Providing Information Instead of Directly Selling (LA 1418)
Providing Information Instead of Directly Selling (LA 1418)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Happy Friday.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today. Jill and I talk about providing information instead of directly selling. I always save the Friday shows for the week. The one that’s my favorite.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I like this. This is good. Cool.
Steven Jack 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:
Sandy wrote, “When analyzing counties, what is a good substitute for Redfin properties sold for the counties that are not listed on Redfin? Thanks so much.” Sandy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Great question. Here’s how it works. You can get data all over the place. Realtor.com is a great place to go to get visual data. They don’t have a good download function at all, and that’s for good reason. They just want you to look at it. They don’t want you to manipulate it, which is understandable because they own the MLS. The real estate environment in the entire country is made up of about 344 separate little MLS’s. So Phoenix has like two and then Arizona, I’m just picking on Arizona because I know, there’s, I don’t know, eight or 10 more in different regions. And some of them choose to participate with Redfin and some of them don’t and inevitably, most of the urban counties that choose to participate. So what do we deal in? Rural real estate.
So Redfin doesn’t cover everything. Redfin has fantastic data and the download capabilities are amazing. And the data that they share is truly open source. We use it every single day in some capacity, I’m on there looking at analyzing counties or if we’re buying stuff, whatever. So, but it’s spotty. The coverage is spotty. Zillow has amazing data, but it’s also, it’s got holes in it. So what do you do? You use them all. And I can almost guarantee, and this is the takeaway on this, that two months from now and certainly a year from now, some other great source will pop up that’s downloadable and fantastic. Jill and I are licensed providers. LandAcademy is licensed providers for DataTree, which is an amazing place to get data. It’s not entirely free, but I’ll tell you, when you get it, it’s right. And TitlePro, which is Black Knight. And then RealQuest, the three major professional data providers, the ones that I mentioned before are applications on the internet that are kind of designed for everybody. So in some capacity, I use those all the time. As a LandAcademy member and I’m not selling anything here at all. It’s providing information because that’s the name of the show. We provide all that. And it’s hard to lose when you have that much data power behind you.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You don’t rely on just one source is the point. Even and we do that, like you talked about that often when you’re picking counties, that’s, I’m sure that’s what Sandy is doing here doing the red, yellow, green test. So when you’ll pull up this resource and you’ll double check it with that resource. And I do that, even with doing my due diligence, I’ll look a couple of different places sometimes to confirm what I’m looking at is right.
Steven Jack Butala:
When you look at two data sources in general, I’m asking you for real. How often do you find discrepancies?
Jill DeWit:
Not very often.
Steven Jack Butala:
Me, too.
Jill DeWit:
It just makes you feel good.
Steven Jack Butala:
And when you do, it’s like, “Okay, well there’s a problem.” There really is a problem.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, providing information instead of directly selling. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. So this is about selling land and I would argue that it shouldn’t be this hard. And that’s why we wanted to talk about this today. And like Steven just said, he gave a different situation earlier in the week about providing information when he was talking about, was it a used car guy or even just, we were talking about real estate people that we chose.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just agents.
Jill DeWit:
They were providing information as a way for us to, like, they wanted to get us as clients, build trust with us that way and get us as clients. So this is a little bit different. I want to talk about providing information when you’re selling a property. You’re posting and your description of the property and the actual property itself and the price should be so transparent and clear and wonderful that there really isn’t much selling to do. That’s really how it should go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, said. That’s a great opener, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. And people go, “What are you talking about?” And I can prove this because not only do we, but I have hundreds of people with me in LandAcademy that have people in middle of the night, they never even talked to them. They check out, put their credit card in and buy a property. And there’s no talking about it. The next thing a page pops up in that and they fill in what their deed information is, how they want the deed done. And the deeds in the mail. You can have a transaction like that, that there’s just no talking. And that’s the perfect scenario. So, when people do call, because sometimes they do and I’m dealing with a lot right now, as a matter of fact, I’m actually personally involved. I have some transactions that are going directly to my phone because I want to sell these babies. They are kind of mine. And it’s so easy. When the calls come in, all I’m doing is making sure they’d… Usually they see the posting. That’s how they found me. I’m just reiterating the reason why I fell in love with the property, what the attributes are that I saw, hey, this one’s mobile friendly and cannabis friendly, whatever it is and why it’s such a good deal. That’s really, I’m not really selling.
Steven Jack Butala:
The deal should speak for itself. In fact, I’ve put that on signs in the past, in really rural areas, putting up a sign, believe it or not is I still a great way to sell property because people that are around there have real estate or live around that land are very… There’s a high degree of percentage that they’re going to buy it. So if you say, 22 acres for sale, call this number, the deal speaks for itself. You’re going to get a huge response on that sign. That’s my point here. These deals… We don’t do a deal unless it speaks for itself. If we have to sell it, really sell it, hard to get it, she’s got to get on the phone as well as stuff, we won’t buy it.
Jill DeWit:
We won’t. Yeah, yeah. Or we won’t buy it or it’s just going to be a problem. So usually when they’re calling too, by the way, they’re calling now, all you’re really selling is you. You’re not selling…. If you did it all correctly and they pick up the phone and call, now they’re confirming you’re a real person and try to figure out how easily the deal is going to get done.
Steven Jack Butala:
Right.
Jill DeWit:
That’s really kind of it and they want to make sure you’re not a nut and it’s going to be an easy transaction. The goal here is to make sure that you are properly relaying, whether it’s on the phone or in the posting, everything about the property. If they call, you just want to make sure they’re a good fit. If they’re a hiker, you’re not selling them this infill lot. And if they want an infill lot, you’re not selling them this 20 acre parcel way over here. That’s not what they want. [crosstalk 00:07:23].
Steven Jack Butala:
Or farmland.
Jill DeWit:
You’re trying to find out because what are you… This property is great for ABC and D. That’s what you should be saying. They’re going to go. “Yippie kai yay. That’s what I thought. That’s exactly what I want.” That’s how you want it to go. And if you say this property is good for ABC and D, they go, “Oh, shucks, I don’t have four wheel drive and my wife would never do it. I didn’t know it was that far away.” It’s not a good fit. Let’s move on. That’s how it should go.
And here’s my last point. And we can talk about this. If you sell somebody, you’re like hardcore, “Next person that calls me on this property, watch me. I’m going to sell them. They don’t even know it, but they’re going to buy it.” If you sell them something that they don’t want and they don’t need, it will come back. Last thing you do is want to hard sell them on the phone and just tell them everything they want to hear. “Oh, sure. I’m sure you’re Smart car can make it there.” Can you imagine?
“Sure, just head on out there with a picnic and your Smart car, it’s going to be great. Have a good time.” And they get out there and go, “What the heck?” That’s not going to work. That’s never going to happen. And especially, you sell them on this. They give you the money and they drive out there in their Smart car. They’re going to be pissed off at you, calling you from the property, from the first place they got cell service yelling at you, going, “This is not what I wanted.” And you get to undo all that. You don’t want to do that. You want them to be thrilled about this. You want them to go out there. And because a lot of our transactions as us, people don’t believe this happens, but there’s so many transactions that we always buy them sight unseen, but we even sell them sight unseen so that’s another reason we got to make it have good pictures and everything. You want them to go out there and go, “Yep. This is exactly what I thought it was. And actually, as I’m standing here, the view is even cooler than the way I thought it was going to be. Well, the pictures didn’t properly convey how cool that stream is.”
By the way I have a property yesterday… Let me throw this in here. I didn’t even know that this guy called me, he’s going to buy this. It’s hilarious. We’ve talked three days in a row, his uncles and [inaudible 00:09:30], I’m sure they’re just moving money around at this point. He’s like, he’s the one that’s so good at mapping and said, “By the way, there no fence, that was the one down the road. I know where yours is.” And he said, “There’s kind of like a stream on this.” I’m like, “That’s even better. I didn’t even know there was a stream on there. I love it even more now.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Now, he’s providing information to us.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s done. When that happens, we’re all done.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You want to give all the information. You want to tell a little story about potentially what’s possible, and then you want to shove it out there in the world and whatever… This is how we buy property too, and have it come back, have the person that choose that property, not the other way around. You don’t go choose the property that’s going to buy the property, the person that’s going to buy the property, that person chooses that property. And then they call Jill and make sure we’re not crooks. It’s that. And the same thing happens with acquisitions. And this didn’t happen on accident.
If you look at our template mailer on O2O on offers to owners, which it’s free, you can go download it. That template really informs the person who already owns the property. It’s very specific. “Hey, Mr. Jones, we’re interested in buying your 5.23 acre property in XYZ County. Looks like you purchased it in whatever date. We’re interested in buying it for X.” And then we’d provide more information about ourselves. When somebody gets that, you have to open it and read it, like, “How did these people know all this stuff about this land that I own?” And so that’s what a mail merge is for so you’re providing… A lot of people, call us back and say, “How the heck did you get this information? And I looked it up and you’re right. And you know more about the property than I do. How’s that possible?” That is a really a great first impression that you care enough, instead of doing what I see everybody else do on the internet with land, “Hey, Mr. Jones, I want to buy a property in Cochise County.”
Jill DeWit:
If that. Sometimes it’s really neutral.
Steven Jack Butala:
Like I want to buy a property.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
I hear current occupant. Yeah. By the way, there’s no current occupant on land. Yeah. So it really, these details-
Jill DeWit:
That’s funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
These details really matter.
Jill DeWit:
That’s actually a really funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Smart car.
Jill DeWit:
You like may Smart car?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you have a Smart car, call me and I’ll put your Smart car in my F450, and go look at the property.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Take that out there. Roll it in the back of a real truck, a real car.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re still the girl for me.
Jill DeWit:
It’s awesome. Yeah. And the right buyer too, by the way, is not going to say, “You’re not going to meet me there?” Why, what is the point of that? Yep. There it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know what else cracks me up about perc tests. So this is a big thing now. I don’t know why. It never was in my whole career. And for the last year. If someone’s interested in a piece of land and they ask you if it percs, just hang the phone up. [crosstalk 00:12:35] And here’s why, because they can go out and do a perc test themselves. They can do all… That’s what I would do. We would do all this stuff and then we would call a person and say, “How do you want to do this deal? Let’s get it done. I did already did all my due diligence. And it took two days and I’m ready to buy it.”
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. That’s the way it should be. You do your research ahead of time. If you’re buying a car, you do your research. You know what the gas mileage is, you know how far the electric range is and that, and then you go into buy it. You don’t… I’m with you. We’re on the same page, babe.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the LandAcademy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
I was trying to think of a, I was really trying to think of a car, a car that is not easily, you can’t easily traverse over a lot of terrain and Smart car came to mind.
Steven Jack Butala:
We know now more than ever, you can get the vast majority of questions or information that you want about anything on the internet. And then it just becomes finding, doing the deal. You don’t walk onto a car lot and say to the sales sales guy, “So it doesn’t have air conditioning? What’s the towing capacity?” You should know all that stuff. You just want to go in there and get about the right price.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s information. You just… All this information is available. There’s, the salesman, which is, the further we get into this information age, the more it’s just, I love it.
Jill DeWit:
It’s easier.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. For smart people. It’s just great.
Jill DeWit:
It is. It’s true. I think my Vespa tires, do you think things are bigger or smaller than that on a Smart car?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know. I don’t know anything about those Smart cars.
Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, I love the fuel efficiency.
Jill DeWit:
I think my Vespa tires are bigger. I’m going to check it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not knocking Smart cars. I think it’s great for the environment and all kinds of stuff. It’s just not the right vehicle to live in a rural county.
Jill DeWit:
No. If I lived in downtown San Francisco, I’d have a Smart car, right? Because, or no car, that’s even better. Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button. And please give us some feedback on the shows you love.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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