Is it Too Late to Get Started in Real Estate? (LA 1510)
Is it Too Late to Get Started in Real Estate? (LA 1510)
Transcript:
Jill K DeWit:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from pretty Paradise Valley, Arizona. That’s a mouthful. How am I going to get that? I’m have to come up with some cute little saying with that.
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 if you’re already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Cool. Nolan wrote, “Hello, all. Curious to know how you include a second parcel in the original purchase agreement, if possible, meaning the seller wants to sell the property you sent the PA for, purchase agreement, but he also wants to sell another one that they own in this transaction. Do you typically just mail another PA for the second property, or can something be written on the original PA to include the second one. The seller is older and not very tech savvy for DocuSign. Thanks.” You can, a hundred percent, just write it on the bottom. I just tell them, “Hey, if we change the price or something, cross out that price, put in the new price on there and initial it.” Good enough for me.
Steven Butala:
And take a picture of it and send it with your phone, or have his grandchildren do that, or whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
I’ve done them all.
Steven Butala:
However, it works.
Jill K DeWit:
I have called on Saturday and taught them how to take a picture with their phone. I have waited for the grandkids to get home. Sometimes they have an old fashioned fax machine kind of thing. So there’s lots of ways to get it back to you. You can just write it on there. It doesn’t have to be… And even for escrow. I have two things I want to say on this. One is, if you’re going to self close a deal, it’s just, if you want to have it, it’s only personal preference, you don’t need to have this piece of paper. It’s like your accountant’s going to need to see it or anything like that at the end of the year, if you want it. But for escrow, most of the time, they’re going to want you to have something opening up the transaction, showing that, “Hey, here’s what I’m buying. I have a signed purchase agreement. This is the price. And moving forward.” Thank you for letting me finish my sentence today.
Steven Butala:
The National Association of Realtors and lawyers in general, spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to fake you out, into believing that you have to sign your name 50 times to buy a piece of real estate and that you need them. Here’s the facts. This came up in Career Path and we talked about it for a long time. And somebody in Career Path… These are extremely advanced, intelligent people in some cases, said, “What do you need from a legal documentation standpoint to close a deal?” To which I said, “A deed. You need to have the seller sign the deed over to you.”
Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.
Steven Butala:
That’s all. Then the deal is done and it’s legal.
Jill K DeWit:
It makes me nuts. I can’t believe I’ve had to sign like COVID things and all that stuff for a piece of land, four states over that I’m never going to see, and I’m never going to even talk to that person.
Steven Butala:
That’s right.
Jill K DeWit:
Why do I have to sign this?
Steven Butala:
So as far as the purchase agreement is concerned, it’s only a guide for pricing. It’s an agreement between the buyer and seller. You can do it on the back of a cocktail napkin. I’ve done many deals on the back of a cocktail napkin where two people have initialed it. You put the APN on there and the price and the time. Do you even need that? No, but it’s just like an agreement. It’s an agreement between two people. So as far as that purchasing agreement goes, if you have somebody who’s not super elderly and understands how to use their phone, or maybe this person does, just have them cross out the… add the APN in there, initial it, add a change in price, initial it, take a picture of it and send it to you. And you send it to the escrow agent, if you’re closing that way. And that’s just as valid as anything else.
Jill K DeWit:
Perfect.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic. Is it too late to get started in real estate? This is why you’re listening. Jill, take it away.
Jill K DeWit:
This comes up often. I think it’s so interesting that people are like, “Oh man, I just see so much movement. I see all these houses being bought and all this land changing hands. Did I miss the boat?” And my answer is always, “Are you flipping kidding me? Heck no.” And I’ve got three things that I’m going to talk about. And then I know you have a bunch that you want to share too. So number one, about getting started in real estate right now, one of the greatest things is, tools keep getting better. My job, my life, I’m so much more efficient. It’s so much easier than when I even started with you 10 plus years ago. Finding properties was hard. So, you couldn’t just put in state, county, APN and it would pop up on your phone.
Jill K DeWit:
Now I can do that. Now I have all kinds of tools that I could do that. It’s so amazing. And they just keep getting better. Number two, the data. My data increases. I’ve got so many new unique places that I’m getting data and I’m getting more data, especially for our stuff. It’s not too late. And things are… What’s interesting too. This is kind of about how we do business, not so much about should I be worried that everybody’s grabbed up all the property. I’m going to let you cover that part. Do you want to talk about that for a minute and then I’ll give my last point.
Steven Butala:
That’s really what I think this question is all about. Is it too late? Our number three kid came to me in the kitchen. I don’t know if Jill was around or not. And he’s going to be 18 in just a few months. And he came to me and he was washing the dishes, wasn’t even facing me, and said, “Yeah, it’s too late for us.” I don’t know what we were talking about, but, “My generation is probably… It’s just too late for real estate.” And that’s a result of this COVID thing and all this stuff in the news about how affordable housing is gone and all the reporters, I believe, most of the way things get reported this day and age is all doom and gloom and little guys get lost. And it’s just over.
Steven Butala:
Which is just ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous. Is selling a used couch over? Of course not, but you don’t have a garage sale anymore. You do it on Offer Up, and on and on and on. People want to get rid of old stuff that they’re not using, I would argue now more than ever, including houses and land and old cars and everything else. Have the numbers changed? Maybe. Probably not. Have the-
Jill K DeWit:
Probably increased.
Steven Butala:
Yes.
Jill K DeWit:
Especially lately.
Steven Butala:
Yeah, exactly. [crosstalk 00:06:37] Has the overnight need for cash in a lot of households diminished?
Jill K DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
Absolutely not. It’s the opposite. People need cash now more than ever.
Jill K DeWit:
You know, it’s-
Steven Butala:
This stuff’s not over.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, the thing, too. Think about a property. Think about the number of times properties change hands. It’s not just, you use it once, it breaks and you throw it away. This is not disposable products. This is going to go on forever.
Steven Butala:
Exactly. So Jill and I, obviously, host this group and we talk every Thursday about properties. We do would you do the steal and a substantial number of properties come in that don’t have physical and or legal access. So there’s… As the desire and the need for affordable housing and more rural.. People get a better taste now for rural property because of the internet. And they can work from home and all this stuff, solutions will be found for access to property and types of sanitation, like alternative septic systems and water, for instance, water distillation is real and on and on and on. So it’s only going to get better.
Jill K DeWit:
I was going to… That was a perfect segue into a note that I made here. New niches are constantly being introduced.
Steven Butala:
That’s great, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
And I got to tell you one, I talked to a guy yesterday, we sent out an offer on a property. The guys in Vegas. It’s a property in the Southwestern part of the country. And it was a 10-acre property. And I said, “Hey, I just want to touch base with you. I’m glad I got…” We were playing phone tag, fine, check in and see, “Hey, are you still interested in selling?” He goes, “Actually, here’s what I’m going to do.” He’s like, “I’m in Vegas, I’ve been doing construction and all this kind of big projects, I’m going to create a hundred percent sustainable, we’re talking food, water, everything, community.” So, then in the end, all he was doing was hitting me up for money.
Jill K DeWit:
He’s like, “Do you know of anybody?” He just wants money to do this project. And he went into this whole long… His elevator pitch-
Steven Butala:
They found you.
Jill K DeWit:
Right… On this project. But, you just tapped into it perfectly. There might be property somewhere that we wouldn’t have bought or done years ago. And now it’s a thing. I remember now walking… You can’t walk into Costco and I turn and going, “Wow, look how great these solar things are now. They’re even smaller. Look what you can do. And that drinking water thing that I saw. I’m like, I saw this weird thing again in Costco. I don’t live in Costco. I just happened to go there once in a while. And that’s probably why I’m like, “Oh, I haven’t been there in so long. Look what they have.” But this same [inaudible 00:09:13] showed a kid drinking through this tube out of a stream. They’re coming up with these little even personal individual filters to make any water safe. So, you’re right. It’s just going to keep better.
Steven Butala:
This generation, the millennials, all are dying to innovate. And so they want to make things better. They’re all upset about climate change and all kinds of… Whether it’s real or not, I don’t care. They want to make the world better. And I think that’s great-
Jill K DeWit:
I do, too.
Steven Butala:
… in sustainable living. I can’t tell you the number of people that I’ve spoken with or have joined our group because they want to homestead some property and live that way. And even people with really, really good jobs that spend six to eight hours working online and then can go outside and feed the chickens. You know, that’s personally a dream of mine and I’m long since the millennial generation. That’s not a generational thing. That’s been going on since the 1800s in this country. So is it over? Heck no. It just requires adapt and overcome. And you got to change with the times.
Steven Butala:
I can show you $50 an acre property in the state of Nevada right now. You can buy as much as you want for $50 an acre. You can buy between five acres and 5,000 acres for 50 bucks an acre. You think you can figure out how to get water there effectively. I do. You got enough sunshine in Nevada that electricity is solved. And where you have electricity, you have distillation. So all you need is something to distill, and it doesn’t need to be water. I don’t want to get into this here, but you know what might be over, when people say this, “It’s too late to get started in real estate.” It might be over where you go out on the MLS, you buy a broken down house, you clean it all up, like on HGTV and resell it for more.
Steven Butala:
That part of real estate might be over. And thank God, because it’s ridiculously stupid.
Jill K DeWit:
Why do you say that?
Steven Butala:
Why is it stupid?
Jill K DeWit:
No. Why do you think it’s over?
Steven Butala:
Because I think that-
Jill K DeWit:
[crosstalk 00:11:16].
Steven Butala:
The National Association of Realtors has got us thinking that we all need them to do stuff. And that this MLS thing that they created a while ago… Most people, they have us all squirrely in the head.
Jill K DeWit:
Like profit margins are down?
Steven Butala:
No, that this is the only way to buy property. I have to buy property through… People ask us that all the time, “Do I need a real estate agent to buy property?” That’s a question.
Jill K DeWit:
Do I need a license. Nope, nope, nope, nope. I hear you.
Steven Butala:
So that type of the regular way of doing… I’ll tell you what is over. The regular way of doing business-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.
Steven Butala:
… but that’s always been over. It was over in 1960. The way you bought houses in 1960, totally different than the way you buy them now. And I’ll tell you in 10 years, it’s going to be totally different than it is now.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. I have to share something funny about that along these lines. And this is my last comment. I was listening to a Clubhouse talk today and they were sharing about using cryptocurrency to purchase real estate and houses. And they have found there are now becoming a title companies that will accept cryptocurrency for these purchases. And then it’s leading to different banks paying attention, all this stuff, I’m like, “Wow.” So I could go and somehow wire to First American Title my Bitcoins to put my down payment on my house.
Steven Butala:
Here’s my take on cryptocurrency. And I am… Somebody in our group. Well, somebody in our staff just asked us to do a show on this-
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
… and we will. My perception is this. And I may use the wrong terminology because I’m not an expert in this at all, but I think the concept is correct. Cryptocurrency trades on a market, on an open market, just like the stock. It’s just like Tesla stock trades. So there’s a perception about how much it’s worth. Is it rooted in reality? Sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn’t. Blue chip stocks on the New York Stock Exchange are usually rooted in some reality, based on earnings and revenue and where their balance sheet is and their debt, and a lot of stuff. On the NASDAQ, not so much, and on the S&P, not so much at all.
Steven Butala:
And so when you start to talk about cryptocurrency and exchanging cryptocurrency for a house, let’s say, there’s nothing wrong with that. That’s great. But the theory is, that cryptocurrency may or may not be worth what it is the day you do that transaction. It might go up.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Butala:
Might go down. And some of them do go up and some of them do go down. Hey, just like the stock market. Could you accept stock? Could I accept Tesla stock when I go to sell my house? Yeah. Heck, yes, I could. There’s a bunch of paperwork and a bunch of stuff involved, but it’s got some value that day. So this whole notion that cryptocurrency is new and it’s amazing. And it’s just this greatest thing that’s ever happened is really silly. It really is. It’s just stock.
Jill K DeWit:
Understood. Thanks, Dad.
Steven Butala:
Sorry. I don’t mean for everything to become a rant, but-
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks, Professor Butala.
Steven Butala:
So far from a professor, it’s silly.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Butala:
Would you accept Tesla stock in a house sale?
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Butala:
So would I.
Jill K DeWit:
Sure.
Steven Butala:
You know, people who begin… Publicly traded employers have been doing this forever. I’ll pay you-
Jill K DeWit:
That always takes a risk.
Steven Butala:
… $78,000 a year and 2200 stock options a year.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’ll take all kinds of stuff. I don’t really care. I’ll take bars of silver and that fluctuates.
Steven Butala:
And, we have.
Jill K DeWit:
No big difference.
Steven Butala:
Right.
Jill K DeWit:
So same thing. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
You cut me off.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I did.
Steven Butala:
Did you cut me off? Was it that bad?
Jill K DeWit:
Do we have anything more to say?
Steven Butala:
Was it bad?
Jill K DeWit:
I think we covered it. I don’t need to say it again.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on the Land Academy Show is called how to find real estate deals in 2021. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. The thick of it is you just got to think this stuff through, what’s a fad and what’s not.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Butala:
That’s really what the show is about.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, you know what? Is it too late to get started in real estate? I’m here to tell you bell bottoms are coming back. So apparently everything comes back around.
Steven Butala:
What’s coming?
Jill K DeWit:
Don’t worry. Bell-bottoms.
Steven Butala:
Oh, bell bottoms. No, they’re not.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes they are. Go look in my closet.
Steven Butala:
You seriously have bell bottoms?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes I do.
Steven Butala:
Why?
Jill K DeWit:
They’re cute. I haven’t worn them yet, but they’re awesome.
Steven Butala:
I can’t wait to see this.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, they’re good. They’re awesome. If you’re interested in learning more about us or what we do, check out landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. We provide the education, tools and support you need to be flipping property like the pros.
Steve and Jill:
We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Talkative.
Jill K DeWit:
And silly, to buy undervalued property.
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