Cool Things You Find When You Dig a Little Deeper (LA 1504)

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Cool Things You Find When You Dig a Little Deeper (LA 1504)

Cool Things You Find When You Dig a Little Deeper (LA 1504)

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 awesome Scottsdale, Arizona.

Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about cool things you find when you dig a little deeper into some of the Land Academy tools.

Jill DeWit:
Yep. Well, actually it’s dig a little deeper and due diligence, and things like that. So we’ll help you out.

Steven Butala:
All week. These are…

Jill DeWit:
Jill and Aaron topics!

Steven Butala:
They’re customer service driven topics that, somewhat, clearly out of frustration…

Jill DeWit:
Jill and Aaron sat down, let’s truth time it here! Jill and Aaron sat down the other day and said, we’re picking the topics this week. And you said, go for it.

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. And speaking of cool things, when you dig a little deeper, join us on Discord. If you’re a Land Academy member, it’s turning out to be one of the most amazing tools or decisions that we’ve made. It’s really helping a lot of people. Me included.

Jill DeWit:
Well, it’s like Land Investors. It’s another version of a way to get stuff answered really fast.

Steven Butala:
Yep.

Jill DeWit:
So the only thing that I have to say real quick is, the Search and the things like that, and Discord, are not like a website. So I think you should use both. So don’t forget landinvestors.com. So, all right, this question, and this comment came from Discord, so Miguel wrote, “Any suggestions as to what I should be doing while waiting on my next mailer to hit? Thanks in advance.” This is so funny. You get all excited. The mail goes out and now you’re just sitting. And you’re like “Should I just sit here and wait and watch the phone to ring?” Nope, you should be getting stuff ready to go. You want to talk?

Steven Butala:
Go ahead. I mean, I have a couple of things.

Jill DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Butala:
But I bet mine are real different.

Jill DeWit:
Well, it was funny. One thing that one person wrote in there I’ve chimed in, which was right, they’re like “Yeah, start picking the next County!”

Steven Butala:
That’s it. That’s my answer!

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Start thinking for the next one, which is true. But the other thing you should be doing is making sure you’re ready for the calls to come in. Do you know when the calls come in, the questions you’re going to ask the sellers? Great. You know, go get my cheat sheet on Land Investors. Print that out. Have a couple of copies on your desk. Maybe 10, maybe 50. I don’t know. So when the calls come in, you right away can grab that sheet and go all right, I know exactly what to ask this person when they call.

Jill DeWit:
Also, how’s it going to flow? Where are you going to put all the information? Do you have a spreadsheet set up even just starting there? I would definitely just start with a great spreadsheet. Take the information that’s on my cheat sheet (go to land investors and scroll down on the left!) It says “Jill’s inbound seller checklist”, something like that. Take those columns and make a spreadsheet with all of the state, County, APN. Because once you get all that stuff on the sheet, you need to put it into your spreadsheet. So you could start the process here of going through all the properties. You know, what’s going to be next? Doing your due diligence. What’s going to be next? Buying the property. What’s going to be next? Posting the property. What’s going to be next? Selling the property.

Jill DeWit:
So think ahead about the process, everything that you’re going to do here and start building out your sheet and the columns. Think about… The area that you sent, by the way, you know you were searching for five acre properties in Northern California, whatever it was, whatever County, let’s start thinking ahead, calling around that area, finding photographers, finding drone guys, you’re going to need that next. Someone that you may have to do it before you even buy it. Start getting some photos and things to get eyes on it. So lineup those guys, get the calls. How about title companies? Think about who you’re going to use when you close a deal, maybe you’re going to go through title and do all that. So start calling around, seeing who’s available. Find someone that you connect with, how much they’re going to charge, that kind of a thing. You want to answer now?

Steven Butala:
Set up your file sharing system because chances are, if you’re brand new, it’s your first mailer. That’s probably why you’re asking this Miguel. Set up your file sharing system. I would recommend using Google Drive in the beginning, because it’s free. And at some point you’re going to get so busy that you’re going to have to hire VAs or something so that you can share the files with them. So you can get that going. And I can’t express this enough, learn Outlook, learn how to empty your mailbox out at the end of your workday, every day, and schedule things out in their calendar for you to do at the same time, every single week or day.

Jill DeWit:
That’s great.

Steven Butala:
Joseph always uses the example of deed Thursday. We used to have deed Thursday, and so we would do all the paperwork and all the County stuff and…

Jill DeWit:
All the signings.

Steven Butala:
Yeah. Notaries and things like that. Most of the properties we buy now are through title. So we don’t have deed Thursday anymore, but it still comes up.

Jill DeWit:
I still do! Because even though I’m closing with a notary, I’m not there. I’m not going or closing through title. I’m not going to title company to sign the paperwork. Heck no, they’re sending a mobile notary to me. So it still kind of happens, I still kind of do a deed Thursday

Steven Butala:
In short, get organized, and it’s easier said than done.

Jill DeWit:
Right? And then just keep on following the process. Now this, while your mailer hits. Now, I bought them. Now, I’m in escrow. What am I doing now? You need to be thinking in the next phase, the next phase is posting the property. And just keep on doing that.

Steven Butala:
Later this week, we’re doing a show, I’m paraphrasing, called some version of “you’ve got to answer your phone”.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Butala:
For this business to work… So if you’re like me and that’s not your thing. You know, it’s Joe’s thing clearly, but it’s not my thing. You got to figure that out. So what you don’t want, is to answer 40 phone calls, get burned out and then not be a real estate investor anymore. Cause you hate that part of the business. I’m talking about myself now. So you either get your… Find yourself… Just you’ve got to get over it and then eventually get somebody to do it, if you’re like me.

Jill DeWit:
Cool.

Steven Butala:
Today’s topic: cool things you find when you dig a little deeper, this is the meat of the show.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. So here’s what Aaron and I were talking about with this.

Jill DeWit:
You and I…

Steven Butala:
Aaron is the person who runs Land Academy for us.

Jill DeWit:
So Steven and I, on our Thursday member calls / webinar, we do these every week. So popular, so fun. Anyway, we’re often doing “would you do this deal?” And what’s interesting is it’s basically a quick five minute, our level one due diligence, on somebody else’s property to see if we would buy it. And there’re things that if you dig just a little bit deeper, you uncover really quickly that are either going to A) say, “Wow, we got to buy this! I had no idea. Look at what I just found. I don’t even know if the seller knows this,” or B) going, “Whoops, we need to back off because I don’t know if they want the property. Look at this problem we just uncovered.” So what the heck am I talking about?

Jill DeWit:
So property comes in: first thing I usually do is throw it into Neighbor Scoop. I’m looking at it visually. I’m looking at access. And then I open up the property details and I scroll all the way down. So when I talk about dig a little deeper, don’t just go “Yep. Right seller, right size, close it up.” Dig a little deeper. “What’s the zoning? Oh, that’s interesting. R8. I wonder what that means?” Or you know, GR: general rule, you’ll find all kinds of weird things. I wonder what that means and I’m going to take it to the next level. Also, digging down, you might find some mortgage information or sales information like “Oh, that’s how long they owned it. And that’s how much they paid. All right. That, that’s interesting.” That makes a difference here. It may be really high, may be really low it’s worth mentally noting.

Jill DeWit:
And then keep on going down, “Wait a minute. That’s a square footage. Was there a house there? Hold on a moment. Is there still a house there? There’s some square footage in some details here.” And then even down further, you’re going to see legal description and you’d be surprised what might be in there. Here’s an example of a thing that you don’t want to find, but if you see it you’re going to be like, “Whoop!”. It might be partial interest like, “Whoa now I know that the guy may not own a hundred percent.” Whereas the other guy… Kind of thing. Or weird, it doesn’t happen often, but you see weird things once in a while, like the County made a note to themselves and they threw it in the legal description. Like “This is never going to be built upon because it’s a sewage dump” or something like that. It’s a rain runoff or something.

Steven Butala:
Drainage.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. We’ve seen things though. That’s part of where I want you to go anyway.

Steven Butala:
Sewage dump!

Jill DeWit:
I don’t know! So that’s one thing I want you to consider. Do you mind if I keep going?

Steven Butala:
No. I’m learning some stuff here.

Jill DeWit:
Okay.

Jill DeWit:
So that’s what we do there. Okay. I’ve got them and I turn on the FEMA flood map by the way. So I dig a little deeper. Now…

Steven Butala:
Jill ate her Wheaties this morning!

Jill DeWit:
I did eat my Wheaties this morning. Then, I’ve exhausted all that I’ve got, I feel good about all the different overlays. Don’t forget you have five different overlays you can look at on there. Now I’m going to throw it into, and we hit one button, you’re now going to put it into in Google Earth Pro. So it picks up my whole property outline and it puts it into Google Earth. Now I’m looking at it in Google Earth. So, don’t just say “Well, yep. I see the road. I see this.” There’s a couple of things that you could do. Like, go back in time. This is one of the things I love.

Jill DeWit:
Steven does this all the time. This is his thing. Go back in time and look at old photos. “Look, that looks like it might’ve been a fire. Oh my gosh. Once upon a time ago, it might’ve been farmed. Oh my goodness. It looks like there was a cabin back in the eighties. Maybe there’s still a pad there. Maybe there’s still some utilities out there. Wow.” So that’s some just stuff that you might find.

Jill DeWit:
Another one is elevation. Sometimes it’s hard to tell… You could, on Google Earth Pro, dig a little deeper, you can put a man on the road, get a visual sometimes. You can turn the access and the tilt so you can kind of see “Whoops, it looks like there’s a dip here. I need to make sure.” And then there’s a tool that you love. You can kind of draw a line at the top to the bottom and get the percentage of the grade of the elevation and really get a feel for what’s going on. Again. Dig a little deeper.

Steven Butala:
Google adds features to Google Earth all the time in a very quiet way. So what you want to do is go on to YouTube, or maybe Google itself, but YouTube is a great place to go look at some of these hidden features on Google Earth. Google Earth is an amazing tool. I remember when it came out, it used to be called Keyhole before they bought it. And it changed real estate and real estate investing for the better, forever. When that came out, I could stop traveling. I stopped going to look at these properties and stopped spending so much time in the field.

Jill DeWit:
Heck, even when you travel, I’m going to look at… Like, you can go do a… Right now, if you’re thinking, “I think I want to go to vacation in Barbados”, let’s drive down St. Andrew’s Gap or whatever that is. And you could probably do a little Google Earth, fly over yourself right now and say, “Oh, that looks fun. Look at these restaurants and look at the beach right there.”

Steven Butala:
There’s a flight simulator in Google Earth where you can fly a jet, a military jet, through the Grand Canyon and stuff.

Jill DeWit:
That’s cool.

Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of features that are a lot of fun.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. So dig a little deeper does not mean come up with a game and come out two hours later. It’s not where I was going with this, but thanks.

Steven Butala:
Yeah, when you’re waiting for your next mailer to hit…

Jill DeWit:
Start playing games!

Steven Butala:
Go get yourself an Xbox.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Not what I meant! All right. I have two more things I was going to say. One is… There’s really just one more. Also, we have a lot of tools that we provide to members and you don’t have to be a member. Just know what’s out there. Data Tree’s a great one that we love now. It’s a First American Titles product. And within there I can pull all kinds of reports and I’m talking not just property reports, lean reports. Interesting, interesting thing. And then with flex search, I can go and really put in property information, owner information and look for easements and other important things like that.

Jill DeWit:
And so don’t spend a day on this, but this is just stuff I want you to know. Dig a little deeper when you’re doing your five minute due diligence. Your five, or for you maybe it’s 30 minutes. That’s okay. Because you’re new, you will get faster. And then you’re going to make some decisions right away. You know, if I need to take it to the next level, you might find a flaw. This’ll save you and you’re not going to go “Great. I wasted a day on it.” That’s the whole point here. Your level one due diligence has to say, “yep. Now I’m now I’m going to take it to the next level.” And then try to find a problem basically. And then if I don’t find a problem, now I know I’m buying it.

Steven Butala:
You know, there’s never a point, and I don’t think in life where you stop learning. And so that’s what this topic is all about. Really dig deep into some of the tools that you have that are available, both the Neighbor Scoop and you know…

Jill DeWit:
TitlePro?

Steven Butala:
TitlePro is great. You can get vesting deeds for just about every property out there. You can get, pull up…

Jill DeWit:
Even back before vesting deeds.

Steven Butala:
You can become a kitchen table title expert in probably a week. If you really study it and go through all the training on TitlePro and you can pull chains of titles. There’re documents. There’s a relationship between paper and real estate. And now, not even five to eight years ago, you’d have to go to the County to get all these documents. TitlePro and DataTree have made these products now, which you, as a member of Land Academy, you get all these things, that make it amazingly efficient to do a desk audit on whether or not you should buy a property, when you’re good at it, in less than 30 minutes.

Jill DeWit:
Awesome. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find this right here on the Land Academy show.

Steven Butala:
[inaudible 00:14:52] the episode on the Land Academy show is called we answer the same 10 questions. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. So tomorrow could be kind of a rant. I don’t mean it to be a rant. I want to share some stuff.

Steven Butala:
Ever since we started Land Academy, I always think back to my eighth grade history teacher. And he was probably two years away from retirement and just done answering any questions, he’s been teaching the same history for 30 or 40 years and he was done. So we’re about six years into this and I have a newfound respect for him.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good. Okay. If you need any sort of ownership, information or property details, including owner phone numbers and FEMA flood map overlays, check out neighborscoop.com created by investors (that’s us!) for investors like you.

Steven Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill. Information.

Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at steven@BuWit.com.

The BuWit Family of Companies include:

https://BuWit.com

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https://landacademy.com

https://landpin.com

https://parcelfact.com

https://countywise.com

https://deedperfect.com

https://ownersdata.com

https://houseacademy.com

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.

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No need to hire staff - we did it for you.

Land Academy PRO is the brainchild of founders Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Designed at the request of Land Academy members who are ready for a higher level, we’re excited to continue to provide the tools and support needed by professional investors.

Each level comes with a preset amount of included data, Concierge Mail service, and postage. For example, the Green level includes 6,000 units of completed-for-you mail completely out the door at no extra cost to you.

All levels include a PatLive introduction and preset script (we will set up your phone answering for you), use of Land Academy’s personal Transaction Team to manage your deal flow, an AirTable (CRM) base setup managed by our (and your!) Transaction Coordinator, personal consulting, regular office hours, and includes your Land Academy subscription cost.

If you’re making this a business, Land Academy PRO takes the work off of your plate so you can focus on the things that matter – like running your business.

Green

$10,060

per Month

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers 9,000 mailers 12,000 mailers 15,000 mailers 18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
- - $1,000 value $1,000 value $1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value $8,550 value $9,550 value $12,050 value $12,050 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value $11,250 value $15,000 value $18,750 value $22,500 value
Total Value: $39,050 $42,800 $47,550 $53,800 $57,550
Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now

Green

$10,060

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value
Total Value: $39,050
Apply Now

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
9,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $11,250 value
Total Value: $42,800
Apply Now

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
12,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $9,550 value
Mail Value: $15,000 value
Total Value: $47,550
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Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
15,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $18,750 value
Total Value: $53,800
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Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $22,500 value
Total Value: $57,550
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