Introducing Land Academy Garage Sale (LA 1634)
Introducing Land Academy Garage Sale (LA 1634)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hey.
Steven 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 the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about what we’re going to introduce: the Land Academy garage sale.
Jill DeWit:
I love it.
Steven Butala:
So do I and it was a smash hit. A lot of stuff we do, a lot of these [sub 00:00:20] and products that we do just don’t catch on. We are in beta right here on this thing, and it really, really works. It’s our way of internally auctioning off property that… Every land investor has a bunch of stuff, a bunch of [pieces 00:00:37] of property laying around that, for whatever reason, are accumulating taxes, they haven’t gotten sold. They just fell through the cracks. I have properties since 25 years ago that we still have. And so, it’s a $1 no-reserve of auction. We’re just auctioning it off internally within the land academy group [crosstalk 00:00:56]
Jill DeWit:
We have long written it off, and our loss is your gain.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. And it’s a blast. People are stealing property, and we’re happy with it.
Jill DeWit:
We’ll explain more in a minute.
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 don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill DeWit:
Jake wrote, “This might be a fairly obvious ‘do not do this’, but does anybody know about the legality of using pictures of another lot that is essentially the same in every aspect as yours, from the internet to help market your own property online?” Well, I have a lot to say about this.
Steven Butala:
Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Well-
Steven Butala:
So do I.
Jill DeWit:
Because we have personally taken for… As Land Academy member, you may or may not know this, you have access to a library of photos in several areas that we took, and made available to you when we launched the original cashflow from land program. We gave these photos, we took them. You took them. And back then, you or our engineering people, took these photos. And so they’re ours. It’s not like it’s proprietary, we stole them or anything. No. They’re ours, and we have given permission freely to use them.
Jill DeWit:
So the point, though, is we want to make sure you say… you have to properly say that these are of the area because it doesn’t happen so much anymore. But sometimes you have properties in a, say a subdivision or certain area, maybe you own four or five 10. I don’t know. You don’t need to send the same guy out there 10 times. But you can, especially now with Google maps and Google earth and things, people can really look in and see that property really with detail. And back then we couldn’t. So I have no trouble with this as long as you’re not stealing it, A. Don’t do that. Like you’re not getting it off Canva or something like that. And then B, you let them know that maybe you took the… “This is a lot next door I visited last week. You can see it over here.” You may or may not… You don’t agree with me?
Steven Butala:
No. I just waiting, actually.
Jill DeWit:
I can’t tell you’re if agreeing or not. So anyway, you just properly say it’s of area.
Steven Butala:
I would say I agree with you Jill, and now and forever.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Yeah, I’m sure you would. I said, “Don’t worry about that. You know what toes you’re stepping on. If you think there’s any legal issue, then definitely don’t do it.” But if someone says, “Sure, use this. It’s fine” in the email or whatever, yeah. Go.
Steven Butala:
I have one word for you. And if you’re a note taker or you’re actually listening to the show, or if you’re cooking dinner and you’re listening to it, please listen to this. Please remember this for your entire real estate career. What matters is one word, disclosure. You can take a picture of the Empire State Building. And if you have a property for sale in Utah, and you put it under in a caption, “This property has nothing to do with the-”
Jill DeWit:
Empire State Building.
Steven Butala:
Property that I’m selling”, or if you say, “If you’re fleeing New York, come to Nevada, and there’s a picture of the Empire State Building.” As long as you disclose it, you can do anything you want. As long as you disclose you’re a real estate agent, then you can buy and sell land. But if you don’t do that, there’s a lot of problems. You can buy an entire subdivision, and as long as you disclose everything that you know about the property, you’re going to be… In general, I’m not giving you legal advice here. In general, you’re going to be okay. Does that mean lie? No, not at all. It means disclose it. “Here’s a picture of a property that’s in the area of…” I think Jill’s explained it all. And so, no, you’re fine. You just need to not lie or deceive.
Jill DeWit:
Well, part B is you want to be real careful, and like what Steven’s saying, you want to make sure that everybody really knows that and understands that because if you don’t and they go stand on it, and it’s not at all like your pictures convey-
Steven Butala:
That’s not good.
Jill DeWit:
Here comes a refund, you got unhappy people-
Steven Butala:
All kinds of stuff.
Jill DeWit:
So that’s part B. That’s why it’s just common sense. Make sure everybody knows. Now you know that those trees are different than the trees on this one, but they’re right down the road. Yep. Got it.
Steven Butala:
There’s a difference between buying a piece of property, taking some pictures of it or surrounding area pictures, and making those pictures look as good as they possibly can. Like most women do on a Saturday night date, they package themselves up, so you can’t [crosstalk 00:05:15]
Jill DeWit:
Here it comes.
Steven Butala:
So it’s like, “Is that really even her?”, because they’re going to package themselves up to look as great as they can. So there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as there’s full disclosure about what’s going on, “This is not my regular Tuesday look.”
Jill DeWit:
What the heck? You know men? What are you talking about? Men? Do you know there’s hair plugs and things like that? Let’s talk, shall we? What if this wasn’t your hair and you’re wearing a rug? Come on.
Steven Butala:
It’s my hair.
Jill DeWit:
I know that, but let’s… It’s not just women. Can we just say people?
Steven Butala:
With me it’s-
Jill DeWit:
Can we say people?
Steven Butala:
Sure.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Thank you. Now I’m happy.
Steven Butala:
So there’s a difference between making an asset look as great as possible through things like, “Oh, let’s lighten up the sky. It was a dreary day when the drone shots, we can use some software to make it look like a better day.” We can disclose, “This is a neighbor’s property. This isn’t the real property.” Very often what you see is, “This is a cabin down the street”, or “Down the road from this property”, which I think is really confusing because everybody starts buying it because they think that the cabin’s on there. There’s a difference between that, which I think is pretty healthy and intelligent from a marketing standpoint, and lying. And saying, “This is the property”, and then you get there, and it looks nothing like it. It’s some stock photo on Google that you shouldn’t be using anyway.
Jill DeWit:
Right. Well you see it now most often, I’ll end it on this. You see it most often online when you’re looking at houses. Now you can… some good ones you can’t tell, but some you can tell. It looks like the home is staged. There’s no furniture in there, so if you really look at a big, you’re like, “Oh the house is actually empty.” They staged it on a computer for the photographs, so you’ll go look at the house which I actually think that’s brilliant too. I’m like, “Good for them”, because we all want to see what’s possible. So it’s good.
Steven Butala:
Today’s topic: introducing Land Academy garage sale. This is why you’re listening. Go ahead, I have a lot to say.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. This is a great idea. Over the years, actually as it’s how Land Academy started, Land Academy started because as our wholesale priced, not wholesale wholesale, but how we would sell property just priced so hot so well, those buyers became students. And then, it became to the point where there’s so many people I’m trying to teach how to buy a property like we do, we turned it into Land Academy. That’s kind of the thing going on there. So, I’ve always sold property to whoever wants to buy it at a great price. I used to have a spreadsheet I’d send out. Before Land Academy, that was our thing. I had a platinum buyers list, I still do. There’s all kinds of ways that we… we take in property and we sell it. We never have to take pictures or post it or do anything, it’s awesome. But what has happened, we’ve been doing this for decades. You multiple decades, me one decade. Partially because I’m behind you and partially because I’m younger. So-
Steven Butala:
I’m going to do a whole presentation later on generations.
Jill DeWit:
Here we go. But-
Steven Butala:
You’re going to crack up.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. Anyway, we have a collected property that we forgot about, and it was so sweet. Somebody put something in discord the other day. I can’t wait till I’m at the point where I forget about a property that I’ve got in my inventory. And everybody said-
Steven Butala:
That’s not said not far off.
Jill DeWit:
“Just hold on, it’ll happen quicker than you think”, and that’s what’s happening.
Steven Butala:
Oh, The did respond to that?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. So they did.
Steven Butala:
Okay. So it’s not just us.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, no. It was really cool. So anyway, we’ve got multiple properties. We’re like, “You know what? We need to get rid of these.” And now it’s to the point where we bought them a long enough ago, it’s great for… I’m not at that level, and it takes so much work to get the pictures and post them for me. I’d have so many of them where like, “You know, well, let’s just give them away.” Almost give them away. We’re going to selling them in a garage sale. It is totally garage sale pricing. So what are we talking about for our members? We use a discord as an internal chat. In discord we have a little thread that’s called a garage sale. And we started this about a week ago, and it’s going smashingly. And it starts at $1. $1, no reserve. Here you go. Kind of like eBay, but it’s no eBay fees and it’s our own little thing.
Jill DeWit:
And we put our own little deadline in there, and everybody just kind of bids away. And people are getting great properties at like, oh my gosh… I don’t even care what we are spending, I’m happy to get them off my inventory.
Steven Butala:
Me too, Jill.
Jill DeWit:
And I know that there’s a lot of you are like high fiving yourselves like, “I just stole this”, and I want you to.
Steven Butala:
It’s a garage sale.
Jill DeWit:
I’m happy. Well, you know what? You’re members.
Steven Butala:
How great is it to go find something that you’ve been looking for? For me, it’s old fishing equipment or something like that or garage sale. There’s a crate of it for 10 bucks, and you’ve been looking for few things in there for six years. And if you try to buy brand new, let’s say on eBay, individually, it’s three, $400. It’s that feeling.
Jill DeWit:
Or it doesn’t exist.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. Jill’s right now buying-
Jill DeWit:
Old books.
Steven Butala:
Buying books that have been out of print since… some of them in sixties and seventies about people’s old school entrepreneurial endeavors that have succeeded around Phoenix. It’s such a great feeling to even just be able to get it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. I love buying used books.
Steven Butala:
Let alone at a great price.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. So, we are happy to pay it forward and happy to get it. It needs to get back in circulation. You know what I kind of feel like? It’s like if you’ve ever bought property, we bought property from different entities, one of them is, let’s just say an HOA, or even the county when they take a property back they’re sad nobody wanted it. But when someone comes along and buys it, and they’re going to breathe new life into it, and they’re going to get taxes for it, this is always a good thing. So I feel like we’re breathing new life into these properties, and I know that there’s going to be some that they’re going to…someone’s going to, hasn’t happened yet because I got the first deed to complete. But somebody’s going to say, “I just bought this for you guys for $450 and sold it for 4,000.” I know it’s going to happen and I’m waiting for it, and I’m happy for you.
Steven Butala:
We just moved from Los Angeles, right on the beach, to Phoenix. And I had a bunch of salt water fishing gear, a lot of it it’s brand new. It’s made for catching the fish that are not in Arizona, big fish. So I posted it all and waited online, and a guy eventually who goes down to Cabason [Lucas 00:11:46] constantly came to pick it all up. This is a grown man.
Jill DeWit:
Like tears in his eyes.
Steven Butala:
It was Christmas. He’s been looking for, especially right now, because of the… can’t get a lot of this stuff because of the supply chain in the world. And it was a very, very good price. Most of it was all brand new, and from the money that I made, I went and bought, all grossly overpaid, for all this freshwater stuff that I want that it was the same situation. This guy moved from the Midwest, and took up golf and he had all this equipment. And so, it’s that kind of thing. It’s like we’re passing it on. Hopefully they’re going to use the property or resell it for a lot more. Everybody wins situation. It’s a true non-profit actually.
Jill DeWit:
Totally. Yeah. It’s yeah. What do [inaudible 00:12:27] sell? It’s a true negative profit.
Steven Butala:
Non-profits should be, and a lot of them are not. Everyone should feel great. You should donate yourself or your money to it, and feel great about that. The people that are getting it, the entity that’s getting it should feel great about receiving it. And then doling out whatever their mission is. What might be feeding people, educating people, worship, whatever. I don’t care what it is, but everybody wins.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
She was done. She was done with this episode.
Jill DeWit:
Totally.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow the episode on House Academy Show is called, “Why we have not missed, yet, the housing boom.” You are not alone. You’re real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
You know what’s funny about that? I just had a lengthy conversation with a agent, [south of us 00:13:14], yesterday. I thought she did land because I found her because she had some really great land postings. Good pictures, everything. So I tracked her down. It turns out she got stuck with a couple land owners. That’s not her forte.
Steven Butala:
Oh, she’s a land person.
Jill DeWit:
She’s not. She’s still a house… I said, “I finally had to go…” Like kind of reel her in and go, “Okay, so what is your niche here?” She goes “Residential.” I’m like, “That’s what I just needed to know. We could have saved us.” But then we launched into everybody’s opinion, and she even agrees that I don’t think this is going away.
Steven Butala:
It’s not.
Jill DeWit:
I’m like, “Oh yeah, we’re on the same page.” She says, “People keep telling me they think it’s going to crash.” She’s in it. She’s been in it for decades, in real estate. She actually reminds me of [Hula 00:13:57]. And she’s like, “No, I don’t think it’s going to change.” I said, “Awesome. Neither do we.” So, that was good.
Steven Butala:
We hear this whole title came from the fact that I just hear a lot of young people saying, “Well, that’s it. I missed it. All the property went up. I’ll never be a homeowner. Ha ha. That’s hilarious.”
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Thank you for tuning in. If you are a Land Academy member, like you heard me talking about discord, make sure you’re on it because it rocks. We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Jill DeWit:
To buy undervalued property.
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