Interview with Advanced Members Katherine and Michael Aillon (LA 1389)
Interview with Advanced Members Katherine and Michael Aillon (LA 1389)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
We’re on audio and video, love.
Jill DeWit:
Cool.
Steven Butala:
Oops. (silence)
Jill DeWit:
Silencing everything.
Steven Butala:
What about everything?
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I’m just silencing all my phones and… Hi [inaudible 00:00:52].
Michael Aillon:
Hello. Hi.
Steven Butala:
Hi.
Jill DeWit:
I got to hang out with Katherine yesterday.
Steven Butala:
Oh, she was on the call?
Jill DeWit:
Of course she was on the call. He asked me earlier today, he’s like, we were recording some shows, and he’s like, “Well, will you fill us in on what you guys talked about at the girls call?” I said absolutely not. That is not what that is for. I will not share that with you. It is not recorded and posted anywhere. Nope, nope, nope.
Michael Aillon:
I can’t start my video for some reason. It says [inaudible 00:01:43].
Steven Butala:
Oop.
Jill DeWit:
Co-host will do it, except I hung up on him.
Steven Butala:
Ooh.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:01:52]. There we go.
Steven Butala:
This way.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:01:54], and then co-host. You have to bump him up one more. It’s crazy. Co-host. There you go. Now you should be good.
Steven Butala:
Should be able to do it yourself now.
Jill DeWit:
Yay.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Michael Aillon:
Have some video here.
Steven Butala:
There we are. Yeah. Audio and video.
Katherine Aillon:
A little adjustment.
Jill DeWit:
Perfect.
Michael Aillon:
How do we sound?
Katherine Aillon:
Jill and I are doing the same thing. We’re like, okay, our hair.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. [crosstalk 00:02:32].
Michael Aillon:
How do we sound, Steve?
Jill DeWit:
Had a busy day. You’ll cut all this, right?
Steven Butala:
It’s fine.
Jill DeWit:
I know.
Katherine Aillon:
Cool.
Michael Aillon:
Steve, how does our audio sound? Can you hear us?
Steven Butala:
Yeah, it’s in a little bit in and out, but let’s let Zoom catch up for a second.
Michael Aillon:
Okay. Yeah. I’m trying to think here if there’s anything I can do on my end.
Steven Butala:
You know what, it sounds fine now.
Michael Aillon:
Okay. You know what? I am still attached to my corporate VPN. I’m going to disconnect here. Let’s see. That might be helpful. Does that sound any better?
Steven Butala:
Yeah, sounds good.
Michael Aillon:
Does that sound any better? Okay, good.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
Well, hey.
Jill DeWit:
It was tinny. Now it’s good.
Michael Aillon:
Good to see you guys.
Jill DeWit:
Hey, nice shirt. Look at you.
Steven Butala:
Oh, nice.
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh. You are wearing that, and Katherine and I are wearing black. It’s like we totally coordinated this.
Steven Butala:
It’s uniform.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. This is the Land Academy uniform.
Steven Butala:
You know that black light behind you, it’s perfectly positioned. I thought you guys were in separate rooms or separate buildings. It’s right in the center of the screen.
Jill DeWit:
Right. It’s like two rooms.
Katherine Aillon:
Oh.
Steven Butala:
Did you think that?
Jill DeWit:
For a minute I did think that they were in two different rooms. I’m like, wait a minute.
Katherine Aillon:
That now is a lamp from the ’80s.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. I remember those.
Steven Butala:
All right, so you guys know the drill. We’re just going to ask you a bunch of questions. You can ask us stuff, and horsing around’s fun.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, I know.
Steven Butala:
You want to MC the show?
Jill DeWit:
Are you going to do intro? Are you going to do a normal intro, after show, or-
Steven Butala:
No, not really. Nah, we don’t need to. Do you want to?
Jill DeWit:
You just MC.
Steven Butala:
You want me to MC.
Jill DeWit:
I want you to intro and extro.
Steven Butala:
Okay. Now I got to pull the script up.
Jill DeWit:
You don’t have to do the script. All right.
Michael Aillon:
Is our audio catching up correctly? Is there a big lag between both of us?
Steven Butala:
It’s okay. It’s all good.
Jill DeWit:
I think it’s good. I think it’s going to be good. All right, are you all ready?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Steven and Jill here. Or Jill and Steven here. This is The Land Academy Show. Welcome. Happy you are here. Today we are so excited to have with us on our show long-time members and friends, Katherine and Mike Aillon. Welcome.
Michael Aillon:
How are you doing? Thanks. Thanks for having us.
Katherine Aillon:
Thank you for having us.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
I can’t wait to talk to you two about what it’s like to work with your spouse.
Jill DeWit:
Yes.
Katherine Aillon:
Do you have a glass of wine handy?
Jill DeWit:
Right. Yeah. I never do that. I should have some. We’ll start doing that on our women’s calls, Katherine. Because Katherine’s with me on our Land Academy Ladies Group that we have, and I’m going to say on one of them, we’ll make it maybe a Christmas fun thing, everybody has to have a glass of wine, if they drink. That would be fun.
Katherine Aillon:
Love it.
Steven Butala:
What is it like, Mike, to work with your wife?
Michael Aillon:
I’m pretty lucky to work with my wife, actually. Kathy really is a huge asset to the team. She works very hard at what she does. She does a lot of the good due diligence. She really researches some things and digs in deep with some of the county research, so I’m really lucky from that perspective. She’s also really a good copywriter, too. She writes some good copy for our ads. So, she’s much better at that than I am. So, I’m pretty lucky from that perspective.
Katherine Aillon:
Wow, we should be on these more often.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. I have to say, I’ve noticed that, Katherine. I’ve seen some of your property posts on Facebook and things like that. I’m like, that sounds dreamy, I want to buy that, I want to go there, I want to do that. Sounds really good.
Katherine Aillon:
Oh, thank you.
Jill DeWit:
So, give us some of your backstory. Tell us for anyone watching or listening that doesn’t know you how you got here.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. So, I’ll start off with a story here. This real estate venture probably started about, oh, maybe, I want to say five years ago. And started off with basically Kathy was working for a big bank in the US, and she kind of got to a point in the corporate environment where they started to let go of people at the higher pay rates and hire from the bottom. So, after being with the bank for 14 years, she was released from the bank. And we really had to figure out what we were going to do.
And one of the things we wanted to do was replace our income, and just when about that time when she lost her job, we caught wind of one of these house flipping gurus coming to town to sell us, to try to get us into the house business for only a small fortune. And we did attend, and do it, and we kind of bought into their process, but nonetheless, though, we did take the pill and haven’t really turned back since.
So, we were trying to get into the house business from very different angles, and from a wholesale and flipping… We actually did purchase an apartment, or a condo, in a very expensive part of Boston, and we did… It was a light rehab, if you will, and we did rehab that property, and we made a nice profit out of it, and we did it the way that you’re supposed to do it, with other people’s money. It was in a great, absolutely fantastic part of… west of Boston in a great town, in Wellesley, Mass, right next to Wellesley College, actually.
We had limited success. House ventures, if you will, some are successful, but we never had that consistency, and then it was probably about a year or two into that where I heard a podcast about land flipping. I think it was from a member, Joe McCall. Do you guys know Joe McCall?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
So, I heard it from him, and he’s one of the gurus out there, one of the good gurus, actually, and he’s a well-respected guy, and we took some training from him. But he mentioned that, about Land Academy, and then I previously heard about it from Jack Bosch, with another podcast, and Jack was on his podcast. So, basically through them, I found Land Academy. I started listening to the podcasts, and what of course really drew me in was the whole data perspective of it, was getting the big list of names and being able to target those potential sellers easily, and that’s what really attracted me.
So, I was looking at the course, and I think I called in, and this is probably four years ago, and somehow Jill, I talked to you once, and then we hung up the phone. A few days went by, maybe a week or two went by, and then you called me again and was like… It was like Christmas Eve or something, I think it was.
Jill DeWit:
That’s so funny.
Michael Aillon:
And you’re like, “Mike, come on, Mike. What do you think? Is this right for you?” Whatever. And I was asking you a bunch of questions about is this really true, whatever. But you sold me, and it was your personal touch that got me into Land Academy. For that, I am really, really grateful for that.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Michael Aillon:
That was really, really awesome. So, we got into Land Academy. I think I started on January 1st. I took maybe three weeks or so to go through the materials. I got out a mailer. And we were off. And I think I had maybe the first property I bought was in Yavapai County. I still remember that deal, and in fact, it was a piece of land I would really want, still would want, to hang on to, because it was so dreamy. I bought it for $500. It was at the top of a hill. It was unique. It overlooked a bunch of other property, and I bought it for $500, ended up selling to the neighbor for $2,500. So, it was a great priming to the rest of the whole thing. That’s how we got started.
Steven Butala:
Excellent.
Katherine Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Love it.
Steven Butala:
So, how many deals have you done in the last four years, ballpark, and what are the economics, basically?
Michael Aillon:
So, well, we don’t have these hundreds and hundreds of deals like you might hear from Luke or somebody, or Allison in this case. We really are probably only hovering around 85 or 90 deals. In today’s world, what we’re doing today is we’re trying to do four deals a month.
Steven Butala:
That’s great.
Michael Aillon:
My personal goals are four $10,000 profit deals per month.
Steven Butala:
Excellent.
Michael Aillon:
And we’re not quite there yet. We’re around two and a half, three deals a month. We’re trying to pick that up.
Steven Butala:
That’s half a million bucks a year.
Michael Aillon:
Right, half a million bucks. So, now if we could just either double that for next year or just change $10,000 to $20,000, now we’re looking at a million bucks. So, that’s part of the goal there. Same amount of transactions, more or less, just bigger and better property.
Steven Butala:
I don’t want to be boring here, but what do you find the most difficult part of this for you? Again, coming back to working together.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. Oh, coming back working together. What is the most difficult part? Kathy, why don’t you answer.
Katherine Aillon:
I’m an alpha female. I have opinions, and I have a hard time not voicing them. I have to really bite my tongue or cheek. That’s probably the hardest part, and it’s not because I doubt Mike. I do ask a lot of questions, and sometimes that’s not taken the right way. But, I’m very quick to make a decision, and Mike likes to think about it much more… I guess a longer time. I guess we just think differently. We have a very similar goal, we can see our vision very much lined up, but how we get there and how quickly I make a decision versus what Mike makes are just polar opposites.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. In many ways, I think we’re a lot like you and want to be even more like you, where Steve is the data side of it and Jill is the inspiration, people side of the business, and we’re lucky to be like you. I think, Steve, you’ve mentioned this before, this business is really best suited for women, because it’s a communication business, and who’s better at it than women? Curmudgeon old men like us don’t do well in this.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Michael Aillon:
Right?
Steven Butala:
That’s right.
Michael Aillon:
So, we’re lucky to have our spouses here who can really soften the whole side of the business and get things done.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. So, Katherine, are you the primary person… Are you answering the calls, or do you send them out to Pat Live or somebody?
Katherine Aillon:
So, it kind of works this way. We have two VAs. We have one who handles the Facebook marketing and social media part, and we also have a young lady who our calls, when people call, they go to voicemail. Mike has a fairly long script in his voicemail asking for information and things like that. Goes to the voicemail. The VA comes in and monitors the mailbox, goes through all those calls or missed calls, calls them back unless they’re absolutely telling us they don’t want our offer, and they’re clear on that.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Katherine Aillon:
She’ll call them back, the missed calls. She also takes in the calls in the afternoon, like 12:00 to 3:00 every day, from buyers. So, she does that, and then she adds new people to our database as she’s speaking to them. She answers emails from Zillow, Land Watch, all the land websites, those new queries, and then she provides directions and things like that to people who want to go visit the property. So, when she’s not working, the information is taken from the seller. I do a quick gut check, parcel fact, Google Earth spin around to see if I like it. I can get a street view. That’s like a bonus. And then once I’ve done that, I’m pretty happy…
Michael Aillon:
We’re back.
Katherine Aillon:
I don’t know where that cut off, but…
Michael Aillon:
We’ll just keep going, I guess.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Just jump back to your due diligence.
Katherine Aillon:
So, basically, yeah, I do [inaudible 00:16:33]… Oh, yeah. So, we do the due diligence. I do my initial gut check, see if I like it. If I like it, I’ll do a little bit more digging, zoom in on Google Earth, things like that, and then I assign a task for Mike to look at it later in the evening to say if he thinks it’s equally nice, and then if we agree, I immediately do my due diligence, zoning, all that kind of stuff, read the deeds. Basically from that point all the way through the closing, I’m buying and selling.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Cool. Yeah, it is good. You guys do divide it up pretty similarly to us.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, yeah, that’s good.
Jill DeWit:
Because I like that.
Steven Butala:
When we first started out, we were tripping all over each other, because I was used to doing everything. And I didn’t know what Jill’s skill was. Did you guys do that at first, or did you work it out pretty quickly?
Michael Aillon:
When I first started after Jill got me onboard, I did it for a year about by myself.
Steven Butala:
Okay.
Michael Aillon:
Because Kathy, we were still entrenched in the house business. We were still trying to make it work. Still believed in houses. And we had spent money there, did some coaching and we were in some good groups, and other people really doing well in that house business, but we just couldn’t really make it work for us. In the house business, when the phone rings and somebody says yes, you have to drop what you’re doing and go out and see the house. And then when I’m working a job, it’s just not working anymore. Kathy’s here with our daughter. You just can’t just leave.
And furthermore, she didn’t like running off to some house with who knows who’s there, and crawling through some dirty house to say, “I’m going to give you an offer.” So, the business is just lousy in that perspective.
Katherine Aillon:
It wasn’t a good fit. I got stuck in a house, trapped in an old, dingy house, and a big pit bull on the outside of the door barking at me, so that was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I said, okay, I’m not doing this anymore.
Jill DeWit:
Just send you with a bodyguard.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Geez.
Jill DeWit:
I understand totally. So, yeah. So, how long ago was the last house that you did?
Michael Aillon:
The last house we did? Well, let’s see. I think we’ve been in Land Academy now for… I think three and a half years, or four years. I’m not really sure.
Katherine Aillon:
It’s about two and a half. I think we onboarded about two and a half years ago.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah.
Katherine Aillon:
I love it.
Michael Aillon:
And so, we probably did our last house maybe… Let’s call it four years ago. It was probably a wholesale deal. We didn’t do a whole bunch of business. We did do some lease option deals. And we still have one going on, actually, that materialized three years ago and it’s still going on. But we’ve got a couple other things brewing, for sure.
Jill DeWit:
The good news is, you learned on something way more difficult, so I’m sure the transition over to just, this is all I have to do, you mean I don’t have to arrange an inspection and get the power turned on? Or whatever. Or worry about a pit bull and being stuck in a house. There’s nothing like that. So, this is probably like, “Ah. A breath of fresh air.” That’s what it is for me. Sometimes, I know we always have things like that in the works and other things that he’s working on that are more difficult, but also profitable, but my heart and soul’s in land, too. At the end of the day, I can count on it.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. You know what I love about it, too, is that I feel like I’m a milk salesman, or I sell bread, something wholesome. Like everybody needs bread, right? It’s pure, it’s innocent, everybody needs it. How can you go wrong with it, right? It’s not like you’re pushing on someone who doesn’t really need or doesn’t want it, doesn’t fit, wrong color. It’s just simple.
Steven Butala:
Especially if it’s priced right. If it’s a great deal for us and it’s a great deal for the person who’s buying it, I feel great about the deal, all the way around.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. For sure.
Katherine Aillon:
And also, too, after people buy the land, sometimes we… We don’t always get videos. We try really hard to get a testimonial, but it’s hard to get videos. I don’t know. But we do get a lot of emails, and we have one gentleman in particular who bought a property probably five months ago from us, and he was retired, and he was going out and buying heavy equipment. He dug a road into the property. He sends me emails with all his updates, and he’s going to build a dream home with a jacuzzi to watch over the land below, and he keeps sending me pictures, just no video.
Jill DeWit:
That’s so sweet.
Michael Aillon:
We’re trying to get video testimonial from our land buyers. We have a few that we can put together on our webpage, so those are good. Just trying to get more.
Steven Butala:
The only way that’s ever worked for us-
Katherine Aillon:
I try to bribe them.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, bribe them. Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. The only way it’s ever worked for us is to pay them, and then have a crew go out there, a local crew, that’ll set it up and light it and have a script for the crew to ask them, and in the end, it just… We never thought that it paid out the way that it should.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. I can see how that would be a good way to do it, is to pay them. There are some apps out there that we’re trying to get them to do. there was a website called SoTellUs.com, I think it is, and it’s like a custom review website, if you will, and it’s pretty powerful in the house business. It allows customers to leave video testimonial, so I’m thinking about that as maybe something we want to check out. The more video testimonials, the better. And as you know, if you’ve seen the LANDiO’s website, his video testimonials are just amazing.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, he does a great job.
Katherine Aillon:
Well, I send them cards with two big, giant brownies, and the card asking for a video testimonial after all the closings, and they eat the brownies and say thank you, but we rarely get a video.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, we’re trying a new thing with our buyers, is that we send them brownies through SendOutCards.com, and-
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
Michael Aillon:
… we also do that with our [inaudible 00:23:17], too. So, it’s one of those customer appreciation types of websites. It’s pretty popular with realtors in terms of sending out cards and keeping those relationships going with people, and I’ve taken that advice from a local realtor here.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
Good.
Jill DeWit:
That’s one of the things that, too, things come up later on. Now and then, a deed gets goofed up, or something was wrong, so there’s other reasons you want to have them there and available. And then also, you’d be surprised how many of them might be repeat buyers.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Once they like you, they’re going to be like, “You know…” Or even just word-of-mouth, telling other people, “You want some land, I have a guy.” It’s really cool.
Katherine Aillon:
Yeah. And we’ve done that with one of our attorneys, or actually two of our attorneys. I sent them, Harry and David, thank yous, because a couple of our attorneys and title companies we’ve really used heavy and really pushed them. We had a dedicated girl at one of the title companies who was just for us because we were getting so much business, I just felt like we should say thank you.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, didn’t we send them a fruit basket for the whole office or something?
Katherine Aillon:
Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve done that. I’ve hand-delivered stuff to the county.
Steven Butala:
Oh, yeah.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. It’s important, especially… Yeah. Then when you call, they answer.
Katherine Aillon:
Exactly.
Jill DeWit:
That’s the point.
Katherine Aillon:
They remember the food.
Jill DeWit:
Awesome. Good. So, your goals going forward, you think you’ll just go for a bigger dollar? What about bigger dollar and more?
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, we’re trying to increase the velocity with bigger deals, a few more deals, and it all comes back to mail, of course. I really have to get more mail out, and that’s probably the biggest bottleneck, is getting more mail out. Finding areas that you really want to send mail to, and then sending that mail, scrubbing it all out and actually getting it in the mail. We’re trying to understand from other people in Land Academy what type of volume does it take in order to get to have two or three of these, because right now, we’re really not at that level where we’re saying… we’re beginning to pick and choose. If you come in, we buy them, or we can kind of put them to the side, but there’s still that problem, if you will, that we kind of feel like we’re forced to buy something from a mailer, and I know that’s a bad idea. You don’t want to be in that situation.
Steven Butala:
How much do you guys send out a month?
Michael Aillon:
I think we’re probably around 4,000 a month, 5,000, and I think that really needs to go to like 8,000. So, that’s what I need to do.
Jill DeWit:
It’s way more fun having too many deals, and just going, “Whoa.”
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
“What do I do with all these?” So, yeah, I would definitely crank it. It sounds like you guys… You got this.
Steven Butala:
You’ve got it set up.
Jill DeWit:
You’re not new.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
You can crank it.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. We’re got a pretty good system in place with our podium system, and I’ve spent some time and money on developing a process in Excel that I can import a Real Quest process, and it mostly prices it out pretty good. And then I’ll spend an hour or two picking through it and fine tuning it, and then I’ll be matching it up, and then I can send it out. But it takes a while. I think picking the location is probably the biggest problem. We try to focus on areas that are green, if you will.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Yeah, I understand.
Michael Aillon:
[crosstalk 00:27:19] green.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s the best.
Steven Butala:
Yep.
Jill DeWit:
That’s the thing, if you focus on that, and then you stick with the four or now five As, you can’t go wrong, kind of thing.
Katherine Aillon:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
Do you guys sell property on there MLS, just for fun?
Michael Aillon:
We do.
Katherine Aillon:
We actually, we don’t do it on a regular basis. We periodically will list it with a realtor, or we’ll put it on a flat fee MLS. But sometimes you get the property, and it’s just… It’s dreamy, but it’s got challenges, but you know eventually somebody’s going to buy it. But what I do try to do is when we’re… Because I talk to so many people every day, is when I start noticing a pattern of where people are coming from, I immediately go out there and say, “Okay, they’re coming from here, and they’re looking here,” and I try to help Mike with that a little bit as far as picking the counties. But he’s mostly on that side. He puts together the mail and sends it out.
Michael Aillon:
With regards to MLS, we are actually… This is the deal we wanted to tell you about. This is going to be one of our biggest deals yet. We have a deal in North Carolina that just, I think only yesterday, we accepted an offer for $75,000, and we bought that for 20, so we’re very excited about that.
Steven Butala:
Excellent.
Jill DeWit:
Nice.
Michael Aillon:
We did put that in through a Mossy Oak dealer, and that was the first time using Mossy Oak, so everybody knows Mossy Oak’s pretty expensive. They’re going to be taking 10% of that. It started off about 60 days ago… Well, we had bought the property. I couldn’t believe the price was getting it at. It was actually two lots together, and we bought it for 20 in Buncombe, County, which is where Asheville is, right? And I was trying to figure out the price on how I was going to market it, and I said to myself, “You know, maybe this one I should bring in an expert on.” And, I did that.
And, this is about the time where I was hearing the podcast about working with Mossy Oak or White Tail or something like that, or a good realtor. So, I went to the Mossy Oak website, went to Buncombe County, North Carolina, and I basically just found the guy who had the most listings, and I reached out to him, I gave him a call, and he seemed like a great guy. I said, “Okay, let’s just do it. Let’s list it.” He initially, to my surprised, listed it at $93,000.
Jill DeWit:
That’s great.
Michael Aillon:
And I was like, “Wow, that’s really high.” But we didn’t get any offers. We lowered it to about $86,000, $85,000, and then we got an offer about 60 days later for $65,000, which was kind of low, but we’re coming into the holidays, and over the winter, and I was thinking, “Gee, maybe we should just accept 68 or 70,” and he said, “75, I’m pretty confident they’ll take it. 75.” I said, “Okay, whatever you say.” And he went, and he renegotiated. 75, that’s what it was. And they accepted at 75. Now, there are some contingencies on it. They’re going to do a part test, and it won’t close until January, but that’s where we’re at.
Katherine Aillon:
That’s okay.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
So, it’s a real good experience so far from putting it in the MLS.
Katherine Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
That’s awesome.
Steven Butala:
For a higher priced property like that, and stop me if I’m wrong here, we’ve had nothing but positive success stories just like that with brokers that are specialization brokers.
Jill DeWit:
I’m happy to pay the 10%.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
And this podcast, you guys were bringing the good luck here, because we’re closing on another deal… This month is going to be a big deal for us, or the next weeks. So, Kathy’s going to tell us about the next deal that we just got an offer on. Go ahead, Kathy.
Katherine Aillon:
So, I’m super excited about this one. so, historically, when we get a photographer out there and they take pictures, it’s real vacant land, it’s middle of nowhere, there’s nobody, it’s a deer going by. This property was a little bit more close to city on a busier road, and I asked the gentleman taking the photos, I said, “Please put a For Sale By Owner sign, put my phone number, my name on it,” da, da, da. We hadn’t even closed on it yet. We started, within, I don’t know, 19 to 24 hours, we probably got 30 calls on it. We got five offers in less than a week. Bidding wars. And we hadn’t even closed on it yet. And they’re like, “Do you own it?” And I’m like, “Yes.”
Steven Butala:
So, Michael, back to what you were saying, I think this is a direct result of how picky you are. I think you just want to make sure that instead of trying to buy five units out of a mailer, you buy one or two.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. This one was another one. This one was another one in North Carolina. A little more to the story on that, like Kathy said, we put a For Sale… We sent out a photographer down, and our new thing is to have that photographer go to Home Depot, get a For Sale sign, and when they visit the property, they stick it in on the road. Well, this property gets a lot of road traffic, and we get… I’ll let Kathy finish the story.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I want to hear.
Michael Aillon:
But initially, we were thinking we’d buy it for 10 and we’d sell it for 30 or 32.
Katherine Aillon:
We didn’t have a price, even.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, we didn’t have a price even. And then the neighbors started calling us very quickly, and Kathy, continue the story.
Katherine Aillon:
Oh, so we didn’t have… I didn’t expect any calls because we never get calls that quickly. So, they were like, “What are you asking for the property?” And I’m just saying, “30-ish, but you tell me what you think it’s worth.” And so, we got a bunch of offers, and I started collecting them. We had people giving us highest and best and so on, and then finally, this one guy came back to us, and he said, “Okay, I want to buy it. I want this dollar amount, but I’d like owner financing.” And so, we went back and forth with the terms, and it got better and better as the days went on. And he’s a developer, and he wants to change the zoning because there’s no zoning in this particular area, so he can do half commercial, half residential, because there’s access points from both sides.
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Katherine Aillon:
And anyway, long story short, we didn’t do the owner financing because we said let’s do velocity, and it’ll make it cleaner and easier for this gentleman to develop it. So, we closed on it yesterday, and we recorded yesterday, or Monday, on the 30th, and we sent the first agreement after selling it last night over to the attorney again, and he gave us $65,000 cash.
Jill DeWit:
Nice.
Steven Butala:
Nice.
Katherine Aillon:
So, we bought it for 11, we’re selling it for 65.
Jill DeWit:
Nice.
Steven Butala:
Wow, you guys are-
Katherine Aillon:
So, it’s like, yes.
Michael Aillon:
That would be our biggest [crosstalk 00:34:30].
Jill DeWit:
$5 Home Depot sign and a Sharpie pen and a hammer.
Steven Butala:
Well, at $50,000, if you’re going to net 50, all you need to do is 10 deals to make half a mil.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, you’re right. And you know what was… I’ll real quickly ask you to, Steve, on this one, this deal started, this guy… The neighbors were at 32, then it went to 35… A realtor was saying 35. Then it went to 39. Then it went to 55 with financing from one neighbor.
Jill DeWit:
Wow.
Michael Aillon:
Then this guy called up, he says, “I’ll take it for 100.” Whoa, right?
Jill DeWit:
Holy cow.
Katherine Aillon:
I know.
Michael Aillon:
We’re like, “What? 100?” 100k cash. Done. Great. Well, he goes out there the next few days, he walks the property, he’s like, “I can’t do 100, I’m sorry, I’m backing out.” Fine. Well, he was doing it with his brother, okay? His brother later on says, “I’ll do 100, owner financing, I’ll put $20,000 grand, $1,000 a month, and with a balloon payment in one year,” at $100,000.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, wow. Okay.
Michael Aillon:
Now, I almost, almost took this, but at the end of the day, my partners in Land Academy, all my friends in Land Academy were saying, “Take the money. Take the 65.”
Steven Butala:
Yeah. I wouldn’t do the deal, would you?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
We wouldn’t even have to talk about it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
You did the right thing.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Michael Aillon:
You would take the cash?
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Take the cash.
Michael Aillon:
And I’m glad you said that. And, I was thinking about this in my head, and I was thinking, “What would Steve say?” What would Jesus do? And, it comes down to this velocity thing, like, I was thinking, Michael Phelps ran through my head, Michael Phelps, the swimmer. If he’s plowing through water, in order for him to pick up speed, he just has to paddle harder. That water resistance is still stacking up against him as he’s trying to get his body through the water. If you want to be the top dog, you just got to power really hard, harder and harder and harder and harder if you’re going to be the guy, rather than trying to… Michael Phelps isn’t trying to say, “Well, maybe I should improve my swimsuit or fix my cap to save a few bucks,” or something like that. No. Just paddle harder, and then you’re going to be the winner.
Jill DeWit:
I love it. That’s a great story.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
As we kind of get close to getting to the end here, do you have any questions or anything you want to ask us?
Michael Aillon:
Oh. You know, I think the thing we wanted to ask you is just… Steve, when we saw you last time was two years ago, and we were at the bar, and it was like 1:00 in the morning. We both had about 10 drinks in us.
Katherine Aillon:
It was really just one. Just one [inaudible 00:37:36].
Michael Aillon:
And I said to you, “Steve, how do I get out of second gear?”
Steven Butala:
I remember this. I do remember this conversation.
Jill DeWit:
It is so great.
Michael Aillon:
It’s still somewhat true today. How do I get out of second gear? And, because it’s still our group here, it’s just basically me and Kathy doing everything, I’m still trying to figure out how do I really up my game to somebody like the other leaders in Land Academy, like Laurie or Luke. How do I get to that right mindset? What is it I got to do? Is it just power through it as Michael Phelps does, and just double my mail, double my workout? I don’t know.
Jill DeWit:
That’s what I would do. I would turn up the faucet, and you’re just going to figure out how to take in more water. You’ll figure it out really fast. The best thing that’ll happen, you’ll have so many wonderful deals that you can choose… You’ll just only pick the really, really great deals, kind of thing, and you’ll be forced to be busy, and maybe hire more staff, and just get it going.
Steven Butala:
Jill and I just recorded a podcast today, which will air on Friday, actually, because we’re behind, and she said, “I’m the kind of the person who will walk up to a cliff and throw my clothes off and jump in.” And I said, “Well, I’m the kind of the person that probably is going to watch 10 or 15 or 20 other people do it, see where they land, and analyze the whole thing, but then I’m going in for sure.” And then she said, “There’s a lot of people. Most people won’t ever even get out of the car-
Jill DeWit:
They can’t get out of the car.
Steven Butala:
… and consider this.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
And so, we all could be a little bit more like Jill, just get in there and just find out what’s going to happen.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. And I’m really grateful for the women’s group, because Jill, your inspiration is really going to help Kathy-
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Michael Aillon:
… elevate our business here. Because I’m stuck in my day job. My day job is the biggest hurdle right now. So, for us to really move ahead, I’ve already told Kathy, a lot of it’s going to be on her shoulders.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
We’re launching really soon here, and we’re calling it around the office the investors only package, where there’s so many people now that just want to do the money part, and there’s so many people like us who are comfortable doing the mail, have no problem with it. But I think when money becomes no issue, and you can identify some type of process once you get a great deal, or even if it’s a marginal deal, one that you wouldn’t probably spend your own money on, but you’ll use an investor for it and fully say it’s going to take six months instead of 20 minutes to sell this… So, we’re putting that all together now, too, at request. There’s so many people that just want to be money people. I think that Jill and I burn through cash, as we should, in and out, and in and out, and it’s constantly never at a right level. We always have either too much money or too much real estate. And so, I think partnershipping. If I ask that question of myself, I would say, you know what? We need to partnership way more deals.
Jill DeWit:
I would say, too-
Steven Butala:
Big, huge deals.
Jill DeWit:
You guys are a perfect example for anyone who’s watching or listening to this right now, we’re all past the land works, we’re all past the doing all this stuff. It’s nothing about any of that. And it’s so great that you guys are at this point where, “I want my company even bigger.” What a great problem to have. We’re not worried about putting food on the table.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Or what a deed looks like, anything which we all know we help everybody get there. So, now it’s like that, and I’m so happy and excited and flattered that maybe with our little Land Academy ladies group, we’ll just be quietly building a nice little company, Michael, and you’re just going to turn around and go, “What’s going on over there?” And she’s going to say, “You’re out. I only need you for this little thing. You’re the data person, and I’ve got everything else.” And it’s, here’s what we’re doing.
Steven Butala:
That’s my dream.
Jill DeWit:
I know. Exactly. [crosstalk 00:41:46] to say, “I only need this one thing from you once a month.” Done.
Steven Butala:
And then I would just teach, too.
Jill DeWit:
That too.
Steven Butala:
That would be the best.
Michael Aillon:
I firmly believe that women are better in this type of business, and in most work these days, than men are, because most of it is process-oriented or people-driven. And, it’s not just about labor anymore. Maybe men outshined women at one point in history. Now, it’s just communications and that type of thing, and this is… I think women are better at this.
Jill DeWit:
Cool.
Katherine Aillon:
I think men have a lot of strengths as well. I don’t think women, we’re all… I think we definitely, it’s divided, like he’s very good at negotiations and closing the deal, and that’s where I’m a little weaker. I always just say, “Please give me a number.” Like, “What’s our bottom number?” And then I’ll take care of it from there. And make sure we don’t go below that number on selling. But, there’s areas where I can sweet talk my way out of a bad conversation pretty quickly.
Michael Aillon:
This last deal for $65,000, we were all prepared to double our money. We bought it for 10 or 12. We were going to sell it for 32, 35. Okay. Great. Not a great deal in the books. But we kept our mouths shut, and we started asking people, “Well, what is it worth to you?”
Jill DeWit:
Yep.
Michael Aillon:
32, 33, 35, 39, 55, turned into 100, which eventually came back to 65. It was like, wow.
Katherine Aillon:
And we did [inaudible 00:43:31] offers from our sign, as someone stole the sign.
Jill DeWit:
That’s hilarious.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, so-
Jill DeWit:
Oh my gosh.
Michael Aillon:
To finish up, though, yeah, [inaudible 00:43:40] the inspiration to go big, and those types of things, and I guess I just have to turn on the faucet, create a problem for myself.
Jill DeWit:
You got it. Well, we’re right here. I love it. Do you want to wrap us up?
Steven Butala:
It was great talking to you guys. I’m so glad… I really remember having a consultant call with you guys, and you were just frustrated as hell really early on, and I’m so glad it worked out for you.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for coming on the show.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah, yeah, anytime.
Jill DeWit:
Happy to catch up with you, and I got to talk to Katherine [crosstalk 00:44:15].
Katherine Aillon:
Thanks for inviting us.
Michael Aillon:
Yeah. Looking forward to when we can all get together again in Puerto Vallarta.
Jill DeWit:
Right? All right, I like that idea. Exactly. Thank you again.
Steven Butala:
You can close it.
Jill DeWit:
How do we close it?
Steven Butala:
Happy you could join us today, and we don’t have a script in front of us.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
Because we’re not professional actors.
Jill DeWit:
We’re winging it.
Steven Butala:
But we had a wonderful conversation with the Aillons here, and we’ll see you next time.
Michael Aillon:
Thank you all.
Katherine Aillon:
Thank you.
Steven Butala:
Thanks, guys. All right.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Katherine Aillon:
Bye.
Steven Butala:
Talk to you soon.
Jill DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
bye.
Jill DeWit:
bye.
Michael Aillon:
bye.
—————————————-
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.
The BuWit Family of Companies include:
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.
