Jill Friday – Duck You (LA 1807)
Jill Friday – Duck You (LA 1807)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hi.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny southern California.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today. Jill and I, well, it’s still Friday, and she has created a topic called duck you.
Jill K DeWit:
This is going to be good.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is some classic stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
I have a good story to share with you here in a minute.
Steven Jack 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. Back in the day, I got to tell you this, we struggled with finding land. None of these properties that we buy, most of them have a physical address, like 12 Mid 3 Main Street. Fast forward to today, we took that massive database of 150 million properties, took all the attributes and aspects of the data set that we think are important to make decisions and made them available on a website called Parcel Fact and/or Neighbor Scoop. All you have to do is type in the state, the county, and the assessor’s parcel number. It pops right up actually so fast that if you’re on the phone with the seller you can pretty much make a decision about whether or not you want to buy the property at that moment.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.
Steven Jack Butala:
Check it out. Neighborscoop.com, Parcelfact, F A C T, .com.
Jill K DeWit:
Steven wrote, I had a tangle of title issues on a property I’ve been working on since before I knew about Land Academy. I would’ve skipped it otherwise. So far, First American has been the easiest and most knowledgeable. The other title companies didn’t know what to do from my situation, but First American did, and I got a lost instrument bond. No problem. That’s pretty cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s my point in putting this in here. It’s not necessarily a question. He’s just informing everybody that’s had a good experience with the title company. A lot of what we see in discord and in landinvestors.com is negative stuff. I can’t believe this title company’s taken so long. I’m getting treated poorly. Well, this guy goes out and does something about it. Title company number one didn’t get it. Title company number two didn’t get it. He found somebody at First American that helped him and solved it because I’m sure this particular agent wanted to get the deal done. Please don’t become a victim of some silly rogue title person.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. That says can’t be done. Pick up the phone and call.
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s something that can always can be done.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a lot of them they’ll say can’t be done.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Call somebody else.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s code for, I don’t want to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not can’t be done.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic is Jill Friday. She’s going to talk about duck you. This is the meat of the show. I hope I don’t get in trouble for this.
Jill K DeWit:
It can’t be done is not to be confused with can’t say no. That’s a whole different thing. We’ll go there another time. Okay. These are the notes that I got on July 6th. This is awesome. This came to me through my transaction coordinator in Airtable, from the manager of the property. I funded the deal from the broker that we have selling it. This broker’s trying to get creative here to sell this property. Here’s what he wrote. The agent sent these ideas about ways to make the property sell. Just got word from a bulldozer guy.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just hold on a second. Can I set this up a little different?
Jill K DeWit:
Why?
Steven Jack Butala:
We bought a partnership to a piece of property in deal funding, and it’s not selling as fast as we think it should, or that the manager thinks that it should. The deal’s going to sell. We’re going to make a ton of money. It’s going to be great. It’s a great piece of property in a great area.
Jill K DeWit:
People are getting impatient.
Steven Jack Butala:
The manager went to the real estate agent and said can you hurry it up? This is what the real estate agent came back with.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Thank you. Just got word from the bulldozer guy. He said he can take a mulching head for about two days to clean up around the edges and out far enough that he would not be dragging all the limbs into the levy. He would have to build the levy wide enough to handle his track hoe, which is about 10 foot wide. To get the minimum mulch he needed and the levy built it would be about $12,000. This would not get all the growth down in the middle, but would clean up about 20 feet around the edges and get a levy built. If he used the mulching head to clean it up more of the property, it would cost about a thousand dollars a day extra and take a few more days.
This guy says the agent wrote, yep, this was the manager’s idea to turn an area and get a quote to turning the land into a duck pond that could hold water. That’s where like $12,000 to who knows, $20,000 to make a duck pond. The agent still feels the land is priced high so he is thinking of some ideas to make the land more desirable to a broader audience, so I’m sharing anything with you I can get from him. I’m like, are you flipping kidding me?
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, what was your response?
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s my response.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, I thought it was two words.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh yeah, duck you. That’s where duck you came from. It’s on me, so I went back and did some looking. Here’s the thing. I went back and did some looking again and looked at the property and I really trust the manager. This person came to us and said, “Hey, would you fund this deal?” I looked at it and said sure. Did the money. Picked who we thought was a great broker. It’s not selling. I saw the broker maybe looking into himself or looking at the posting maybe. He’s come up with this stuff to which I politely responded, duck you, because I’m not going to do more stuff. I’ve found some concrete things that are missing here that I’m going to share. I wrote and said, and this is softer than what I sent.
Steven Jack Butala:
Who’d you write this to?
Jill K DeWit:
This is to the manager. I wrote this to the manager and then I softened it a little bit before I tossed this in discord. I said, you know what’s funny? This comes up because we just had a long chat about this on the advanced member call this week, which is true, about how funny it is when agents try to get us to do unnecessary stuff to sell a property. When in reality, they’re not doing everything possible to market and reach the right buyer. Our property’s priced great, but the listing is getting really low views. That’s on them. I think a nicer lead photo, I went and looked at it again, I’m like this guy’s totally missing it. He needs a nicer lead photo and more photos of not just the property, but also the area. There’s none about the area and how great it is.
Steven Jack Butala:
Maps and graphics and all kinds of stuff have to go in there.
Jill K DeWit:
He hasn’t done any neighbor letters. He didn’t do letters to the neighbors. Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
All the neighbors around that property within a mile need to receive notice …
Jill K DeWit:
Or more. Maybe five miles. I don’t know.
Steven Jack Butala:
… that there’s another property for sale.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Then also it should be blasted and celebrated everywhere on social media as what it is, which is 20 acres of awesome priced duck hunting property. There are people in this region who would jump up and down. I said, that will sell this. Then I dug a little further. I found an agent in this guy’s office who just sold a property smaller for more money in the same area. I’m like, you know that this other agent, who’s probably two desks over from you, has a buyer’s list. How have you not talked to this guy? Isn’t that funny that I found this and the agent even didn’t think to scope his whole office.
Then the other thing I pointed out too was that other agent, who I’m not going to say his name, but anyway, I’m like, this guy’s doing a great job. He clearly knows how to take pictures. You should copy him. That thing, I put it all in there, and then I ended my little topic with my hope, my rant with Sales 101 presented by Jill. I didn’t put duck you at the end.
Steven Jack Butala:
The point is here, it’s wrapped up in a cute story, but the point is real estate agents or certain personality types in general, I may or may not have been married to somebody that has this personality type …
Jill K DeWit:
Not me.
Steven Jack Butala:
… past tense, have this attitude that yeah, if you just do this one more thing, then it’s going to be great. Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s got to be you. It can’t be me.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a list of things that I need you to do, even though I’m the real estate agent and I’m getting paid, and I’m enjoying the, going to ultimately enjoy a pretty serious benefit from this financially, you and how you’re handling this, meaning me or Jill, you’re just not handling this right. You’re not doing enough.
Jill K DeWit:
Not even that.
Steven Jack Butala:
Well, hold on a second because this is a real rampant problem.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s substantial.
Jill K DeWit:
Is this Jill Friday?
Steven Jack Butala:
A substantial number of people who are hiring real estate agents, especially now, fall victim to this, right, especially our personality types, all of us here, because we’re entrepreneurs. We always take responsibility for everything that we’re doing, so when this other personality type comes in and says, well, if you just do this one more thing then we’ll be able to sell the property and I’ll be able to win. You need to go and do this for me.
Jill K DeWit:
You need to trust you and not them. They are not always as smart as you. It doesn’t mean that they’re bad. They’re still value and they’re doing a lot of work for you, but you need to know that they work for you and you can go say, hey, these pictures kind of stink. Why’d you do them on a cloudy day? You need to get the guy back out there. Fill in the blank. This is not the best lead photo. It’s brown. Where’s the blue sky that I know is there because I’ve seen it. Tell him how to change them up. He did put words on the photos, which was above and beyond. You don’t really have to do that, but he put some things on there in the paragraph. After a hundred days, it had been live at least for a hundred days, and after a hundred days and you have 200 views, that’s a problem. It should have been fixed a lot quicker.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s a great piece of dirt.
Jill K DeWit:
It shouldn’t come to me and technically the owner to solve that and help that person. My point is to, I just thought it was funny. Sometimes if you spot this stuff, you need to speak up. You need to be comfortable enough and you need to tell them and help them because, yeah, it sounds like, well wait a minute, Jill, it sounds like now I’m doing the work to get the property sold. Yeah, you are a little bit, but they need your help and it’s going to be fine. Then maybe they’re going to learn from it. I’ll end on this. Maybe they’re going to learn from it, and you guys are going to have a beautiful relationship together. They’re going to go, oh my gosh, I had no idea. Thank you for sharing that with me. Tweaking my photos this way and getting the right photographer and doing a drone has upped all of my sales and I can’t wait to do more for you and now they’re going to be great.
You guys could really help each other and close deals faster and more of them in the end. That’s my last point. That was funny though. I just can’t believe that it comes up and I see you’re not alone. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week you can find us here on The Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next week for another interesting episode, you’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that was good, it just rubs you the wrong way when they come to you and say you should do something.
Steven Jack Butala:
Boy, me too, obviously.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I tell you. That’s part of their job. By the way, the right agent, if it’s something inexpensive, if there’s something really inexpensive, for example, I know I’m talking houses, but you can just paint the picture. What if something like a good agent will make sure the house is clean, maybe even pay for $75 of it myself, themselves to get the house cleaned, have some waters and treats, and have it smell good, open all the blinds, brighten it up as much as they can. There’s so many things that agents can do that don’t cost a lot of money and that’s the right person. There’s a land translation of that too.
Steven Jack Butala:
When’s the last time you’ve heard a title agent or escrow agent come to you and say, “Hey, can you run down to the county for me and grab these three documents?”
Jill K DeWit:
Right. Could you imagine?
Steven Jack Butala:
I think they’re associated with the deal we’re trying to close for you, and to get title insurance we need these three, I think we need these three things. It would never happen. Never. The title agent would never, we would blow our tops.
Jill K DeWit:
Why do we let real estate agents think they can. I think we let them and we need to not do that.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what it is. We play their little game. That’s my point here. We have these entrepreneurial personalities where we take responsibility for everything, and we can really fall victim to that personality type that just starts telling people what to do, and it’s founded in nothing.
Jill K DeWit:
You are correct, sir. Hey, thanks for tuning in. Don’t forget Land Academy is open. Enrollment is open. We close it now and then because we have caps, and there’s so much great stuff happening. How can I find out for myself and really see what’s happening? Check this out. Go to landinvestors.com. On the top of the page, you get a sneak peek into our internal Land Academy Community and get to see and click around. You can’t communicate. Can’t talk in there, but you can get a good idea of some of the conversations that are going on in there that we will share with you from our discord channel. It’s pretty flipping cool. We’re Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill. Information …
Jill K DeWit:
… and inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
… to buy undervalued property.
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