Where to Get Days on Market and other Decision Making Data (LA 1360)
Where to Get Days on Market and other Decision Making Data (LA 1360)
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 from sunny still Park City, Utah. Yes, we are still here.
Steven Jack Butala:
We decided to stay another week.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. And if you could see us, if you’re watching on YouTube and you can see us, or if you’re not watching on YouTube, you should zip over to YouTube and check this out, because you might hear popping and crackling in the background, because that really is a legitimate fire behind us. It is a cool day. And I just have to say, it’s so funny, the way we’re sitting, the way we’re set up, I feel like I’m announcing at the Rose Parade. And the float coming along, now I want to say that all of the yellow were hand-picked sunflowers, and … Just kidding.
Steven Jack Butala:
I got up early today and rearranged the entire place that we’re staying in, this condo.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, you did.
Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ll put it back when we’re done, I guess.
Jill DeWit:
We have a week to put it back. It looks great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, today Jill and I actually talk about where to go to get days on market and other decision-making data. And here’s a hint, this is where not to go, your local real estate agent. Jill and I recorded a few podcasts since we’ve been here, and I keep saying Salt Lake, Park City. And we were the guests on other people’s shows. One guy informed us that that’s where he gets his information from, his real estate agent.
Jill DeWit:
It’s amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
He’s got a show.
Jill DeWit:
It’s amazing.
Steven Jack Butala:
And he’s out there telling everybody bad information.
Jill DeWit:
Some people just don’t know that there’s reliable sources of data, not just what you hear and talk about.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ll clear it up today about where to get data, if you don’t already know. But 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:
Okay. Paula wrote, “Hi there, I hope everyone is doing well. I’m here to gain as much education as I can about land investing. Currently, I’m watching all of Steven and Jill’s YouTube videos and have almost finished reading the Stevenson System, a unit which we [inaudible 00:02:16] that book. Wish me luck. Take care. See you around.”
Steven Jack Butala:
My point here is twofold. Jill’s going to tell us, if you’re brand new or thinking about being brand new, Jill’s going to tell us what she thinks about that. But I want to talk about-
Jill DeWit:
About being brand new?
Steven Jack Butala:
The Stevenson System is a book that this guy, I think his name’s James Stevenson or Jim Stevenson, he and his wife wrote, I think in the early ’70s or mid-70s’. And he gets this cockamamie idea to send his wife to the assessor’s office and asks her to look up with a pad and pencil the people who own all the pieces of land in a certain area that he thought was a good place to buy land, so he could resell it. And so she did. She went and got the names and the mailing addresses of all these people in the property, and some details about the property, wrote it all down. And he sent them offers, or he sent the notes in the mail, I think. And my point is, if you can get a copy of the Stevenson System… We have a copy. A member let me know about this a couple years ago.
Jill DeWit:
A lender sent it to us, on my birthday said, “I’m going to send you this book.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So if you can find an old copy, it’s out of print, I’ve contacted the publisher, it’s actually the son of the author, multiple times to try to buy the rights entirely, because I think it’s something really good that we could teach and republish. Maybe with the forward that I would write her, put Jill’s take on it or whatever. But my whole point is this, nothing’s changed except the tools. How people buy and sell real estate, this methodology of sending people letters and offers, in our case, works.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
What advice do you have for Paula? She’s brand new. She just signed up.
Jill DeWit:
I love that she’s getting a lot of… there’s a lot of free… It’s just funny, I just was replying to someone in BiggerPockets a little while ago that reached out. I said, “There’s a ton of free information out there.” I said, “Get our eBooks. I want you to understand the business model. Watch and read and watch and read and watch and read. And then when you’re ready, then dive in.” And you need to get a hold of the data the right way. That’s the main thing, you need access to the tools so you can get data. You look like you have more to say.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just a second, I’m working off of a notebook computer instead of regular studio, because we’re out of town and I don’t have anything else to say, I’m just …
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Ask me questions.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m trying to do full-blown professional audio and video off of a notebook computer that I bought at Kmart a couple weeks ago.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, Kmart. They don’t have Kmart anymore, silly. Okay. Sheesh. All right, ask me some questions. What do you think? What do you think Paula should know?
Steven Jack Butala:
What should you not do when you join Land Academy? I can answer that question too.
Jill DeWit:
Not do nothing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, not do nothing.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You should get going as fast as possible. Get offers in the mail. Even if you do it wrong, just get them out there, because you’ll fix it and you’ll tweak it. You’ll learn really quick if you overpriced or you underpriced, and then you’ll make some different decisions going forward, but at least you get your phone ringing and you get people wanting to sell your property, and then you can adjust it from there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. We all have an experience or multiple experiences when we went to school, high school or college, where there’s somebody in the class that just constantly has her hand up asking questions. And the teacher always says the same thing, some version of this, “I’ll get to it. Really, that’s a great question. We’ll get to it.” And so then it just delays the whole thing.
Well, Jill and I have perpetually, have between one and five people in our group who aren’t interested in learning, absorbing all the educational information that Jill and I have amassed over years of doing this. They’re just interested in asking a lot of questions, regardless of what format it’s in, whether it’s the Thursday call or Facebook. I’m sure that Paula, you’re not one of these people. I’m just saying there’s a couple people right now that just, they love to ask questions. And it’s so clear, glaringly clear, that they never watched any of the programs or absorbed the stuff that we created.
Jill DeWit:
Got it. You know, it’s funny … Oh, I thought that was really cool, by the way, I mentioned a few minutes ago, I was replying to someone in BiggerPockets, because they had reached out to me personally. Because he said, “Do you know what? I read a blog that you wrote three years ago, so you’re obviously the expert on this.” And it was about CoreLogic data. He was asking, “Is this still what you use?” And everything, so I gave him just a quick little reply. I’m like, “You need to do a little more research.” And that’s the whole reason Land Academy is here by the way, there’s no way in one quick little reply, in BiggerPockets that I can possibly fully explain our whole business model and what we do. There’s a lot to it.
And I like that Paula is learning and researching. Why do people think that? Why do people think that you can just step in? I’m just going to get my … Say, you’re just going to be an agent, “I’m going to go get my license and I’m going to start selling around. I’m going to kill it.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I know.
Jill DeWit:
There’s a lot to this stuff. Even just getting your license if that’s what you choose to do. We don’t, that’s not our thing. We’re investors, but you can’t in our world, maybe that’s where there’s some confusion. People say, “I’m going to wake up and be an investor tomorrow,” which you can/however, there’s a lot to it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It was a 10 hour drive from Los Angeles to Park City. And we elected to drive, because the season that colors are changing and we have a lot of real estate to look at in between.
Jill DeWit:
And Jill got a new vehicle.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah and Jill got a new car. Hey, if you are interested in buying a-
Jill DeWit:
Four-wheel drive.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, Hertz, the rental car agency filed bankruptcy. And so every single car that they have, they’re selling it. So between 10 and $15,000 below what it’s worth.
Jill DeWit:
We don’t get anything out of this, by the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m just saying if you’re in a market for a … We just bought a car that was less than a year old with 13,000 miles on it for half of what the new car price was.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So anyway … Where do you get days on market and other decision-making data? So here’s the 35,000 foot view of data in real estate.
Jill DeWit:
This is today’s topic, and this is why you are listening.
Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
You’re very welcome.
Steven Jack Butala:
I screwed up, because I have only one monitor.
Jill DeWit:
That’s okay. We’re tag-teaming this. We’re a team.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we all know, or hopefully we know that assessor data … You can fix that if you want. Assessor data-
Jill DeWit:
I’ll leave it to the pro.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay. I’ll fix the fire while Jill’s [inaudible 00:08:54] here in [inaudible 00:08:55]. There’s three major sources of assessor data. They’re called aggregators, RealQuest Pro, Black Knight and First American’s DataTree. We’re licensed providers of all three. So, great, Steve, how does that help me with days on market? All right. It doesn’t.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to sneeze, sorry.
Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t help you at all, and neither does your real estate agent. You want to go to Redfin data or realtor.com, or in some cases Zillow. And those three, this is at the time of recording this, I’m sure it’ll change by the time it’s next year. And you can type in per zip code, especially in Redfin data, and get extremely current information on what’s going on in that market, by asset type, by condo, by single family residential, by multi-family, by mobile home, and in some cases, land. Jill and I are personally lobbying these companies to add land because none of them do, land is always an oversight. And if you’re listening to this, that’s why you’re listening, because you know it is. And it’s a great way to make some dough, flipping properties.
So don’t take anybody’s word for it on this data. Go to Redfin data or realtor.com or Zillow or a combination of all three, pit them against each other and see what the data says. We’re going to record a show later on this week about a guy that … I like to say this, there’s this new phrase I’ve been saying a lot lately on the air, we don’t have any dart boards in this office. And so you need to get the days on market and run a red, green, yellow test on anywhere you’re considering sending offers.
Jill DeWit:
Right, exactly. My whole point with this topic today is that there’s so much data out there and more coming at us, I feel like we’re times … It’s growing exponentially, right, what’s becoming available, and yet people are not aware of that and I don’t understand why. I mean Steven alluded a few minutes ago, we were on this other person’s show and what was happening was I was listening to other recordings of their show in the past weeks to get a feel for who this person was going to be interviewing us. And just to see what kind of questions they asked and what topics they like to cover, things like that.
And one of the questions, one of the things that came up, they were having a discussion with someone about days on market and the guy said, “Well, here’s where you get days on market, call your local agent.” I’m like, “What the heck? How is this possible?” And this was just recorded in the last 30 days that he did the show. I’m like, “Do you not know? You can really go on a lot of these sites and dig deep.” We could even figure it out ourselves if I had to. So the beautiful thing is a lot of these regular sites, Redfin, Realtor that you refer to, they aggregate it because they have it all. But even if we didn’t have it all, if we didn’t have those formulas, they hadn’t written it, we would sit there and I wouldn’t even trust my agent.
Steven Jack Butala:
Neither would I.
Jill DeWit:
I would look it up myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you said it.
Jill DeWit:
I would sit there, I would figure it out. I don’t care if it takes me four hours, I would look and look at the price points, look at the areas, and I could still figure out on my own a pretty good idea of what the days on market are for that area before I send some mail out.
Steven Jack Butala:
What’s the first thing we all do on a Thursday call or in our regular real buying and selling land life? An acquisition candidate comes in, you throw it up on NeighborScoop, you look at it, and then you look at all the surrounding properties. You see when they’ve sold, the ones that are on the market, how fast they’re selling, how slow they’re selling, and you decide whether or not you’re going to make that acquisition. Or you can pick up the phone and call your housewife realtor, and you could ask her.
Jill DeWit:
Because she knows.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, she’s an expert at rural vacant land.
Jill DeWit:
You want to role play? Let’s role play.
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill DeWit:
Come one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Call me-
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you go first.
Jill DeWit:
Call me, I’m the agent, role play.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, Betty, how are you today?
Jill DeWit:
Hi, I’m getting my nails done. Can I call you in a few minutes?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it. You know Betty, last time I talked to you, you were having real trouble with your two year old.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
How’s that going?
Jill DeWit:
Oh boy, thank goodness for a nanny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you make it to work at all last week?
Jill DeWit:
Barely. Thank goodness for being remote.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, I think she would say something like this, in this current market, “Oh no, none of us have to work anymore. All we have to do is get one listing a month and it sells in 13 seconds and make 3%.” And the average price of the house is like … Because they can do math, but that math …
Jill DeWit:
1.7 million.
Steven Jack Butala:
Any agent, [inaudible 00:13:48] or not knows how to multiply 0.06 of every number in their head. So she knows how to calculate what her commission is going to be.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Anyway, that was good. I think we covered it.
Steven Jack Butala:
I sufficiently wrecked this fire too. I’ll fix it for the next episode.
Jill DeWit:
Oh okay, that will be good. Happy you could join us today. You can find us Monday through Friday, right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy Show is called Zoom Cities Are Present and Future. They’re here to stay. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
How you feeling?
Steven Jack Butala:
Good. I effectively wrecked that fire behind me.
Jill DeWit:
That’s okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
But we’ll get it going. I’m rusty because I grew up in Michigan, did up nine fires a day, and I’ve lived in Arizona and …
Jill DeWit:
California.
Steven Jack Butala:
California since the early 90s, and I’m just rusty.
Jill DeWit:
That’s okay. We’ll get you back into the swing of things. That’s why we’re here in Park City spending extra time.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you so much for tuning in. We really, really appreciate your support. If you have not already, please zip over to YouTube and check out our channel, hit the subscribe button, and if you have some comments, we love to read them. We do read, it does really make a difference in choosing topics and your suggestions for future shows.
Steven Jack Butala:
It does. We are Steve and Jill.
Jill DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
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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