Jill Friday What Jill Looks at When Doing Deals – (LA 1523)
Jill Friday What Jill Looks at When Doing Deals – (LA 1523)
Transcript:
Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill Dewitt:
Hello.
Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill Dewitt:
And I’m Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from sweet Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Jack Butala:
Today is Jill Friday. It’s called what Jill looks at when doing deals. Yesterday was my turn. I described how I see these deals correctly or incorrectly, but it works for me. Today’s Jill’s turn.
Jill Dewitt:
It’s going to be fun because I think we have different ways, things that we look at first when the deal pops in. So this will be good.
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. And if you’re already a Land Academy member, join us on Discord.
Jill Dewitt:
Sandy wrote … Okay, let me just see what I’ve got here. Is that the question, and then a response?
Jack Butala:
There is a discussion in Discord, yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
So, a little thing going on. Okay. So Sandy wrote, “One of the reasons I joined Land Academy was to find something better than DataTree. My last group concluded that there was nothing wrong with DataTree and that the problem had to be operator error.” That’s hilarious.
Jack Butala:
Let’s see what the other member John says.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay. John wrote, “I have noticed in some states that there’s a discrepancy between what DataTree says and what, say ParcelFact shows for both owner name and mailing address. One state in particular is a pain in the rear that I work with. I try to step back and say, if I’m mailing 10,000 records and 500 are busted, it’s no fun spending that money on mail, but it’s a small percentage. In one of the training videos in Land Academy, 2.0, Steven said that something like if 80% of your mail is right, you’re doing great. We get 1000 free records each month. Why don’t you do a RealQuest pull on a county that you have DataTree records on and compare? You may find it’s better than where you’re working.”
Jack Butala:
I mean, John, you’re exactly right. And no, it’s not user error for the most part, Sandy. I don’t know for sure, but probably not, because DataTree is real easy to use. Here’s the deal. These data aggregators, DataTree, RealQuest, and TitlePro247 pull data from assessor databases. And there are some places in the country, I’m going to give you a real solid example of a place in the country, which is South Dakota, for whatever reason is not interested in playing this game. They’re not interested in providing data, or the data that they do provide is pretty substandard. It’s very difficult to use if you’re used to, let’s say using data in Texas or California or whatever else.
Jill Dewitt:
You said playing this game. It’s like, they’re not interested in doing their job correctly. It’s kind of what it sounds like.
Jack Butala:
No, I actually-
Jill Dewitt:
It’s like they’re not interested in inputting the information correctly.
Jack Butala:
There’s a part of my personality that really respects that. They’re kind of just putting their figurative middle finger up.
Jill Dewitt:
In what way? I don’t know.
Jack Butala:
Just like-
Jill Dewitt:
They don’t fill it in, they don’t provide much?
Jack Butala:
This is not a priority for us.
Jill Dewitt:
Data?
Jack Butala:
We love living here. Maybe we live on a cattle ranch. We don’t need to assess this property down to the letter. They’re just not interested in providing the data.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, we’ll get it recorded when we feel like it.
Jack Butala:
I don’t know. It’s not good for us, but personally, I kind of respect some of these counties that are like, “Yeah, I’m not going to be here on Friday.”
Jill Dewitt:
You know what? You’re right, because there are some counties that say, “We only update all our records once a year at the end of the year.” It could have changed hands three times in that year. It’s not going to happen until the end of the year.
Jack Butala:
That’s a perfect example.
Jill Dewitt:
I’m like, what the heck is that about?
Jack Butala:
So there’s statutes that are in place, usually state statutes that talk about how the state tells the people, the government and the local areas of counties how to do this. So they’re either in compliance with it or they’re not, or the state doesn’t care. It’s not a priority. So, whatever. The point is, these aggregators, the data that they collect is only as good as what they’re provided by these local areas, which means this. And I agree with John, chances are this area that Sandy’s in, the data’s just not right. Even acreage. I’ve seen acreage where it’s like, I only want five acre records and it comes out to be 0.05. That’s not DataTree’s problem. That’s a source of the data.
Jack Butala:
So my guess is that Sandy is in an area. She knows it well. She wants to send out letters. And she’s in now the second group trying to accomplish this with DataTree, and the source of the data, no matter who aggregates it, whether it’s RealQuest or anybody else, is below her standard. That’s my guess. By the way, I’ve been doing this for, I don’t know how many years all over the country. I bet I can count on two hands the times where I’ve downloaded data and said, “I just can’t work with this.” So it’s a total exception.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah, it’s not that often.
Jack Butala:
The 99%, more than that, 99.8% of the data sets in the 3,200 or 3,144 counties in this country are amazing.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s a whole nother conversation that we could do for another show on another day. But some people get hung up on these details and it stops them. You need to make sure that that’s not you. You got to move past it, say, “Okay, this is good. Great, let’s move forward.” Otherwise you’re never going to get your mailer out. And if you can’t get your mailer out, you’re not going to buy property. And if you can’t buy property, you can’t sell property. It’s not going to work.
Jack Butala:
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I think we’re spending too much time on exceptions, not the regular day in the life of Jill and I or the regular Land Academy member. There’s no need to ask questions. There’s nobody stumbling on anything. It’s not bad. We didn’t get yelled at by some rogue crazy landowner.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, no.
Jack Butala:
It’s all amazingly efficient and great. But for some reason on this show, and it’s the way it’s set up. It’s me. It’s not anybody else. The questions that we’re answering are, oh my God, this didn’t work. What do I do?
Jill Dewitt:
We’re just bringing those up because A, it’s something to talk about, and B, it’s good information. But yeah, if we talked about all rosy, you’re going to think it’s all rosy. You’ve got to know it’s not all rosy, but that 90% of it is great. You’re right.
Jack Butala:
Today’s topic is Jill Friday, what Jill looks at when doing deals. This is the meat of the show.
Jill Dewitt:
This is funny. So, deals come in and they come in either to a staff member or PATLive, depending on the property, depending on what’s going on. For different reasons, I have different people answering different phone numbers. And then from there, they get input into Airtable. And it’s the same person though that sees them first and then tags me. And it’s so interesting to me because what she gets excited about, I could care less about. She looks them up and she’s like, “Oh, look at the trees,” and that’s her thing. I just thought it was funny, because I wanted to lead with that because that’s not what I look at at all. She’s looking at, oh how pretty that is, and standing there, somebody’s going to love it. And here’s where the cabin’s going to go. I’m like, there’s more to it than that.
Jack Butala:
That’s the HGTV version of land investing.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s it.
Jack Butala:
I love that wallpaper.
Jill Dewitt:
Exactly. I’m like, how much was it? And can I get a better one? Or how long is it going to last? That kind of a thing. It’s so funny. So the deals come in, they’re put in Airtable and then I’m tagged. And then I go look at them. And I want to say too, by the way, let me save you some time. Please don’t sit down and every time one deal comes in, you stop everything, run to your desk and look it up because all you’re going to be doing all week long is looking at a deal here, a deal there, a deal whatever. You’re going to not get anything done. You need to save them up. You have so many coming in, you want to do them once a day, fine, sit down every day at four o’clock, review them all and cue yourself up for the next day. So I just wanted to get that out there.
Jill Dewitt:
So that’s what I do, is I sit, and they come in all the time. I’m like, I’ll look at it when I get to it. I have a certain time that I sit down and review them all at once. The first thing that I do is, I’ll tell you, the first thing to do is do I have a signed purchase agreement? That’s number one, because sometimes they come in and they want to talk. I don’t want to talk. You know what? I’m not going to even, at my level, I’m lucky because I have people to do that. If you are a one man show, it’s you. You need to get a signed purchase agreement before you really get excited at all. Otherwise you’re going to be sitting there, spending all day long reviewing deals that people go, “Nah, I changed my mind. Yeah, I talked to my dad. He wants to buy it,” or something like that. It’s not going to happen.
Jack Butala:
Oh, so a big point for you is having a signed agreement.
Jill Dewitt:
Yeah. Number one.
Jack Butala:
Oh, Jill.
Jill Dewitt:
Seriously, I will not look it up.
Jack Butala:
Good for you.
Jill Dewitt:
I don’t care how great it is because I’ve gone down that in the past. I learned. I’m like, I just wasted how much time on this deal, checking it could do this, checking it can do that. Nope. Don’t get excited. So then signed purchase agreement, got that out of the way. Now I’m looking at the details. I immediately go into Neighbor scoop or ParcelFact. they’re going to someday become one, I think.
Jack Butala:
Soon, actually.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay. So I go in there and I pull up the property and I want to make sure we’re talking to the right guy. I really take those five A’s seriously. They’re there for a reason. If I’m talking to the grandson of the owner and then we can’t find dad and he just knows in the will it’s supposed to be his, again, that’s great. You signed this purchase agreement. But because you get grandma’s mail, you just signed it, whatever it is. That’s not the right person. I need to make sure we’ve got the right person before I go anywhere.
Jack Butala:
So you’re looking for deal killers.
Jill Dewitt:
I am.
Jack Butala:
I love that, Jill, because I look for deal killers too. I already know if it got back to us on our desk, it’s probably going to be a pretty good deal. Now what’s going to kill it?
Jill Dewitt:
That’s true. I’m not questioning your price. I’m not questioning the area. I’m not questioning what you picked, because I know how much you put into this going in a week or 10 days ago, whatever it was. So yeah, all right. We got past that. Now I’m actually looking at the asset. Really one of the last … I go down all the five A’s. I look at access. I want legal or physical, preferably both. If I don’t have it, that could kill it right there no matter how great the price is. And then the last thing is really, how did we do on the pricing? Does this really still makes sense? If I buy it from this gentleman for $42,000, am I still going to feel good about it as Steven priced it?
Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s my job times 10, is to make sure the economics of the deal work in the asset itself. The property itself is hopefully mesmerizing. That in a perfect world, yeah, you would stand in front of it and say, “This is truly amazing and amazingly cheap.”
Jill Dewitt:
You know what? And then at the last, then I take a step back and go, that’s when I look at the beauty of it, after it’s done all the technical, which is so funny because I’m a girl. You would think I do it the opposite.
Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’m thinking that too.
Jill Dewitt:
I really look at it. You taught me this one thing on day one of working with you and I never forgot it. You have to see these as a line item on a spreadsheet, and nothing more. And I never forgot that.
Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s all this is.
Jill Dewitt:
So that’s exactly how I look at it. I don’t even care how great it is. I never get emotional about these properties.
Jack Butala:
Good.
Jill Dewitt:
I never say we can’t sell this one. He does. I don’t.
Jack Butala:
Yeah. The older I get, the more I’m like, “Wow, we should keep this.”
Jill Dewitt:
We should keep this one. I’m like, “Nope, sell it.” Sell it, sell it, sell it. We’ll get another one. Because I know there’s so much we can get, even primary residence. You know what? Even our primary residence, I’m like, you know what? Yeah, there’s a point where I’m going to say fine, sell it. We can get another one. It’s okay. I don’t care. I don’t care. We don’t have any home where the children grew up in. We don’t have notches on the wall for their height. That was long ago and we never kept them and it was fine. But I look at things like that.
Jill Dewitt:
So the very last thing that I do, then I put my girl hat on and I look at what the seller is going to look at. I go, “Oh.” Now, I can take a step back and go, “Well, look how pretty that is. Ooh, that is a nice view of the lake.”
Jack Butala:
What the buyer is going to look at.
Jill Dewitt:
The buyer. Yeah, look what the buyer is going to look at. They’re going to fall in love with it because of this. Oh wow, you can hunt on it. Well, that’s cool. Or you can do this on it. You could have your RV out there now for a whole year. That’s great.
Jack Butala:
So you’re thinking about how to sell it.
Jill Dewitt:
Then, right.
Jack Butala:
So for you it’s deal killers on the acquisition side, and then at the end of the acquisition, you’re already in sales mode. Like yeah, we’re going to buy this.
Jill Dewitt:
It all makes sense.
Jack Butala:
Can we justify the price?
Jill Dewitt:
How fast can I sell it? Exactly how fast can I sell it? And what is the attribute that a buyer is going to fall over for?
Jack Butala:
We are very logical partners for each other.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you.
Jack Butala:
If we both saw it the exact same way, we’d probably be out of business by now.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s funny. But at least we do look at things like a line item for the most part, which is really true. It’s so funny.
Jack Butala:
I learned some stuff about Jill today.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, thank you. I’m glad. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find this right here on the Land Academy Show.
Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill Dewitt:
That was good.
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
That’s funny. I’m glad that we’re different. You’re right. It’s funny, when I think about it myself, even the girl that puts them in is a woman. So that’s probably why she’s looking at it like look at the trees and the view. And I’m like, I don’t care about any of that.
Jack Butala:
I don’t think it’s gender at all.
Jill Dewitt:
I’ll get to that.
Jack Butala:
I think it’s personality type.
Jill Dewitt:
Just personality?
Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill Dewitt:
Okay. Thank God.
Jack Butala:
I mean, some of it’s maybe gender. Who knows, I don’t know.
Jill Dewitt:
It doesn’t matter.
Jack Butala:
You’re not supposed to talk about gender anymore.
Jill Dewitt:
Oh, that’s true. They. I said she, I meant they. I’m just kidding.
Jack Butala:
I don’t know. I have a huge thing for trees too, but I’m not buying it for myself. It’s just the economics of it. There’s a bunch of people buying land in the area and the guy can see all the completed sales and it’s just dirt, but if somebody’s seeing some value in it, let’s buy it.
Jill Dewitt:
Thank you for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we really appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, please check out our YouTube channel, hit the subscribe button and give us feedback on the shows you love. We are Steve and Jill.
Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill Dewitt:
And inspiration.
Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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