Jack Thursday – Fishing for Land (LA 1636)
Jack Thursday – Fishing for Land (LA 1636)
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 DeWitt broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Butala:
Today is Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about fishing for land.
Jill DeWit:
I like this.
Steven Butala:
There’s a lot of things about fishing.
Jill DeWit:
There’s a lot of talk about fishing right now with you.
Steven Butala:
Well, I’m getting older and you know, this is what I told my bartender recently, I need a hobby.
Jill DeWit:
Like you have one bartender.
Steven Butala:
Yeah. One of the bartenders. I know, I know who’s familiar with all my flaws.
Jill DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Butala:
And well, anyway.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, well finish the sentence.
Steven Butala:
Oh, I just need a hobby and I’ve always loved fishing. I grew up doing it. I grew up in Michigan, sometimes in Northern Michigan, and there’s just nothing but fishing there. And we had a blast, lot of memories about that. And when you have children and jobs and things start things like Land Academy, there’s just, you’re pressed for time. And I’m getting to be the age where I need to start enjoying things a little bit more. There’s enough money coming, buying and selling land all the time. We’ve got some good staff, Jill slowing down a little bit and you know I think bout fishing.
Jill DeWit:
That’s good.
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:
Buckley wrote: “My first mailer was 1900 units. I received over 10 responses with solid interest in selling. However, not a single one has a solid state or county maintained road access.” That’s okay. Hold on a moment. “Is it common to have so few replies with road access in a mailer this size, not sure if it’s simply due the county I mailed or what plugging away, making the most of what I can though. Any thoughts are helpful.” Well, what if it’s a dirt road and it’s still public and it’s not like it’s paved, but there’s access.
Steven Butala:
Sometimes you can read my mind.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, it doesn’t have to be paved and plowed. It’s not going to be that great. And depending on the area, this is rural. Let me back up here. This is rural vacant land everyone. Most of the time it is a dirt road. I’m happy with that.
Steven Butala:
Sorry Jill, get in there. Go. I mean it.
Jill DeWit:
Seriously, do you want an exit? Do you want your own exit sign with an arrow and a turnout or would you prefer a signal?
Steven Butala:
How about cut in sewers and roads. No here’s the thing..
Jill DeWit:
Exactly. A big sign that says power right here. There’s a blow thing sticking up out of the ground. Just kidding.
Steven Butala:
We’re not in the business of alienating Land Academy members.
Jill DeWit:
No, no, I’m teasing you.
Steven Butala:
But and I want to point out too, there’s a lot of questions and comments and successes. I can choose from hundreds and hundreds of entries in discord when we do the show. I’m here to tell you, I’m not always picking the peaches and cream. Oh my God I made a million dollars on this deal kind of comments. So this is a valid comment. It’s a valid concern from somebody who sent out a mailer, got a positive response and got a bunch of people that wanted to sell at his price. 10.
Jill DeWit:
This is all good news.
Steven Butala:
So that’s good, good, good and good.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:19].
Steven Butala:
Actually it’s great, right?
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
What your question is that is this well, one of the five A’s is access and it doesn’t appear to me that this rural vacant land has access. So I’m going to tell you little story, and then Jill’s going to, I can tell she wants to talk.
Jill DeWit:
Yes.
Steven Butala:
When I moved to Scottsdale in 1994, you could buy a 40 acre air quotes, landlocked property for about $12 to $25,000, which at that point, and everyone else has fallen off their chairs saying, there’s no way this should ever be worth $25,000. And so none of us bought it. Those properties, same properties are a million, a million and a half, million eight right now because there’s things that stuff got solved, money solves problems and access can get solved by doing what we do here in Land Academy, which is picking up the phone, calling the adjacent property owner and seeing, first of all, if they want to buy the property. Or if they are willing to grant access, all kinds of stuff you can do. So access, and I went in after the 13th comment of everyone saying, oh my gosh, you should stay away from this. I feel a little responsible in this, by the way, you and I just because it doesn’t have access like that doesn’t mean it’s valueless. Go in and get it for a thousand bucks and sell it for 10. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
There’s two things. If you buy a cheap, well, if you find, if there is a way out, right, and one of the owners is willing to do that, call the neighbors, you have neighbor’s Scoop, you can look up their phone number, then see what that’s going to cost. And you don’t necessarily have to do it, but you buy the property cheap enough like he said, and you queue it up, that this is all of what’s possible. Here’s my first thought on this. I thought that because some people get, and I don’t mean to be picking on you. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t. [crosstalk 00:05:07] I was just having fun.
Steven Butala:
This isn’t a personal thing at all.
Jill DeWit:
Oh no, no.
Steven Butala:
This is actually going to help a lot of people.
Jill DeWit:
It will. No. And I’m glad you asked this question. It’s a really good one, because I’ve seen people very early on accidentally not meaning to kill too many deals.
Steven Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
You know what I mean? I think you’re being a little too picky and I want you to go back and look at them and see it doesn’t have to be county maintained. Fantastic. But can you really get to it? Even if it’s four wheel drive, is there physical access? And if you can go back and look at these and say, you know what, I do see access and now do we have, hold please. Is there legal access because there very well maybe, or even if it’s just really close to it that we can see what’s possible. I would still continue down the path with some of these deals.
Steven Butala:
There’s a huge subculture of people that want access to this property.
Jill DeWit:
True.
Steven Butala:
That they can get to because they don’t want to be found. Use your imagination why.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, and that’s [crosstalk 00:06:06]
Steven Butala:
So this is not valueless property. That’s my whole point here. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. And then those, you still want to be careful pick the right areas, right? It’s not going to be, I would say too take your favorite one of these. I would go back through these 10 pick the one that you’re like, you know what of all of the 10, this is the one I like the best. Give it to us on the Thursday member call.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
And we will really look at you and tell you. [crosstalk 00:06:32].
Steven Butala:
That’s a great suggestion Jill.
Jill DeWit:
And look it up and help you with this first hand.
Steven Butala:
That’s a great idea.
Jill DeWit:
That’s that’s why we’re here. I would do that because I don’t want you to, you didn’t waste any mail or any data.
Steven Butala:
You didn’t fail.
Jill DeWit:
No.
Steven Butala:
Most importantly.
Jill DeWit:
And by the way, too, this is just the first wave. The first wave of properties that comes through in the calls and the responses, aren’t always the juice. I often find in the middle of the mailer. That’s when the juice comes in, the people who got your letter and they’re like, Hmm, all right, this guy said 90 days, well, you know what? I’m going to put this on the fridge. I’m going to put this on my bulletin board. I’m going to think about this one. And I’m going to talk to my wife. I’m going to sleep on it. How are we really going to use it? We’re going to spend some time, talk to the kids and then I’m going to reach out to this guy. And there’s so there’s some stuff coming too.
Steven Butala:
There’s value in most access-less properties. It’s just not the same value. We don’t value it the same way that we do on a Thursday call or other property. There’s I bought thousands and thousands and thousands of access-less properties and made tons of money on it. And the people that I sold it to probably made money on it too. Today’s Jack Thursday, fishing for land. This is why you’re listening.
Steven Butala:
You know, when you send a mailer out thousands of letters, you know that the universe of property, when you’re staring at that county or that zip code and neighbors scoop or wherever and you know, or in data tree, you there’s 1800 properties that you’re about to mail. if you’re sitting in a boat somewhere picture yourself in a boat there’s 1800 fish down there, are all of them hungry right now? No. Are all the sellers per property going to sell at the price that you offered? No, but a very consistent percentage if you have the right equipment, you have lack of talkative somewhat naggy wife in the boat with you. You don’t have that or whatever statistics you have put and prepped yourself for, for success. Wow. You didn’t even comment. Was that from the last time yesterday [crosstalk 00:08:40] , lack of commenting.
Jill DeWit:
I am going to get a puppet.
Steven Butala:
I should get a Jill puppet.
Jill DeWit:
I am going to have my puppet look at you. You can Make faces.
Steven Butala:
Dude you need a custom made Jill puppet.
Jill DeWit:
I should totally get a puppet. That is what I’ve decided I need right now. And then I don’t have to do anything. I can just sit like this.
Steven Butala:
We need puppets.
Jill DeWit:
And it can look at you and glare at you and just like oh watch.
Steven Butala:
Can you write that down. We need custom puppets of each other.
Jill DeWit:
And I’m going to have the Jack puppet, or I can have my puppet. Yeah. Maybe we’ll change it up. Okay.
Steven Butala:
All kidding aside, fishing and setting out a mail campaign and fishing they’re analogous let’s say. There’s a universe of potential candidates, underwater. There’s all kinds of stuff that you can do to really, really ensure that you’re going to catch something. You know, you might, maybe you get a fish finder, maybe you get some better equipment. Maybe you talk to the guys on the dock and find out where the fish are biting that day. The ones that are just coming in that had success or failure. So buying and selling land the way that we do it is the same way. What you don’t want to do is throw your line into water a couple of times and say, this sucks and it doesn’t work. Fishing doesn’t work. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit:
Another one you also don’t want to roll up where everybody’s all in a circle fishing in that one same spot. Yeah, I’m going to roll up with all these 10 guys. So one more. I’m really going to benefit too.
Steven Butala:
There’s a balance.
Jill DeWit:
There are 10 guys go over there.
Steven Butala:
There’s a balance. You don’t use large saltwater lures to try to catch trout in an inland lake in Michigan, and there’s also a lot of those fishermen that are going to come in. They’re going to tell you to go to the wrong place cause they don’t want you there. Just like a lot of people in real estate are going to steer you in the wrong direction or a lot of people in this education space in real estate. So believe me fishing works. It can be the greatest thing ever. You just have to manage it and like everything else, you can’t just jump in the water and get a plastic rod and some stuff and throw it in and expect it to work. You got to put your time in and, and enjoy the process and, and you’ll catch some fish.
Jill DeWit:
I don’t have a lot to add. This is kind of your show.
Steven Butala:
Usually my stuff is real negative, but this is…
Jill DeWit:
This is very enlightening today. Thank you. So if you’re used to skipping Thursday this one was a treat for you.
Steven Butala:
Where’s your puppet? The other thing today is that there’s going to be a Jill puppet.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, I’m getting a puppet. Watch me. It’s going to be good. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow is Jill Friday. And she’s going to talk about how to sound professional investor. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. What’s a professional investor, where did that come from?
Jill DeWit:
It’s from the intensive training that I’m doing right now.
Steven Butala:
Oh, right.
Jill DeWit:
Right, so a lot of people are there [crosstalk 00:11:34] Yeah. They’re there to learn how to talk to sellers and of buyers and well, and sound like they know what they’re talking about.
Steven Butala:
Your show’s going to be better than mine this week.
Jill DeWit:
No it’s not. Thank you though.
Steven Butala:
We’ll see.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you for tuning in, by the way, we hope you find our content valuable and we really appreciate your support. If you haven’t already please check out our YouTube channel and hit the subscribe button we are. [crosstalk 00:11:57].
Steven Butala:
What is that?
Jill DeWit:
It’s my puppet.
Steven Butala:
That’s a trick.
Jill DeWit:
I know sorry. We are Steve and Jill, go for it.
Steven Butala:
Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
Jill DeWit:
Thanks.
Steven Butala:
What a trick.
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