes later and say, “Okay, I got that deal done in Santa Barbara County.” And we’re going to make a half a million bucks and I’m like, “You got to stop doing this.”
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, yeah. We’re making half a million bucks. I get it, but… And I’m not complaining or yelling or… I’m not…
Jill DeWit:
Like your food’s cold.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m like, “I don’t care.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m like, “You don’t need to do this.”
Jill DeWit:
He’s like, “You don’t have to eat cold food. You know we have people that can answer the phone.”
Steven Jack Butala:
She just loves it.
Jill DeWit:
I’m like, “No, I want to do that.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I totally respect that. That’s how I know that we’re in the right business.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I have bought and sold other businesses where it’s just not… We’re not… It’s not in our soul.
Jill DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
And fortunately gotten out of all of them whole and most of them, made some pretty good money on, but for whatever reason, this business, not even Land Academy and teaching or this podcast, but buying a piece of land, doing the data part on the front end and reselling it as a team. It’s my natural state, and I think it’s yours too.
Jill DeWit:
It is.
Steven Jack Butala:
So my point is, whoever you are, whatever stage you are in this, you really need to have a real honest conversation with yourself about what your natural state is. Very few people have both. Luke Smith has both. He’s a national salesman and he gets… Luke Smith is a member of ours, and he gets the data piece pretty well. It’s very rare to have both, partnerships are better, I think. We have many, many examples of members who are either married or they have a business in different states. We know this because we do consulting calls and we do it with both people and they have separate questions for us.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). You’re right. When there’s two of you and you have different things that you love, you can do that much more. If it was me doing both, I’d be doing half this half that. I’d have to keep taking this hat off, this… Where I can focus and get a lot more done and you can focus and get a lot more done.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
It’s works out great. Happy you could join us today. Every day, Monday through Friday, you can find us right here on the Land Academy podcast show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called, “The Disconnect Between Seasoned Real Estate Professionals and Blind Offers.” You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
The disconnect.
Steven Jack Butala:
Seasoned real estate investors…
Jill DeWit:
I’m writing this down.
Steven Jack Butala:
Picture this in your head. They’ve got gray hair like me. They know it all. They think they know it all. They bought… “Look at at my fast cars and my big house I bought and sold.” And then you start to talk about a blind offer campaign and they shake their heads and say, “Listen, youngster I got a thing or two to tell you about how and why you’re doing this wrong,” to which I say, “Listen, boomer congratulations. You made the time cut off in the real estate industry because your time’s past,” and that’s just how it is.
Jill DeWit:
The Land Academy show remains commercial free for you, our loyal listener. So wherever you’re watching, wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit:
and inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
to buy undervalued property.
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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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