Urban Exodus is Real (LA 1318)
Urban Exodus is Real (LA 1318)
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 the urban Exodus is real. People are moving out of where they live for a bunch of reasons that we’ll discuss in droves.
Jill DeWit:
I bet people listening to this right now are saying, “Yep, that’s us.”
Steven Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
“Yep. We’re done. We left.” And, I’ve seen people go far, back to Canada where they came from. Not kidding.
Steven Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
From Southern California pack up and say, “We’re out of here, man.”
Steven Butala:
It’s real.
Jill DeWit:
With families and kids going and moving with parents.
Steven Butala:
And, that doesn’t surprise me. Does this surprise you? That there’s this is their reaction?
Jill DeWit:
Not really, no.
Steven Butala:
What I really want to talk about is why?
Jill DeWit:
No, because we’ve all thought about it.
Steven Butala:
You know what? People, we all should have this sort of mentality like the Marines, adapt and overcome. And, that’s all they’re doing. Life is throwing some stuff at them for better, for worse and they’re making some changes. Hopefully for the better for their family, so.
Jill DeWit:
I think you’re right. I would argue that most of them that are doing this, they’re going to say “I’m glad I did it.”
Steven Butala:
Me too. That’s really the show here.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
Exodus [inaudible 00:01:23] has been a negative. It could have a negative connotation.
Jill DeWit:
It could.
Steven Butala:
Like, there’s a hurricane, a hurricane caused an exodus.
Jill DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny? If I wrote all these podcast. topics and the titles. They would be so worded differently.
Steven Butala:
It would be all girls.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, it’s hilarious. It’d be, Oh my gosh…
Steven Butala:
What would this title be? People packed up their picket fence and…
Jill DeWit:
No, it wouldn’t be like that, but it wouldn’t be ugh, whatever that is. It wouldn’t be…
Steven Butala:
You want to know the truth? I soften these titles.
Jill DeWit:
From what you really want to write?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Wow. Okay.
Steven Butala:
I just think that’s the nature of men and women.
Jill DeWit:
This is you softening?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Well, maybe not this one.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
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:
Okay.
Lucas wrote, “Hi everyone. One of my goals for Land Academy is to someday return to my home state of Vermont. Is there anyone in this community that has experience in the state of Vermont? If so, I would appreciate some pointers. I had looked into purchasing property for myself over the last few years and I was stunned by the high cost of septic design and build. It’s not uncommon for people to spend 35 to $45,000 on a septic system. I am told that mining and new quarry activity has been halted in Vermont. So, the all mound systems need to be transported from out of state and it also drives up the cost.”
Sheesh.
“Aside from that land can be expensive there anyway. I’d love to speak with someone who has had success in buying and selling in Vermont. I have a feeling they are a non-solicit state.”
Steven Butala:
By the way…
Jill DeWit:
What do they say? I’m curious. Is there a bunch of answers already?
Steven Butala:
Oh yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, cool.
Steven Butala:
By the way, I think this is Headshot Lucas.
Jill DeWit:
I was thinking that too.
Steven Butala:
So, Headshot Lucas, you’re incredibly intelligent and this is an awesome question.
Jill DeWit:
Wait, wait, it should be glam shot because I do the glam shot. Remember those in the mall?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
How’s sad is that?
Steven Butala:
Yeah, I do.
Jill DeWit:
Can you imagine if I came home with you for your birthday and I had a picture of you with a bow around my neck that I had taken at the glam shots at the mall?
Steven Butala:
Well, you see that’s the same kind of internal… Where does that come from?
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Butala:
I had somebody say to me a long time ago, this is years and years ago, “Hey, happy birthday. Your present is that I’m here.”
Jill DeWit:
Oh, Oh that’s not nice.
Steven Butala:
That’s what I think a glam shot is. “Hey, happy birthday. Here’s a picture of me with scantily clothing.”
Jill DeWit:
That’s not nice, that’s not nice.
Steven Butala:
I want you to buy me a scotch or…
Jill DeWit:
Happy that I’m here. I’m here. Wow. I’ve heard that too.
Steven Butala:
You have?
Jill DeWit:
Well, yeah a version of that.
Steven Butala:
Are you friends with any of those people anymore?
Jill DeWit:
Well, someone said “Happy birthday, your present is half of what I owe you.” What the heck? What is that all about?
Steven Butala:
Money?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. We won’t even go there, but anyway, you know what I’m talking about.
Steven Butala:
It’s just funny how we remember these crazy things.
Jill DeWit:
Do you know what I’m talking about?
Steven Butala:
I think so.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, yeah.
Steven Butala:
How we remember these crazy little, tiny little blips in time of… Wow.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s not nice. If you owe someone something and you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing, that’s not a gift. Or maybe for them, it is a gift. That’s probably the reality they don’t normally follow through. And, I was lucky enough on my birthday that they did.
Steven Butala:
Did you get the other half?
Jill DeWit:
Yes, but…
Steven Butala:
Everybody’s square?
Jill DeWit:
Yes. Everybody’s square. But…
Steven Butala:
Well, Happy Birthday, everybody’s square.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, thanks. Happy Birthday. We’re square. Whatever.
Steven Butala:
Oh man. No, not to buy your woman a washing machine for their birthday or a mixer.
Jill DeWit:
You would think they would know that. Not, and I’m not saying you, I just know other people that get weird gifts.
Steven Butala:
I know, I know what to buy you.
Jill DeWit:
You are good. For you who don’t know, don’t do that. Your wife said she really wants some new fluffy pillows? Not a good Christmas present.
Steven Butala:
Floppy pillows?
Jill DeWit:
Fluffy pillows.
Steven Butala:
Oh, fluffy pillows.
Jill DeWit:
Pillows, not a good Christmas present. Thank you.
Steven Butala:
Here’s my gauge, I have a gauge for what I gift buying. Number one, they would never buy it for themselves ever. Number two, it’s something that they have referred to in the past loosely.
Jill DeWit:
Interesting.
Steven Butala:
Number three is optional.
Jill DeWit:
I’m making mental notes here now.
Steven Butala:
Number three is optional. It’s something they use all the time. So, that’s a good gift for men, but not so much for women. Women, they need it to be special. I ate probably way too much ramen noodles and not the bad ones, the good ones so that’s always a good gift for me.
Jill DeWit:
Ramen noodles?
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Real high end ones.
Jill DeWit:
I know this about you because I have got you fancy chopsticks and bowls for your rock noodles.
Steven Butala:
And, I loved that.
Jill DeWit:
And, you love them. I know that about you. Thank you.
Steven Butala:
Number four, spend two to three times as much money as you anticipated.
Jill DeWit:
These are all good things and I kind of subconsciously do them too. I just bought my friend a really pretty bracelet for her birthday and yeah, I applied those things, so. Cool. All right.
Steven Butala:
Oh, this question about Vermont.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Excuse me. What I love about this question is that it’s not about San Bernardino County, California. Property pricing. So, the thing about septic is yeah, it’s expensive, but it’s all level playing field. So, whoever’s going to put the septic in is subject to the same price. So, all right, great. Jill and I live in an environment where, it’s the weirdest real estate environment I’ve ever seen how expensive it is, but we’re subject all equally. So, it’s all level playing field. What I love about Vermont is that nobody talks about it too much, so, mail away.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I would do if it were me?
Steven Butala:
Anything that’s strange and weird from a location standpoint, it’s going to do well with mail.
Jill DeWit:
I wouldn’t want to build my own thing. I would buy something that someone’s done all the work and then change it. I don’t want to put in a pool. You, I want someone has done the upfront expense and the work and the time and and the permits. And, I don’t know how bad Vermont is, but I just know how it is here in Southern California and the permitting process and all of the city and legislature, whatever it is, rules, far exceed how long it takes to build a house.
Steven Butala:
I mean, I’m going to one-up you, Jill. Show me a time where it makes more sense to buy a house then build a house than buy one.
Jill DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Butala:
I think that may have been true a lot of years ago, but it’s not anymore.
Jill DeWit:
Maybe, that’s true.
Steven Butala:
Almost ever.
Jill DeWit:
You’re right. Back in the day, grandpa built grandma house and it was the cheapest way to do it.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. It was cheaper.
Jill DeWit:
And, it was great. Not anymore. Good point.
Steven Butala:
All these septic systems that he’s referring to. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m pretty confident in saying that they’re all grandfathered in. So, buy an old house that’s falling down and just replace it or something.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a good idea.
Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of different ways to do it. Should these things scare you and make you not want a mail there? No, not at all. In fact, I think that would encourage me because it’s weird. The most successful people in our group, both in the advanced group and otherwise take the concepts that they’ve learned from us, apply it to their own thing, go off and do something. Whether it’s in a weird location or a weird little niche, like replacement of mobile homes or whatever, and they’re just off to the races. So, I see this as the beginning of that thought process and it’s good. Please don’t put head shots on your mailer, right?
Today’s topic. Urban Exodus is real. This is the meat of the show.
People are moving in droves, everywhere. They’re moving out of cities. People who have always wanted to move into cities are moving in there. Real estate prices in urban and rural locations are skyrocketing. And, I’m sorry, did I say rural?
Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Butala:
Subdivision, and she stopped listening. Subdivision and rural locations are skyrocketing and urban locations are remaining kind of stagnant to slightly going down. And, when I say slightly, I mean, one to 2% like in San Francisco, which is absolutely opening the door and doors for people who want, there’s still a lot of people who want to live in an urban environment. So, this COVID thing, maybe they’re young, COVID thing doesn’t affect them. And, there’s a lot tons of jobs, the whole thing.
So, who knows why? I’m not here to talk about why. There’s all kinds of reasons, why to move out of the city and move into the city, depending on who you are. What I’m here to talk about is that it’s real, the markets are volatile like we talked about on Monday. And, it’s a great time as an investor or even personally to find a place where you want to live.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
So…
Jill DeWit:
You know what happened right there? I immediately jumped into, here’s my mind, my mind just went for a second. I’ll share this. I could up my sales game because you’re right. There’s so many properties that we have that aren’t even on the MLS anywhere, they’re just available out there. They’re not listed.
We’ve collected them. I’ve got new ones. I need to get them out there faster than a system better. I even have to up my game. And, the whole point of me going there real quick is, you reminded me how fast things are moving right now. How fast people are buying properties. And, I’m a ding dong for not queuing them up to sell real fast.
Steven Butala:
Here’s what’s changed in this recession pretty dramatically over the last one or any recession I’ve ever experienced is the internet.
It’s constantly being reported by Redfin and Realtor and Zillow and Trulia and Reality Track and all that, all the large places, the places on the internet, where property is listed, even LandWatch, non MLS property report phrases that are being searched for. And, so how to buy a house is up 14000% from March. Or, strange phrases, they’re not strange. I’m not here to judge. I would not have guessed that these phrases would ever get searched ever let alone 14000% increase.
What is the minimum credit score you need to buy a house, right? How much money do you need to buy a house? So, these are huge and where these are being searched in Google search geographically, it gets reported. For my taste, they don’t report it enough, but it’s their company. So, I can’t tell them what to do, but they’re, they’re nice enough to share a lot of this. And, we talk about this on the Thursday webinar all the time. You can tell where people are buying what, just [inaudible 00:12:32] what they’re searching for. It translates to real dollars. That’s the thing about the internet I don’t think a lot of really young people understand what goes on on the internet, translate to dollars, in a really good way I think.
Jill DeWit:
That’s interesting that you don’t think that they realize that?
Steven Butala:
Uh-uh (negative). They understand that they buy their groceries on the internet. They understand that it’s probably cheaper to buy a car and better to buy a car. But, from a retail slash just consumer standpoint everybody gets that.
Jill DeWit:
You mean online?
Steven Butala:
And, they scoff at people our age that… Because we don’t buy our groceries on there yet, and they’re not wrong. But, I don’t think that they understand that if they’re sitting in an apartment on, South of market in San Francisco, looking at all the listings in Lake Tahoe that translates to dollars for both people that are advertising on all these sites.
Jill DeWit:
Is there an age reason that you’re thinking or just all age range?
Steven Butala:
I don’t want to get into that.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
I don’t mean to pick on young people. I mean, everybody, I don’t think everybody understands how incredibly valuable typing and stuff into Google is for everyone.
Jill DeWit:
I thought everybody knew that. And, I’m not discounting you. I’m apparently in my own little world over here,
Steven Butala:
This fascinates me. Do you think your mom knows that?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I do.
Steven Butala:
You think she understands that?
Jill DeWit:
The value of key search and SEO and that kind of thing?
Steven Butala:
Not SEO. Just the value of typing something in.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
Where she’s sitting-
Jill DeWit:
What it means to somebody else?
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Like, your mom might type in “What’s a better way to play Canasta from central Arizona?”
Jill DeWit:
I guess I see your point. So, again, I’m assuming everybody’s gets that. It seems I’m assuming everybody would want to buy something for a dollar 50 instead of $3.
Steven Butala:
And, that I get.
Jill DeWit:
That’s my point.
Steven Butala:
Everybody gets that.
Jill DeWit:
I’m, “Right. Why wouldn’t everybody think that?”
Steven Butala:
Everybody gets that.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
I completely, I think it’s pretty obvious that stuff’s cheaper to buy on the internet than it is if you walk in into the store and it’s obvious why. But, if you have people in an urban area that are searching for, searching through the listings in a satellite area like Detroit and Chicago are searching the hell out of Traverse City right now.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Now, I see. People like us know how to come in and find that back end data and use that data.
Steven Butala:
Yes.
Jill DeWit:
Now I know what you’re talking about and it doesn’t have to be talking on the phone. You can be calling us. We, in our businesses, investors, I could spend my time calling all around the state to brokers and find out what’s hot, what people want, what are they buying? Or I could use data like you do and come in and come at it a much easier way from the backend and see oh, these are what people are searching, what they’re clicking on, what they’re sharing.
Steven Butala:
Non stop. Hold on a second, so let me be real clear about this.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Clicks, everybody gets, “Oh, that video of that guy belching his head off gets 17,000 views an hour.” We all get that. And, if now it’s a good advertising candidate and the people that are actually viewing it from a data standpoint are more likely to buy the soda that he’s drinking. And, we all understand that.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
I am talking about searches.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Not click through rates, not advertising dollars.
Jill DeWit:
I hear you.
Steven Butala:
Not keywords, not bids for words.
Jill DeWit:
I hear you. I think it overwhelms people and I don’t think they know what to do with it too. I understand.
Steven Butala:
It doesn’t overwhelm me at all.
Jill DeWit:
I know that.
Steven Butala:
Does it overwhelm you?
Jill DeWit:
That’s why I have you.
Steven Butala:
If Hertz announced bankruptcy, Hertz the rental car company. So, there’s all these… They keep announcing, “We’ve got these cars.”
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Butala:
We got-
Jill DeWit:
I’ve yet to see these great deals, but, whatever.
Steven Butala:
And, so that’s a search.
Jill DeWit:
It’s happening?
Steven Butala:
It’s happening.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Are people really getting good deals? Because, I go look and I’m like, “I’m not spending that.”
Steven Butala:
Well, what I’ve been reading is this, the searches on that are, “How do I buy a Hertz car?” Or, “How do I buy a used car?” The net effect of what happened is they flooded the market with so many cars that it’s hurting other people who are selling used cars. The used car markets is deflated by pretty dramatically.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I hear you.
Steven Butala:
The pricing market. And, it’s all based on searches. You can make a career out of this. I’m sure, it’s like a component of big data.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to save you right now.
Steven Butala:
She’s not talking to me.
Jill DeWit:
We could go into this. No, I’m not talking to you. I’m talking to you. We could go into this for another hour. I’m sure. But, I’m going to have him divide this up into three shows next week.
Happy you could join us today, five days a week. You can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Next Monday, join us for another interesting episode of the Land Academy Show. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
You know, that’s the reason there’s two of us.
Jill DeWit:
Yes. Sometimes we save each other. Sometimes we save others. Sometimes we save ourselves from…
Steven Butala:
Sometimes we fail together.
Jill DeWit:
That happens too. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content-
Steven Butala:
Wait, that can be extra, hold on a second. Say it again. This could be the new Friday extra. Sometimes we save each other. Sometimes we save others. What’s the other one?
Jill DeWit:
Sometimes we save our… I don’t know.
Steven Butala:
Sometimes we fail together. That’s a whole extra for the show.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Save that. We hope you find our content valuable. And, we appreciate your support. If you haven’t done already, please zip over to our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button.
Steven Butala:
And, your comments and suggestions, help us create the type of content that you’re here for we hope. Hitting the like button on your favorite episodes helps to support our channels algorithm and gauge your interest for future shows. And, you know, me, it’s all about that data.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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