Jack Thursday – Put Your Head Down and Do It (LA 1841)
Jack Thursday – Put Your Head Down and Do It (LA 1841)
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:
And I’m Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. I’m going to talk about putting your head down and just doing it.
Jill K DeWit:
Sounds like a Jill Friday topic. You think I’m kidding?
Steven Jack Butala:
Does it?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sometimes we trade off. I don’t know what Jill Friday is tomorrow, but I think it’s a little bit less spiritual.
Jill K DeWit:
I already forgot. Yeah. I want to hear you. I want to hear the inspirational Jack come out.
Steven Jack Butala:
We all have stuff we have started and not finished, or we’ve all started stuff. And it’s like, yeah, this is a mistake.
Jill K DeWit:
I lose interest, I don’t like it. It gets harder.
Steven Jack Butala:
So if you deconstruct that, I’m going to get into this in a lot of detail. If you deconstruct it and find out why, it’s really just about one thing. 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. Please don’t forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel. Comment on the shows you like.
Jill K DeWit:
Dan wrote,
“I have a 10 acre forested property under contract, which has a cabin on it. The forest zoning does not allow any structures. I do see the county sent a letter of non-compliance from 10 years ago, informing them that they needed to remove the structures. It looks like they removed all the structures but the cabin. It’s pretty nice and surrounded by logging company land and has physical and legal access. My question is this, knowing the cabin’s not in compliance with the zoning would this cause issues if I sell through a broker? I’m assuming, yes, that I’d be better off selling myself off the market and not attract any attention from some overzealous compliance officer at the county. Just want to know if anyone else has dealt with this.”
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a ask for permission or ask for forgiveness kind of question. And I can safely say that Jill and I are on the same page about this.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
We ask for forgiveness.
Jill K DeWit:
Correct.
Steven Jack Butala:
I would post it. I would say there’s a cabin here. Unfortunately, now you know it’s out of compliance. So you really ethically should disclose this, which is fine. Not sure I would disclose it to the real estate agent, but I would before the property, whoever buys it, I would say you would have to disclose it in escrow or whatever. Maybe you want to disclose it right up front. Hey, there’s great cabin here, but it needs to be moved.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s going to be in the pictures.
Steven Jack Butala:
And honestly, if you are a legal compliance type of person, one second, Jill, you’re probably going to have to move this, but go for it.
Jill K DeWit:
Here’s a thought. What if you make a phone call to the county, find out the cost and the time and the process, one phone call and see how much it is to change the zoning, to allow the cabin. And you could put that in your posting, like, hey FYI, I’m not doing it, but I found out it takes six months, a thousand dollars and you have to do this and this. And then you have a good chance of getting it rezoned so you can keep the cabin.
Steven Jack Butala:
So, Jill’s right. You have a lot of options here, which is good. It’s always good to have more options than less. And this is a huge attribute versus just buying a piece of regular land, I think. Maybe it’s a shed, maybe you call the county and say, I know you have this housing, primary residence or residence compliance thing with this, but we’re just using that as a shed.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. No one’s living there.
Steven Jack Butala:
Hopefully it is-
Jill K DeWit:
It’s storing my equipment.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.
Jill K DeWit:
Stores my hunting equipment and my ATV. Now that’s a whole different scenario. There’s all kinds of things you could do.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just so you know, municipalities in general, and I exclude HOAs in this, municipalities in general have no regulations on outdoor sheds.
Jill K DeWit:
By the way, what the neighbor wants to buy it? And he’s allowed to have something on there. What’s keeping him from buying it and just moving it over on the other property?
Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. So that’s what I said. These are all positive things. It’s not a negative thing. And no, I would not remove it until someone’s out there with a clipboard and maybe a shotgun saying, “This ends now.” Which I really doubt’s going to happen. Worst thing is maybe they charge you.
Jill K DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is Dan. This is a career path graduate. Super successful, super smart up in the Pacific Northwest.
Jill K DeWit:
Yay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s Jack Thursday. Let’s just talk about putting your head down and doing it. This is why you’re listening. I’m going to tell you a real short story about something that I failed at long before I met Jill. In the real estate environment, I went out and I was happily going along buying and selling land, making a heck of a lot less than money than I did after, I do now with her, for a lot of reasons. And this is a material point that I’m going to make here in a few minutes. And I’m like, you know what? Buying and selling land’s great. It’s paying the bills. I’m doing okay. I need to diversify my real estate operation, just for risk reasons and all of that.
So I go out, do a bunch of research. At that time, I was really good… My kid was really little, really, really little so I was friends with a lot of the parents with the same age children. And this guy I knew came from a family where they would buy notes. They would go buy, bank had non-performing or performing loans. And every bank has a group of assets that are not performing, that are for sale for, a lot of times, they’re for sale for just what’s left on the note value.
So I found a land academy, this is long before Land Academy. A land academy, like a place to learn about this, and I ordered the program and joined the group and never did anything about it. And here’s why. I went through all the education. I understood the data part. I understood every single component of this, the financial part, how to negotiate it. All of it. What stopped me is one thing. And this is my point. When you’re not doing something the way that you think that you should be doing something, it comes down to one little component of what you can’t stand about it. And once you find that, that component, you can solve it. If all the other stuff about it is works for you, but you have this one, maybe two little things that are missing. Maybe you’re afraid of it. Maybe you hate it. Who knows why? What you need to do is find somebody else who that’s not the case with them and join forces. And so no, we never ended up buying any notes and it stopped me entirely from doing even one deal to this day.
Jill K DeWit:
Wait, wait, what was it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Buying notes.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, whoa, wait, wait.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, what stopped me?
Jill K DeWit:
What was the one stopping?
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m sorry. Sure. Thank you. What stopped me was they said, look, you got to call a bank, call the 800 number to Bank of America or any bank that you can think of, big or small, and ask them for the non-performing asset department. There’s a lot of names for it. Toxic assets. There’s all kinds of names for those types of departments. This is way before the internet, what it is what it is today.
You’re going to have to call maybe 10, 15, 20 times in a lot of cases because they’re not going to understand what you mean and you have to approach it a different way. And you’re going to have to spend a lot of time on the phone talking to mid to low level employees at banks before you get to the right person.
When you get to the right person, they’re going to probably say something like this, “Hey, yeah, we have non-performing assets all day, but you got to buy them all. You can’t just buy one, two.”
Because they’re trying to make their life easier. And that’s almost always not the case. They will separate them out once you get a list and go through it. And so you almost never want to buy traunches of non-performing assets. There’s so much garbage in there to get to one or two good deals, which I don’t have a problem with. I’ll analyze portfolios of real estate, if we’re cash flow and all of that, all day long, I’m actually really good at it and I enjoy it. But I’m not going to make 50 phone calls talking to people that don’t understand the language and then argue with an asset manager who probably doesn’t really understand it either. And it stopped me. If Jill’s around, I would’ve sat down with her and she would be-
Jill K DeWit:
Picking up the phone was the problem. It wasn’t even the, let me just say, so it wasn’t even the discussion that you had to have and getting to the person and that, was it just simply the phone part? The piece?
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t like to argue.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, well, why do you think you’re arguing?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, it’s going to be all kinds of arguments and saying-
Jill K DeWit:
Really?
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, gosh.
Jill K DeWit:
Why? Wait-
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh my gosh, wait a second, Jill, how many times have you tried to call your cell phone provider? And it’s just like pulling teeth. How many times have you called the utility company or anything? Any customer service experience. 99% of any customer service experience is a huge letdown to the point where it’s like, you know what? I’m not even going to pick up the phone.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just going to let it go.
Steven Jack Butala:
And so my point is, I’m throwing myself under the bus because if you love the idea of Land Academy, but you’re like, “Ah, I know it works, you guys are great, the community’s awesome. And I’m sure you have people that are smashing it and then people who just haven’t sent a mailer out yet.” You’re right. But why? You really have to ask yourself, what’s that one thing? Is it, ah, I just don’t have enough money yet? Well, we’ve addressed that. This is not a sales pitch, by the way, this is a personal exploration.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for sharing today.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not done yet here.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. No, I know.
Steven Jack Butala:
You want this to end?
Jill K DeWit:
No, no, no.
Steven Jack Butala:
You do want this to end, don’t you?
Jill K DeWit:
No, I don’t want this to end, but I like what you said, it’s a personal exploration and I just wanted to jump in and say, I’m so happy and proud of you for sharing this. Keep going.
Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s really important for us all to grow and to get better at whatever we’re doing.
Jill K DeWit:
Nah. Just kidding. You’re right.
Steven Jack Butala:
So are you just trying to make this light of this?
Jill K DeWit:
I’m just trying to have fun with it too. Because it is kind of deep and serious. No, I’m not picking on you. I think it’s great. And I do appreciate you sharing, seriously.
Steven Jack Butala:
Over the years with Land Academy. And again, this is not a sales pitch at all. I know that there’s triggers. And so-
Jill K DeWit:
Mail Merge was one.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mail Merge was a huge one. Maybe you’re a data person and not a salesperson or maybe you’re a salesperson and not a data person.
Jill K DeWit:
Excel. People are like, “I don’t know what to do.”
Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve addressed that through all kinds of partnerships. Maybe you just don’t have any money. We’ve addressed that. We have landfunding.com and tons of people in Discord that have a huge open checkbook. Maybe you’re terrible at computers. We have a person in our group right now who owned a hair salon for 30 years. He still owns it. And he joined our group and is the first time he picked up a computer. He said, he told us-
Jill K DeWit:
Non-Mac.
Steven Jack Butala:
…Recently in an interview, go back and watch it, if you want, a couple weeks ago, that he actually bought a computer, got a computer for Christmas at one point in his life, never opened the box. So much time went by that the computer became obsolete. He had to go buy another one. So whatever trigger it is, there’s an answer. If you really want it that bad.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s my whole thing. You saw, you know what, you solve it if you want to. That’s it. It’s really just about your motivation. Are you really motivated to do it? Because you know what? As you just talked about your story, I think every single one of us also has a story of doing something amazing that you didn’t even know you had it in you because you were so driven. Maybe it was learning to ski or who knows, fill in the blank. You’re like, “I didn’t know I could do that, but I knew I wouldn’t stop,” kind of thing. Honestly, learning to fly. I knew. I mean, sure, there’s all scary parts. Like it’s a little bit, it is nerve-wracking when you first solo and your instructor gets out and they say, “Now, go do that again by yourself. I’ll be standing over here with my radio in my hand and I’ll talk to you if you need me,” kind of thing. And you’re like “What?” And some people can’t do it. Some people freak out at that point.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sure. I understand that.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s really interesting. But I think for me, the difference is, with putting your head down and doing it, the motivation that I have going into it, I try to catch myself. It doesn’t always work that way. I try to make sure that I am committed to it. Especially at this age, I don’t want to start something and invest in all this stuff and be staring at all this equipment going, “Well, I decided I don’t want to learn how to fill in the blank, not going to do it.” I try to test my commitment level ahead of time and my time and things like that. But that was Land Academy for me too. Failing wasn’t an option.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Failing was never an option for me either with buying and selling land.
Jill K DeWit:
No, and there’s plenty people Land Academy that are the same way. And they really came to us, really not knowing anything. And they’re like, “I just trusted you guys. And I did what you said,.”
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I just full blown redecorated this house. And so we got bids and for everything and Jill headed the entire house repainted and almost all new flooring and all of that. And so close to the end of that, we realized that the actual color of the electrical outlets was that almond color and that the new automation system that we put in, the light switches were white. And so we got a bid from an electrician to change out all the electrical sockets all over the entire house. This house is very large. And I got it and I fell out on my chair.
Jill K DeWit:
It was hilarious.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is, I’m not, I’m doing this. I can turn a screwdriver. This isn’t that hard. Well guess what? Six months goes by. And Jill’s like, “Yeah, you’re doing a great job.”
Jill K DeWit:
I see three in the kitchen. That’s great. Great, baby.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. You proved the concept in the most visible place in the entire house. Thanks. Nothing matches. And so guess what? We hired some people to go do it, ultimately. Why? I can sit here and deconstruct it for the next 15 minutes. But the fact is, I don’t want to do it.
Jill K DeWit:
Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find this here on The Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jill Friday. Thank God. She’s going to talk about our Land Academy community and how it provides 24-7 support. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Hey, we’re on clubhouse today. Hope everybody listened and joined and got in there because it’s pretty darn fun. We really like it. It’s a good place to be.
Thanks for tuning in. And we hope you find our content valuable and we really do appreciate your support. So if you haven’t already, definitely check out our YouTube channel, especially to see the live that I did last week, because it was pretty darn cool and hit the subscribe button. And if you’re already a member or a new member, make sure you are in there on Discord.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
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Jill K DeWit:
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