Jack Thursday – Welcome to Your Comeback (LA 1676)
Jack Thursday – Welcome to Your Comeback (LA 1676)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy show, entertaining land, investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting for the Valley of the Sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. And I’m going to talk about, welcome to your comeback.
Jill K DeWit:
I like this. I love that title.
Steven Jack Butala:
This came from two sources. So Jill and I went to a Christmas party recently with some people that we’ve known for a lot of years. And they’re real good personal friends of ours. And the host walked up to me and said, “Amazing comeback.” Because when we met, he said that to me personally. He said that to me because we all met each other during the great recession in real estate… The real estate depression in 2010 when Jill and I basically had nothing.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had to sell our house. We had to move into a house that we had bought from a bank that was much smaller. And fortunately, we had a bunch of land that was paid for like we do now, like hopefully many Land Academy members there have accumulated land where we pay cash for it, and sold it. And that’s what kept us alive through that period before we could start really doing acquisitions and sales again like we were used to.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that really brought a lot of memories, like we did come back. We didn’t-
Jill K DeWit:
Big come back.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I know there’s a lot of people out there, things change in their lives. That’s what this show’s going to about. You can come back.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the land-investors.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 K DeWit:
Troy wrote, “Anyone here having experience with RS-10 zoning in mixed commercial slash residential growing cities? I’m looking at 18 acres I can buy for $63,000. And the broker says I could sell it for $150,000 on the low end. And even at a real quick sale of $125,000. My experience is in rural areas and would like another set of eyes on it if possible. Has a few cons, but no real deal breakers that I can see. I can PM more details. Thanks. Would consider partnering as well.” So how’d that go?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s a smash hit. So my whole point, and it’s Jack Thursday so I can do what I want here… My whole point is-
Jill K DeWit:
Every day you can do what you want. Why is today different?
Steven Jack Butala:
My point in putting this in here is that Discord is an amazing tool, and this is how it was intended to be used. I’ve got this great deal. It’s a little bit out of my comfort zone. Hey, other Land Academy members, if you have a bunch of dough… Love to do the deal with you. Our 10 has means residential 10,000 square feet. So if you take 18 acres and divide that by 10,000 square feet minus 10% for roads and stuff, that’s an amazing property from a financial standpoint. Put in the right hands of a person who’s going to develop it, which is not us. Buy for 60, sell for 150 is for us.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s what Discord’s for. That’s what Land Academy’s for.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today is Jack Thursday. Welcome to your comeback. I don’t care where you are in your life. I don’t care. I don’t care if you’re in your 50s, and you lost a dream job that you thought you were going to retire with, which happens to way more people than we know about. You can come back. It’s not hard.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just have to get your head together and really want it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I professionally, got put to our knees in 2010. We were happily making tons and tons of money. We had a yacht, buying and selling land and selling it on eBay and on the internet. And the recession slash real estate depression hit, and people just stopped buying our land altogether, entirely and completely stopped buying land. And so we eats along. We adjusted our lifestyle of dramatically. Luckily we had a bunch of dirt paid for. We adjusted our lifestyle and we adjusted our business model and we were buying-
Jill K DeWit:
And our expectations.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. And we were buying houses on the west side of Phoenix for 20 and $40,000 and selling them for 60 and 80, which is a lot harder to buy and sell land. But we did it anyway. And we eats along for a few years till the economy and the market came back. And so we accumulated enough money to really start… This is around 2012, kicking up the land business again.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And some of those things involved going to back tax auctions and buying huge tranches of property because nobody was buying it. And then to which this day we still own some of it for resale.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so comebacks are totally possible. It’s all in your head. And I’ll tell you what, on a personal note, it really matters who you’re hanging out with. Because nothing phases Jill, for some reason. If we had to shut all this down today and go live in some paid for a little house somewhere. I honestly think we would be just as happy.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah. We’d go live in our RV.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. We’d figure it out. It’s true. That’s what I was trying to think. So what is it about this? Because I know there’s people that have gone through it, know about this, know someone. Maybe you’re faced with it right now. I think it’s a mindset.
Steven Jack Butala:
I know what it is.
Jill K DeWit:
What?
Steven Jack Butala:
When you get knocked to your knees on something, you have a couple of choices.
Jill K DeWit:
True.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually too. You can take it personally and say, “I suck. I kind of knew this was coming my whole life because I suck anyway.” And then now you’re done or you can, or
Jill K DeWit:
They figured it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
They really figured it out.
Steven Jack Butala:
Or you can say, “This is an unfortunate circumstance to which I’m going to respond. I’m going to do some stuff and not take it personally and say it’s the economy. Or maybe I made some mistakes and I’m moving forward.”
Jill K DeWit:
I come back fighting.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Like all right. You guys don’t get it. You don’t get me. Watch this.
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s what happens to me.
Steven Jack Butala:
You’re so the girl for me.
Jill K DeWit:
I snap. I do. You know. And when something really bad happens like this, sure. There should be a little bit of a mourning period and upset and everything. But then for me, it turns to anger. And then anger turns to hold onto your hat. Look out. I’ll show you. And it’s the best motivation ever. And then I will not stop. Period.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. It’s 60 hour days.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I don’t care.
Steven Jack Butala:
You have to do painful stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
Do not care. I remember when we were starting Land Academy. I remember late nights sitting in that house that you talked about, that little house you talked about, at the dining room table, learning how to make a chart to put the pricing in there for people could check out and join Land Academy. And it was like I’d never done this stuff before. Before Land Academy, I hadn’t built my own website. I hadn’t done any of that. I’d know how to do it now. I don’t have to do it anymore, but I learned. I had to.
Steven Jack Butala:
So this downturn that I’m talking about and then us crawling out of the hole, going to auctions and buying houses and reselling them to accumulate cash… Was really the motivation. If that didn’t happen, I would’ve never done Land Academy because that was the motivation.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That was before Land Academy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, it was years before.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what started this trigger in my head about, you know what? Other people are going through this stuff. We need to… If we get out of this, I’m going to put together a program that share, give back to help people get-
Jill K DeWit:
Come out of this stuff, too.
Steven Jack Butala:
So Land… My point is land can, yeah. To come out of it, too. Land can be your comeback. You know? I don’t know what other business model where you can spend virtually no money, send a mailer out, answer the phone, retain an asset like this person just did with this $63,000 property in the question.
Jill K DeWit:
Use somebody else’s money to buy it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Get a bunch… I didn’t really know anything. I just know that this property’s worth 150, and I got to sign that-
Jill K DeWit:
I need someone to give me 60.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I need someone to give me 60, and then we could make this money.
Steven Jack Butala:
And pay other Land Academy members.
Jill K DeWit:
Done.
Steven Jack Butala:
Do it with me because I don’t know what I’m doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
People come out of the woodwork.
Jill K DeWit:
Done.
Jill K DeWit:
Well and our stories are not uncommon. Like it was interesting to me very early on when we started Land Academy, people that were… It was way before COVID, by the way. People just life circumstance, and many people say I lost my job. You know? And oh my goodness, thank goodness I had this going at the time because I knew how to keep food on the table. And they did.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s not just us. There’s so many of you out there. You know who you are. You know? And some of you, it was the best stories where I lost my job. I kept food on the table. They called me back. I don’t think I’m going to go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m like wow.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually this is this thing’s working out.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. That was the best. Like yeah, I don’t need you anymore. Thank you. You gave me the kick that I needed. That’s really cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we also came up, when you do a comeback, too, you really adjust your life and reflect. And so I had office buildings and yachts and all kinds of stuff, and it was leveraged incorrectly. And so we got ourselves out of all of that, Jill and I together. And we just don’t live our life that way any longer.
Steven Jack Butala:
So comebacks can be great. You just can’t blame yourself and sit around and say… You need to look at what went wrong, for sure.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
My biggest problem was it all was a single point of failure, which Jill and I solved together.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so making a comeback is the greatest thing ever. It’s better than just having it all be great in the first place, I think.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You learn who you are.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, and you appreciate it. I love that, too. Yeah. You can’t sit around and say, “Poor me.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly, Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Or if you do give yourself a day, maybe a week. Don’t do, like I knew a guy one time that he was a surgeon. And he had an injury and it messed up his being a surgeon. And he took like a year off, and it was really hard for him. He was like really… Maybe more than a year. Like went to Mexico and lived in a hotel for a year, not kidding. And just couldn’t get out of the funk. So give yourself some time. I understand that. But then come back swinging.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Man. And you will learn to appreciate it. And you make different decisions.
Steven Jack Butala:
Surround yourself with the right people.
Jill K DeWit:
That helps.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s really why we pulled ourselves out of it.
Jill K DeWit:
That really helps.
Steven Jack Butala:
We literally have friends. That we traveled and travel in real estate communities and with friends and all that. And there were people that had to file bankruptcy and chose taking their own lives during this whole process.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Many people actually, not just one or two.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so for none of that, it didn’t have to come to any of that.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Happy you were here by the way and happy you could join us today. Hope that was like an uplifting. I don’t want to leave it on a down note. That mean needs to be an uplifting show. So five days a week, you can find us right here on the inspirational Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
This will do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow will solve it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow is Jill Friday, and she’s going to talk about enthusiasm.
Jill K DeWit:
Got to leave this week on something good.
Steven Jack Butala:
You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I don’t mean to end this all negative.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, like yeah, you threw that in there at the end. Like what?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t mean to end this negatively, but it’s serious.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you get knocked to your knees professionally, all of us do it some point.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
You got to get back up.
Jill K DeWit:
Not everybody-
Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t take it personally.
Jill K DeWit:
Not everybody does. But-
Steven Jack Butala:
Really?
Jill K DeWit:
No. Oh my goodness.
Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody I know has always had a slump.
Jill K DeWit:
Well that’s okay. But I mean, not everybody has debilitating knock to their knees, house taken away, scariness, wife leaving, dog dying-
Steven Jack Butala:
At the same week.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So not everyone does that, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I don’t know what circles you travel in, but that doesn’t usually happen for everybody at the same time.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think there’s always a risk of that being an entrepreneur.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to save you all. You know what? That’s why I’m here.
Steven Jack Butala:
To save us all?
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. From negative Nelly over here. So I gotcha. And thank you for tuning in. We hope you find this valuable, and we do appreciate your support. Don’t forget. Please check out our YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Steve and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
Information-
Steven Jack Butala:
And inspiration.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s about undervalued property.
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