How Much Work Really Goes into Our Land Deals (LA 1595)
How Much Work Really Goes into Our Land Deals (LA 1595)
Transcript:
Steven J Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven J Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven J Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about how much work really goes into these land deals. This is a very timely topic for me personally, because as I get older, I get more frustrated, and my patience in general for a lot of stuff just gets shorter. I don’t think it’s specific to me. I just think it’s something that happens.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, you’re glossing right over that.
Steven J Butala:
It might be gender specific too. I’m not sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Maybe. As I get older, my patience grows thinner. Yeah. So here’s what I did. I gave you-
Steven J Butala:
Well, hold … Oh my gosh.
Jill K DeWit:
I made notes.
Steven J Butala:
Okay, yeah. Go ahead.
Jill K DeWit:
Let tell you. I’m just going to give you a little snippet of what we’re going to talk about. I listed things that you spend time on, things that you don’t spend time on, and things you outsource.
Steven J Butala:
Oh, great.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. I did some homework.
Steven J Butala:
I can’t wait to hear this because-
Jill K DeWit:
I came prepared.
Steven J Butala:
… there are times that I really believe that the efficiency in which Jill and I do land deals together lacks a dramatic. It’s not efficient. I don’t know how else to say this.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what happens? I’ll tell you right now, because we each go down different rabbit holes. You go down a rabbit hole. I go down a rabbit hole, as soon as I’m like, “Okay, yeah.” It just happens. We’ll get to it.
Steven J Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question. We might get into it today, I can tell. Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel.
Jill K DeWit:
And comment on the shows you love.
Jill K DeWit:
We got this. Shannon wrote, “So it happened. Boy, did I attract this to myself, LOL. We have a great buyer, but she went to the county website and she saw that our records haven’t been updated to our name yet. So I got the email of why it says it’s owned in someone else’s name. I told her they’re slow to record. But still what happens if we sold it before the county records and reflects the new owners?” This happens all the time. Especially now with COVID, they’re not working on a regular schedule, they’re behind. Some counties on purpose do them all at one time, like the end of the year. And it just often happens. Think about getting even a new plate at the DMV. How long does it take to get the plate to you in the mail? You can explain it to them just like that. It’s not immediate, and by the way, XYZ county is behind, but if you really want to see it, here’s the deed in showing it recorded. Here’s the book and page showing that I have it, so you know. And that should be like game over.
Steven J Butala:
Let’s take a step back. What she’s talking about is that she bought a property and she did everything that we do here at Land Academy. She immediately posted it for sale and sold it. Everything went great. Well, the county recorder, especially in these rural counties, and the assessor, they’re in different buildings and in different departments. They’re completely different functions. So when she bought it, she sent in the deed and typically there’s some type of affidavit that goes with the deed. The affidavit goes to the assessor when it gets sent, and the deed goes to the recorder. The recorder records it immediately and it goes into the system. Well, the system doesn’t automatically get updated, especially in these rural counties. So in some cases it could take a year. It can take a whole year for Shannon’s deed to, but of course she sold it the next week. So the records aren’t updated.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s all.
Steven J Butala:
So if somebody is skeptical on the buy side, which that happens because first of all-
Jill K DeWit:
Do you really own this?
Steven J Butala:
… property’s really cheap anyway. So people are just on the lookout these days for issues. So there’s all kinds of ways around this. The biggest way is just explaining, just like how I did. Or the ironclad would way is to call the county. So if that person, the buyer’s real concerned, I would say, “Look, please. Here’s Connie. She’s the daytime county recorder at XYZ county. Here’s her phone number. She knows about the situation. Please call her and make sure that this is all up to your standard.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. The exact conversation is, “Hi, here’s the parcel. I’d like to verify ownership please.” And they’ll go, “Oh, okay. It’s in the name of,” la la la.
Steven J Butala:
In the name of Shannon.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, or the deed. All the ways that I suggested first also work. Whatever. You didn’t even acknowledge I answered the question. Like, yeah, that’s nice, Jill.
Steven J Butala:
Well, it just needed a little backstory. That’s all.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven J Butala:
Today’s topic, how much work really goes in to our land deals? This is why you’re listening.
Jill K DeWit:
Well then I’m going to let you start with the backstory. Let’s get that out of the way first. Go.
Steven J Butala:
I am constantly looking for ways to make things more efficient and to work less. That’s the truth of it. It’s always been that way. In our most recent Career Path, somebody called me out and said, what is it with your personality type? Why are you doing this? Why do you constantly have another company on the horizon?
Jill K DeWit:
Why are you making everyone’s life difficult around you?
Steven J Butala:
I explained it like this.
Jill K DeWit:
Kidding.
Steven J Butala:
When I was probably 11, 12-
Jill K DeWit:
By adding stuff, I’m kidding.
Steven J Butala:
… 11, 12 or 13 years old, I had what I called lawn jobs. So I would cut the neighbor’s lawn and they’d pay me cash. And I remember back on that, it was the first job I ever had. And all I could think about while I was cutting those lawns is how to get another lawn job, how to get to the next neighbor. And it worked itself out great because they would come and find me. And that’s never changed. I’m still to this day thinking about the next show we’re going to do, the next company we’re going to start, what other type of product that we can deliver to make Land Academy members, make their companies more efficient and prosperous. So that’s just, that’s me.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you want to talk about the show now?
Steven J Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven J Butala:
So when we’re doing these deals together and I’m not that involved, and once we get the properties acquired, I’m not that involved. But we have such a large deal flow that I have to be in involved because the properties that we’re buying are in these areas that I’ve hand picked all over the Southern part of the country. So Jill needs my approval at the end. Let me try to explain this simply. On a Thursday call, we’ll go look at a property in let’s say Arkansas, and we’ll do what we do. We’ll say, “Oh, there’s these properties that have been in a real local area, have sold for this amount. There’s these properties that are listed in the very local area. This really makes sense for you to buy this property,” or, “Oh, not so much.” The deals that we’re doing are not like that. They’re in specific areas, block by block that I know really well. So I have to be involved. And this is the problem.
Jill K DeWit:
You don’t have to be involved, but you have the most expertise of anyone in our team. There’s areas that I know. You have said, “You know Big Bear. You grew up there. Tell me what’s going on.” So, there’s a version of that. And you’re going to have that too, in your career. You’re going to get to know some states, some county, some area, some property type really well. And we do that too. Within our advanced group, we lean on each other, like, all right, hey, you know this area. What can you tell me? So and so knows Virginia. This person knows Washington, this person knows Oregon kind of thing. That’s where they’ve been doing all their deals. I’m going to run this by them. So that’s a lot what’s going on.
Jill K DeWit:
The big picture I want you to think about is, okay, I understand all that, but what really should I be spending my time on and what should I not be spending my time on?
Steven J Butala:
Oh, I love this Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Because that’s where you get hung up. I watch a lot of people spending too much time every time the phone rings. Here’s a good example. Every time the phone rings, they jump in and they start digging into a deal. And they’re like, “Oh, this is great. Now I’m going to see what’s possible. I’m going to call the county. I’m going to start ordering this. I’m going to do that. I’m going to see about all this stuff.” I’m like, “Well, hold on a moment. Do you have a signed purchase agreement?” Nope. Well, how do you know if it’s even a real deal? Oh, I guess I don’t. Yeah, you need to spend the time, just a few minutes talking to them or somebody, and I’ll cover this more in a minute.
Jill K DeWit:
The call comes in. Someone should just say, “I’m glad you love our offer. Please, that purchase agreement you there, the next step is please sign that, scan it, take a picture of it, however. Get it back to me and we’ll go from there.” Now you spend some time on some stuff. That’s the common thing that everybody does. They jump up and down and they’re already working on all kinds of stuff and they don’t even have a purchase agreement. And then the guy goes dark, the guy changes his mind, something. They think about it and they want a different price. It doesn’t work for you. There’s all kinds of things. So what you should spend time on, because the show today is how much work really goes into all this. The things I want you to spend time on are picking the county, pricing and final due diligence, not the initial due diligence, the pulling a trigger, making the decision.
Jill K DeWit:
Those are the things I want you to think about. Really need you, like we talked about with Steven, and those are actually … Think about this too. Picking a county usually falls on Steven. I throw some random ones in there, but when it’s sitting down picking a mailer, that’s kind of what he does. I’m spending time on other things and he’s spending time on this. Pricing, no kidding. That’s Steven all day long. And then the final due diligence, somebody has to. So some of the deals that we’re doing right now is on him. That’s probably why you’re getting so frustrated because you’ve never had to spend time on things, where recently we’ve been doing all kinds of random of things that we’re both just seeing what’s going on in an area. No one’s a resident pro on the area, but some of these you are. So you’re getting involved on the final due diligence, not the initial, the final.
Jill K DeWit:
Now the things you can think about spending less time on, okay, we’ve got that. So what things am I might be wasting my time on that I don’t need to? Your level one due diligence. I’ve done several shows, several videos, I know you can find them on YouTube, of me talking about level one due diligence. I’ve done calls on this with our Land Academy Ladies and other things about how to get it. And in Career Path, I do it too. How to get it down to of five minutes or less. And level one due diligence, by the way, is not the minute the phone rings. It’s when you have your signed purchase agreement. Now I’m going to get serious about it. And my level one due diligence is does it have the five As. That’s really it. You can do that in a few minutes.
Jill K DeWit:
The other things that I want you to spend less time on that you don’t know this is selling. What are you talking about, Jill? You really mean that? I do, especially if you want to really take us to the next level and really go big and have a lot of transactions. You’ve got to get serious about where you’re spending your time, and selling is one of them. You don’t need to spend four hours on the phone with every person that calls you. I don’t want you to. And the other thing is you could outsource that to an agent. There’s a lot of great land focused brokers and agents coming up now that are doing a great job. And I know that because I work with a lot all over the place.
Jill K DeWit:
The third and my last point is, how much time do you need to spend, is outsourcing. There’s things you can outsource. Well, wait a minute. What can I outsource to free my time up for this other important stuff? How about phone calls? All the inbound seller phone calls, easy. Posting property, oh, I know it’s a pain point for a lot of people. I bought it. I own it. Shoot. Now I’ve got to get it posted and out there. It takes a little bit of work. You could easily make up your own blueprint. If you’re in Land Academy, you have our blueprint and you could tweak it, copy it, however it is, outsource that. Lots of people to do that. And then the last thing I want you to think about to save your time is managing escrow. You can outsource that too. You can hire people to babysit those.
Steven J Butala:
Here’s a dose of reality. Here’s how it goes. You’re going to spend, if you’re brand new at this, or even if you own an existing business or you join Land Academy, you go through all the education and you set your stuff up. That’s going to take a while. Probably it’s going to take a good month to get your workspace set up, to get your phone numbers set up and how you’re going to-
Jill K DeWit:
Websites.
Steven J Butala:
… get on and learn. You’re going to learn. So it’ll take a good month, maybe two. Once it’s all in place and it’s all rolling and you’ve got the education and the learning curve piece out of the way, this is where we are and where most Land Academy members are, it should take you two days a month to locate county or counties, do the red, green, yellow tests and a bunch of other reality checks that we each in the program, and then to get a mailer out.
Steven J Butala:
So if you want to do 5000 units a week or 1000 units a week or 5000 a month or whatever number you’re comfortable with, offer numbers, that the amount of time to process those offers is about the same. If I send out 1000 letters or 25,000 letters and price them and do it all, the difference is maybe another hour on the larger numbers. So two hours a month to choose a county … I’m sorry, two days a month to choose a county and get a mailer out, average. I can do it a lot faster, but I’m not the gauge. Then you’re going to have to organize yourself to do what Jill’s job is, which is field the phone calls. So yeah, you can get an answering service for that, but Discord is packed full of suggestions about new answering services in there. Used to be Pat Live, that’s all we talked about. That’s just not the case anymore. There’s so many other alternatives that work for you. So you’ve got that all set up.
Steven J Butala:
So maybe once a day, Jill, please correct me here if I’m wrong, because this is way more you than me, maybe once a day for an hour, maybe two hours, you set a alarm or you set a scheduled time-
Jill K DeWit:
On your calendar.
Steven J Butala:
… in your calendar and you go through the calls for the answering service, and then you decide which deals you’re going to do. You just work for a couple hours a day. Setting up escrow-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s really when you have the purchase agreement. It’s not the calls. The calls come in, the people are trained to tell them we need to purchase agreement. Now you jump in.
Steven J Butala:
Right. So I’m not saying this is going to happen overnight, by any stretch. It takes practice. And then honestly it takes, this is like Jack’s truth time, it honestly takes a mindset or an attitude to want to make things efficient. This is where Jill and I differ a little bit, and we laugh about it, but we do differ on it. This is my little speech about having lawn jobs was before. I’m always trying to make stuff more efficient, easier, outsource it, shave time or minutes off of whatever goes on so I can get more stuff done. And Jill, not so much. And that’s one of the reasons we’re pretty successful, because she has a blast on the phone with some of these sellers.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny about this? The whole thing is, we can end on this, not to pick apart anybody, but here’s how we really are. This is a little bit of showing up for life. One of us likes to hurry up and get everything done as fast as possible, so the fun can start. And I agree with that to a point, where I don’t want to make any bad decisions though, because then I have to go back and fix it later and spend any more time on it. So I want to hurry and get things done, but spend a little more time to make sure it’s done correctly the first time so I don’t got to circle back around. And I think you go with the law of averages, like you know what, 10% of the time I got to go clean something up because I broke something.
Steven J Butala:
Yeah, whatever.
Jill K DeWit:
I ran over it. I don’t know. This is the total truth. Like yeah, so what I got to replace that? And I’m like, oh my God, it’s more time on the replacement. So it’s just kind of funny. Anyway, happy you could join us. Five days a week can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven J Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode in the Land Academy Show is called, when is it too late to change your career? You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Hope that was okay, sharing that.
Steven J Butala:
Oh, yeah. I don’t …
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven J Butala:
I don’t make any apologies for that. We have different personality types, and that’s why this works.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank God.
Steven J Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Yeah, if we were both like me, phew, and if we were both like you, oh.
Steven J Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
So funny. Thank you for tuning in. Hey, and if you’re a Land Academy member, be sure you join us on Discord. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven J Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information.
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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