Undoing preconceived Real Estate Habits and Notions (LA 1703)
Undoing preconceived Real Estate Habits and Notions (LA 1703)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about undoing preconceived real estate habits and notions.
Jill K DeWit:
This makes me think of this clubhouse talk, this room I was in earlier today. It was a real estate group, and it was multifamily apartments and things like that they were talking about. The conversation part of the way through, like halfway through shifted to not talking about that at all, the nuts and bolts, but talking about the mindset of a person coming into this environment. It was so interesting to me because that part doesn’t change, and the whole point of what this person was saying was, why do you not trust someone who has experience? Usually a mentor doesn’t say, “Hey, you want me to mentor you?” Usually, you go to them and say, “Will you please mentor me?”
Jill K DeWit:
And you’re doing that because you recognize that they have experience, and they’ve made a lot of mistakes, and by not trusting them, and… hold on a moment, this all relates, trusting their experience and their way of doing things and getting out of your own head is nuts because that mentor is going to probably shave years off your learning curve. That’s what this whole topic is for me today, and I really want to dive into this that, why people have a hard time dropping their habits and things. When someone’s right there saying, “I’ve got 16,000 reasons why I do it this way.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This, what you’re saying specifically, in this topic, absolutely baffles me.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill and I talk about this often. Not often, once a week, usually when we’re prepping for a show like this, or when something strange happens in the Land Academy Group, or there’s a slew of questions in Discord, or when we have the opportunity in a real positive way, to get immediate and direct feedback, audio and video feedback, on career path. And we’re on, what? We’re in the middle of career path right now. So, we’re on module 5 of 10. It’s just shocking to me that how, I don’t know if it’s generational, I don’t know what it is, but it just shocks me that people’s minds, we’re saying the same thing, just aren’t open to listening to somebody that’s got decades of experience. I’ve been fighting it.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re going to talk about it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh yeah, this is the start of the show. Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It’s free, and please don’t forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Sarah wrote…
Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, if you don’t like this, which I completely understand, don’t subscribe. We take pride.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Please subscribe or not subscribe, however you see fit. And if you need to hit the off button, we understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our subscribers, we take pride in the fact that our subscribers are into it, and we actually, when we communicate with our subscribers, not just on YouTube, everywhere, they respond really well.
Jill K DeWit:
There we go. Sarah wrote, “I have someone who wants to sell a property with some liens on it, but she doesn’t know how much they are.” I can relate to that. Who does know exactly?
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a perfect question for you.
Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine? I know exactly what I owe. Really? Okay. “With the resources that we have here, is there a way to check for liens? I’ve only closed for attorneys, so I don’t know how to do my own title search.”
Steven Jack Butala:
You just answered your question. No, yeah, is there a super easy, 100% specific way to check on liens for properties that are up to the minute? No. There’s all kinds of ways that in the tools that we provide with Title Pro and you can get there. You can find out if there’s liens on a property pretty quickly.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. You have a lot of the tools to do a lot of the work, but I have to point out something funny, Sarah here, because what he says is true, and here’s how you know it. Read any title insurance policy. If you go through and read, when attorney and escrow get, when they do title insurance, and you really read those documents, they will say in there, “We only ensure and stand behind the liens and the things that we found. Anything we can’t find, we don’t guarantee.”
Steven Jack Butala:
That defies logic and the very concept of insurance.
Jill K DeWit:
Like, “Wait a minute, so I’m paying for title insurance for only the four things you found. There could be two more you didn’t find?” Yes. That’s correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, why are they motivated to list what’s in there? They’re not.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. It is kind of funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t get me started. That’s why I have insurance.
Jill K DeWit:
I know I don’t want to go there, but my point is I want to say people go, “Well, wait a minute. What do you mean? That’s what title insurance is. That’s the guarantee.”
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
Kind of, but not, it’s not perfect. So, if you really want to have a good giggle one day, read your next title insurance policy, you’re going to be like, “What?”.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re young, and you’re looking to be a billionaire, and you have a lot of energy and patience, and you’re a smart person-
Jill K DeWit:
Start a title company.
Steven Jack Butala:
…start down the path of not an escrow company, a title plant company that feeds title plant information to escrow. It’s a perfect time to do that in your life, in the world because-
Jill K DeWit:
Right. When you don’t have any other big assets.
Steven Jack Butala:
…all this information… Actually I’m doing a presentation later today on the state of real estate information and how amazing it is right now.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Can you imagine just doing a title policy? Do about 20 seconds of work, issue a $500 title policy on every single deal that closes.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
Billions, billions of dollars.
Jill K DeWit:
But a lot of it too, Sarah, I’m assuming you’re in Land Academy. If you are, you have access to data tree and those other things. When you go into the advanced search area, you can find a lot of this stuff. You can find out mortgage documents, you can look at the mortgage documents. It’s really interesting. You can get a cursory look at it. Even in neighborscoop.com, sometimes on the left hand side, and you scroll down, you’ll see if there’s a mortgage that was associated with the property. It’s usually one big thing.
Jill K DeWit:
Like a mortgage will be on neighbor scoop, so that clues you in right there, but then you can go into the other ways, and you can do a deeper dive. I’ve used that information and I’ve actually, it never really saves me money, but I always try to help out my title company when I’ve uncovered that. I kind of say, Here’s what I already found to get you going”.
Steven Jack Butala:
The reason I chose your question, and it’s a very good one, is that at the end, you said I’ve only ever closed through attorneys, so I don’t know how to do my own title search. Attorneys largely, are easier to work with than title agents. If this is in a state where you’ve already worked with an attorney, you’re at a five second phone call away from saying, “Hey, can you check this liens out on this property that we’re trying to put a deal together and I need.” Now, they probably won’t even charge you.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. And/or, “Hey, give me a break on the rate. I know we just paid $1,100? What’s the rate I can get? I got three more I’m going to throw at you.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Used to be forever, and I’ll close the topic on this. Used forever. It used to be that title companies and lawyers had access to the tools that regular people don’t have access to, or they speak the language at the county, specifically with title plant companies. Spoke the language at the county to the point where they could walk in and get records and pull deeds, and they’re smart enough to just know what they’re looking at. It’s all a matter of public information. If you’ve ever walked into a county clerk’s office and you see four or five or eight people horsing around and having fun on a big [inaudible 00:08:04] room table over there, and they’re laughing with each other, those are titled people that work for title companies.
Steven Jack Butala:
And they’re not all from one company. They all know each other because they work together doing title research for escrow agents to close mostly house deals. That’s all it is. It’s just research. Now, it’s all online. And literally, we are about to have, as just people walking around the planet, like Jill and I, or you, access to all this information for very small amount of money. For the last several years, it’s been a race for the four or five title companies in the country, to get this stuff digitized and sell it.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you sir.
Steven Jack Butala:
A great time to be in real estate. Lawyers have had exclusive access to a product called Lexus Nexus, which you now can get if you know what you’re doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you, sir. That sounds like a-
Steven Jack Butala:
Was it ranty?
Jill K DeWit:
[crosstalk 00:08:57] promotion for?
Steven Jack Butala:
Was it too ranty?
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m not selling anything.
Jill K DeWit:
That was a dad’s speech.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t want to do that.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s all right. It’s too late now.
Steven Jack Butala:
Why didn’t you stop me?
Jill K DeWit:
We all got the dad’s… I was trying, but it was… do you know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s my version of Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
There really wasn’t enough appropriate time to interrupt.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is what Jill would.
Jill K DeWit:
Thanks dad.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill would watch me going head long into a wall, running. There’s a wall right there and I’m smiling saying, “Jill, look at me, look at me”, and she’ll wait until I smash into the wall and say, “Yeah, I knew you were going to smash into the wall”.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what?
Steven Jack Butala:
For my personal enjoyment, I want to see you fail.
Jill K DeWit:
Honestly, I was looking for a break in the topic and there was no pause for breath, so I just had to let you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
You know why, because I’m excited.
Jill K DeWit:
I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m excited that we’re going to have access to all this data.
Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what? See, back to your wall scenario, you were already at 55 miles an hour, head down, full motion. If I stopped you in that, it would’ve been worse than letting you just hit the wall.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right. Today’s topic,
Jill K DeWit:
I would’ve got hurt. That’s why.
Steven Jack Butala:
Undoing preconceived real estate habits and notions. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
I get it. Go ahead. You go first.
Steven Jack Butala:
People come to Land Academy from all corners of the real estate environment. Some are recovering real estate agents, some are people that just want to make a bunch of money. Some are recovering stock, state traders, a lot of former business owners where they’ve sold their companies and now they want to do something that they can make a ton of money at that’s not as complicated.
Jill K DeWit:
Some are retired and had other full long careers and they’re just…
Steven Jack Butala:
Some are just brand spanking new. But everyone has come to us with these preconceived real estate notions like all of us watched our parents either rent forever, or buy and sell a house, or we have a friend who’s a real estate agent, who’s successful or not successful.
Jill K DeWit:
Or just somebody on social media they follow, they think that that’s the way.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we accumulate all this information and almost all of it’s wrong.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, not, okay. I don’t think almost all of it. But there’s a lot.
Steven Jack Butala:
Almost all of it.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what’s right. Here’s why they do come to us, which is correct. You can buy a piece of property and sell it for more. How you do that, is all over the map.
Jill K DeWit:
My point today is, I get it, it’s hard. Based on what you just said, I believe, it’s true. We all have some view of, “How’s that guy over there making a bunch of money?” And he says, “I just do this, this and this”. Well, there’s always more to it, first of all. And you may not be picking up on the right stuff too, by the way. You take that, unless they really sit down and show you and spend the time and put it into it, you might be assuming incorrectly. Like I said, I get it. However you learned how to do, fill in the blank, and you have somebody else that says there’s a better way, it’s hard sometimes to change gears and change our mindset, and be open to it.
Jill K DeWit:
Our best Land Academy members are the ones that come to us that either have an open mind A, or B, they don’t know much about it, because they are sponges. You need to be a sponge. My second endpoint for today is, why would you not trust someone who has so much experience in decades, has thousands and thousands more deals done than you have.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because you have a personality disorder.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m getting there. Then B, years and years of experience, because all you’re going to do… Then otherwise I’d say why did you even bother?
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think.
Jill K DeWit:
Because, you’re either going to use that person and they’re going to shave years off your learning curve.
Steven Jack Butala:
Absolutely agree.
Jill K DeWit:
That was the comment the guy made today that I couldn’t unmute fast enough. It wasn’t like I wasn’t able, then I had to go. I was going to jump in and chime in and say, “Thank you for saying that. I hope you all heard that, in this room.” Mentors are going to shave years off your learning curve if you let them.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you choose the right ones.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. You choose the right ones and you let them, and you listen.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right Jill. Great.
Jill K DeWit:
So you have to vet them. That’s the thing too. That’s not what this is about today, but you got to vet your mentors. Make sure they have the experience, make sure they’re doing what you want to do, make sure you connect with them, and you understand them. And once you get past that stuff, you’re like, “All right, now I did all my research, I talked to people in the community. I got my head around how it goes, sort of. Now I need to be a sponge. I need to take all this stuff in my head, push it aside, no matter what they say and be ready for it”.
Jill K DeWit:
You got to know you’re going to go, “What the heck? You want me to do what?” You need to be able to be a sponge and go, “All right. Doesn’t make sense, but I’m going to do it. I’m going to trust, because I’ve got 500 or however many people that just said, yeah I did it”.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just nailed it. It’s trust. You either trust the environment and the credibility, and the delivery of the people that you’re trying to learn from, or you don’t. We can all relate to this from school. There’s some teachers that you just got along smashingly with, and there are teachers that really want you to succeed. There are some people in the education profession that get up in the morning and they’re there to make sure that, especially in high school,
Jill K DeWit:
Make kids smarter and push it forward.
Steven Jack Butala:
And make sure that their-
Jill K DeWit:
Make adults out of you.
Steven Jack Butala:
…college applications are correct. And, “Hey, this school might be good.” Take a personal interest in-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.
Steven Jack Butala:
…success, their student success. I’d like to think Jill and I do that. It’s hard to teach somebody.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m here, we’re here for the right reasons.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s very hard to teach somebody, who doesn’t want to be taught. And I learned when our kids were little, as a soccer coach, when the kids were 10, 8, 10 years old, there’s kids who are coachable, and then there’s kids that’ll never be coachable. I just think you’re born that way. You either show up for stuff or you don’t.
Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny, I coached little soccer when they were really, really little. Before they’re like “All right, now you’re becoming a boy here. Now you need more than just mom out on the field.” But when they’re really little like kindergarten, first grade, second grade, I did it and it was a blast. And I’m just thinking right now, there was a little girl named Grace, little Gracie, and my only goal with her was to keep her on the field because she would chase every butterfly that came along, and I’m like, “That might be her personality”.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. That’s all. I guarantee it.
Jill K DeWit:
She’s probably in life, dear Gracie, chasing butterflies, and who knows what she’s doing.
Steven Jack Butala:
Think about our kids. They’re exactly how they were when they’re one day old.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
We think we can parent these kids and help them, and raise them, but the fact is 90% of it’s already set in motion when they’re here.
Jill K DeWit:
Actually my second thing was, keep her on her feet. She would sit down, or she’d be off the field. It was one of the two. It was the greatest thing. I’ll never forget my first year in law, and I’ll stop. But, when I sat down and I came into this like I’m teaching FIFA.
Steven Jack Butala:
All you did was books and clipboard and everything?
Jill K DeWit:
I did. I came at this with diagrams, and I’m like trying to teach kindergartners…
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh.
Jill K DeWit:
Forward [crosstalk 00:16:26]
Steven Jack Butala:
No. It’s just exercise at that point.
Jill K DeWit:
The positions.
Steven Jack Butala:
You just tire them out and put them to bed.
Jill K DeWit:
“Hey, you’re the striker”. They’re like, “What the heck is that?”
Steven Jack Butala:
Did you really?
Jill K DeWit:
I did. I started out like that, and I quickly realized this is not going to work. It was funny.
Steven Jack Butala:
All right, back to the topic so we can close this out. Here’s a bunch of things that are pure fiction in real estate. You can’t make money with land. If I have a nickel-
Jill K DeWit:
You can, is what you are saying?
Steven Jack Butala:
Can’t.
Jill K DeWit:
What are you talking about?
Steven Jack Butala:
If I had a nickel for every time…
Jill K DeWit:
Someone said that.
Steven Jack Butala:
…someone said that, just give me a second here, okay.
Jill K DeWit:
Well you set it up like you mean this is someone’s wrong notion.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here. Let me try to do it so Jill’s satisfied.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank You. I didn’t understand.
Steven Jack Butala:
Listeners know, but we’re going to satisfy Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you very much.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a list of several things that are pure fiction, that I’ve heard throughout my… and we still are dealing with Land Academy members who are frustrated. They’re frustrated because they’re not listening to us. They’re bringing in all this other stuff, a lot of times from other land education environments. If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say, “You can’t make money on land. It doesn’t fit the bill.” Regular real estate people want two things. They want cashflow, and they want a self-building balance sheet. So the property goes up in value while I’m leasing it out. All I had to do was buy it and rent it. Everybody comes to that with us, and that is not our business model.
Steven Jack Butala:
Our business model is more data driven than that, and less real estate, more data. Send out a ton of offers, buy property that’s under value and just resell it, over and over, and over again in a direct correlation to how much mail you send out, and how many deals you do, and process those deals. It’s incredibly simple. We say that statement over and over again, and I can say that to four people sitting in front of me, and the first person, the right person who understands data and who’s listening, and who has probably listened all throughout school, is going to say, “Tell me more. How do we do this? This is very intriguing”. Person number two is going to say, “Well, I have three rental houses. I don’t understand that.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Number three, they don’t understand any of this at all, and they’ve chosen down this path for whatever reason, and I’m not sure, they usually don’t make it. And the fourth person, which is a mess, and I constantly ask our team who vets the people that join Land Academy, is like a narcissist, where [inaudible 00:19:01] they are, to disrupt the… They have no real intention at all of buying and selling land. Their intention is to disrupt everything and question everything, and they’re the person in the class that’s sits in the back and just causes problems.
Jill K DeWit:
Did you have more examples, or you just had one big one?
Steven Jack Butala:
Examples about real estate? The hardest one to undo it’s actually probably, usually it’s not possible, is the real estate mentality where they’re representing somebody in a transaction and taking money when it’s done. They have no real risk in it. So they have 10 of these deals going on. Five of them close, they get a fee and then they keep moving on. They get a new hair color and maybe a later model sedan, and then just move on. Instead of actually having a vested interest in the deal, like an investor, or a dealer.
Jill K DeWit:
Got it.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s really, really hard to undo because I think people are wired that way.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) I get it. I’m good.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a million of them.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. I don’t think we need to keep going. Unless you want to go for an hour on this.
Steven Jack Butala:
No.
Jill K DeWit:
We could. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here in the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show is called Buyer Management. How you manage your buyers in this hot market. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. Turned it into a little bit of a rant there.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s okay. I understand. Hey, and thanks for tuning in. We hope you find our content valuable and we do appreciate your support. If you haven’t already, of course, check out that YouTube channel and hit our subscribe button. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information,
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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