Why Sellers Choose to Sell Their Land for Less Than Market Value (LA 1940)

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In this episode of The Land Academy Show, Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit talk about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it’s actually worth. They also share their personal experiences and mistakes they’ve made in the land business and how they turned them around. They also answer a question from one of their members on the Land Academy Discord online community about the value of paying taxes on a 20-acre land with $7,000 in back taxes. This is a must-watch episode for anyone who is looking to get into the land investment business. Don’t miss out on the valuable insights and tips from these experts in the industry.

Transcript: 

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m Jill DeWit and this is the Land Academy Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,940 and today, we are talking in-depth about why sellers choose to sell their land for less than it’s actually worth, less than market value. And then a little bit later we’re going to talk about the mistakes we have made in the land business, Jill and I, and how we turned them around.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m so glad it’s not mistakes we’ve made in life because that could be a three-hour show or more.

Steven Jack Butala:
It always goes to that.

Jill K DeWit:
The land business I can handle, but the one I’m talking about mistakes I’ve made in life, don’t get me started.

Steven Jack Butala:
If we made the contest out of that, I might win that contest.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m still making mistakes.

Steven Jack Butala:
I was just going to say I made about three of them all this morning. It’s still pretty early. It’s like 10:00 in the morning.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s going to lead to that, I’m sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, totally. It’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, I hope you’re enjoying our new 2023 weekly show. Each week we answer questions here from our Land Academy Discord forum like we always have, but we’ve added a land review, a situation where we review land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. We take a deep dive in two land related topics by popular request that I just mentioned.

Jill K DeWit:
By the way, I’m enjoying the new format. No, seriously. You know what it is? I felt like the old format. There’s times I’m like, “I have so much more to say,” but we’re like moving on.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think the old format is old.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s very true. Thank you Jack for catching up to 2023.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s about… Yeah. Well, it’s all me.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of it. Well, it really-

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s about three people that made negative comments about darn, I wanted to listen to it every day.

Jill K DeWit:
So you can.

Steven Jack Butala:
You can.

Jill K DeWit:
You snip it up.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 1,939 shows that you can listen to every day.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s actually true. That’s very true. And then when you run out of those, let me know if you’re still with us.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want a sneak-peak at our Discord channel, please go to landinvestors.com or landacademy-

Jill K DeWit:
Landacademy.com.

Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, thank you. It’s on there.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s free and it’s read only and it’ll give you a feel for what our community’s talking about with each other.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Brent wrote, “So here’s a newbie question for you all. I have some land in Blank County, about 20 acres, and I bought it cheap, but it has about $7,000 in back taxes. So the tax lien homeowner is foreclosing. Beyond comps, how much should I determine if it’s worth me paying the taxes and keeping the asset?” Boy have I been in this situation? You’re in it right now.

Steven Jack Butala:
I was in this situation yesterday. We’re constantly in this situation. That’s why I included this, here’s the deal deal, why I included this topic. Here’s the backstory on how and why this happens. If you buy and sell a lot of land, especially at the rates where we do $3,000 here, $5,000 there, 30,000 and it’s all for sale and you’re selling buying properties consistently, you accumulate land. That’s the truth of it. And Jill’s going to explain what our tax paying policy is on property taxes.

Jill K DeWit:
It takes a lot.

Steven Jack Butala:
We don’t pay taxes on property.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, here’s the truth time. So yeah, it’s easy to… Sometimes you get distracted. Sometimes you’re like, “Shocks. I don’t know if I want to sell that now. I think if I wait a little bit it’s going to be better.” And we’re doing so much volume, it’s totally fine. I remember too, part of it is we pay cash for all these things. So I don’t care. It’s my money. I can let it sit there for a while. I’m not making payments on it. I don’t owe anybody any, whatever. There’s no mortgage on it or loan on it. When do we worry about taxes? Usually never.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is property taxes,

Jill K DeWit:
Because especially at our… I’m going to talk at two levels. I’m going to talk about the low properties and I’m going to talk about the high dollar amount properties. First, I’m going to cover the easy ones, which is the high dollar amount properties. I’m buying those and selling those via escrow. Escrow is already catching up the taxes so I definitely don’t think about it.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve got to slow down here because this is… I’m going to give the back situation. I’m going to say the word and so is Jill, tax and lien, all real negative words and-

Jill K DeWit:
Not to scare you, but to inform you. Don’t worry.

Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly. To inform you. Because believe it or not, this is a very serious sign of success for Brent here. Brent’s got a property, he probably had it for sale, maybe it just didn’t sell for whatever reason, or maybe he bought it with a bunch of taxes on it.

Jill K DeWit:
Probably knew it going into it. You should know going into it.

Steven Jack Butala:
He inherited some taxes. The way taxes work with real estate is not what we’re all used to when you hear the word tax. When you hear the word tax, you think of April 15th, I’m going to get either a refund back or in a lot of cases of Land Academy members, I’m going to have to write a bunch of checks because it’s expensive and we’re making a lot of money. That’s income tax. That’s not what this is.
These are property taxes and property taxes stick with the land. It has nothing to do with me as the owner or Jill or the companies that we own that own these properties. Nothing. There’s no real reason that we would ever pay our property taxes until we sell the property. And that’s our policy. And if you’re into this business, I encourage you to do the same.
Every year around property tax time, we get tax bills in the mail enough to fill a banker’s box. It’s not so bad anymore because we’ve liquidated a lot of our property, which is good. But if that property, for whatever reason that we have goes on to the next year and we get another tax bill that keeps accumulating, after a certain amount of time, the taxing authority, which is almost always the county has a statutory process that they follow to get that property back on the tax rolls.
In the state that Brent’s talking about, which I’m very familiar with, they make the lien to the property available to purchase for the public. So somebody can go buy, it’s not, I’ve got $7,000 worth of back taxes on a piece of property, somebody else, anybody else can go buy that lien and they pay for the taxes so the county gets their money and I as the property owner now have two choices.
I can go pay the guy who bought my lien and get my property back or I can forget about it and the property goes back, doesn’t affect my credit score. No one gives me a phone call. Nothing. It’s just kind of a non-event. This happens tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of times a year.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s just like fine, now we’re giving it to him.

Steven Jack Butala:
He’s now faced with this choice. Somebody bought his lien and he’s-

Jill K DeWit:
Is it worth it?

Steven Jack Butala:
Should I write this guy a check and get my property back or should I just forget about it?

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. And the bottom line is is it worth it? That’s really it. So $7,000 in back taxes. All right, so I’m guessing, Brent, you paid one or two for this because you said he bought it cheap. So is it worth 20? If it is, I’d do it. If I could sell it for 20, say I bought it for 1,000 or 2,000, I’ve got 7,000 in back taxes, then ding, ding. And it’s really… Like you do it all wrong and it’s worth 20, then I would do it.

Steven Jack Butala:
By the way, to accumulate $7,000 in back taxes in a state that’s out west here, that’s got to maybe 10 years.

Jill K DeWit:
Take some time. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
This doesn’t happen overnight. I’ll tell you a true story, this week I was forced to make this decision on. I went and bought some property. This is before Jill and I joined forces. That’s how old these tax things are or this back tax scenario.
I let two of them go back. And then there’s one that’s got an old mobile home on it that is adjacent to farmland that I’m going to write out, well we are going to write. Thank you Jill, for supporting my silliness. Jill and I are together going to write about it.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, we’re going to talk later about mistakes we made and don’t think I won’t bring this up.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to write a $3,500 check to get that property back, which I feel like is pretty valuable so that we can re-list it for approximately 15,000-20,000.

Jill K DeWit:
I thought you wanted to keep it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I do. It’s got an old mobile home on it and it’s electricity and water-

Jill K DeWit:
If this doesn’t work out, this is his fallback plan.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, believe me. We’ve got a lot of mobile homes in the desert. Jill’s 100% right to be directly answer the question. It all comes down to economics. Are you going to write a 7,000? Do you already bought the property? So let’s say paid a couple grand for it.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think.

Steven Jack Butala:
You might enter the whole deal for $10,000.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think.

Steven Jack Butala:
It better be worth 20 to make this worth your while or just forget it.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what I think. Exactly. My question too, just a side note just from this is experience. This is why you’re here too, because nobody has more experience than this one. I’m going to just make an educated guess that if the back taxes have racked up to seven grand, it’s probably worth it. It’s a pretty good property. Because if the back taxes over 10 years or $700 and you’re like, “That means they’re paying a hundred bucks a year.” Big whoop. But these have some serious taxes on, so I’m thinking it might be a good property.

Steven Jack Butala:
What Jill means is that in general, the higher your tax rate-

Jill K DeWit:
The more valuable.

Steven Jack Butala:
The more valuable the asset is.

Jill K DeWit:
Not always, but it’s a good indication.

Steven Jack Butala:
And that’s not apples to orange because the biggest pile of junk property in Trenton, New Jersey has like $12,000 of taxes a year. And that tax amount, we pay less than that in our primary residence in Scottsdale. Jill doesn’t want to live in no junk.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m sorry. I’m still laughing at that’s not apples and orange, apples to oranges. You mean apples to apples?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. What did I say? Apples to oranges?

Jill K DeWit:
You said oranges? I’m like, “We’re…” Actually, it is apples or orange. You’re right.

Steven Jack Butala:
You can always count on your spouse to correct you.

Jill K DeWit:
Sorry. It’s going to be that kind of a day.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, you want to… When you compare tax value and you want to look at within the same county and hopefully within the same area of the same county, same way we price mailers.

Jill K DeWit:
I think it’s very sweet that you turned that around. Because you know what? It’s usually me. You’re like, “What did you just say?” Yeah. Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, we’re going to talk about-

Jill K DeWit:
Why sellers actually choose to sell their land for less than market value.

Steven Jack Butala:
Thank you, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re very welcome.

Steven Jack Butala:
You saved me again.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re welcome.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s time number two.

Jill K DeWit:
You got it. That’s why I’m here.

Steven Jack Butala:
Why would somebody ever, ever sell a property that’s worth $100,000 for $30,000 to Jill? Would you ever go on the internet and buy a share of stock that’s trading at a $100 and say, “I’m going to offer you $22 for this.”

Jill K DeWit:
I’d give it a two for 30 because I like you.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, you would be laughed off the trading floor. You would be laughed off the internet. It’s ridiculous. This is a [inaudible 00:11:53] and this is a… So why do people do this all the time? Why are we making millions of dollars every year and people in our group are making more than that buying property under its value and shaking hands when it’s over, thanking us.

Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that amazing? Why is that Jack?

Steven Jack Butala:
Convenience. I haven’t said the gallon of milk theory in a long time. So I’ll say it here at the risk of sounding like an old man. It’s not the risk, I am sounding like an old man because I am an old man.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re so weird. You’re not old.

Steven Jack Butala:
You have three choices. If you want to go buy a gallon of milk, you can get in your car and make an afternoon out of it. Go to Walmart or Costco and you get an amazing price on a gallon of milk. I don’t know what milk goes were now, but it’s probably two or three gallon maybe. Two or $3 a gallon, maybe more.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s probably eight and you’re way off.

Steven Jack Butala:
And you pat yourself on the back. Yeah, it’s probably eight.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Pat yourself on the back and you say, “I got the best price on a gallon of milk there ever was.” Or you can go to the grocery store that’s right down the street and pay a couple of dollars more a gallon or a dollar more a gallon, whatever the prices are because you just don’t care because maybe you had some other stuff to pick up.
When I go to the grocery store at this age, honestly, I don’t look at the price tags as much more as I used to. It’s just down the street and that’s my grocery store. And the grocery store a mile down the road might’ve been cheaper, but just don’t care.
If I really need the milk bad, I’m going to go to the gas station and get it. Or a convenience store, which is really close and extremely convenient and it only takes a few seconds out of my day. Now, there’s probably even a fourth option, which is call somebody to bring it to your house like Instacart.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Instacart.

Steven Jack Butala:
In that third case, I don’t smack the gallon of milk when I’m checking out at the counter in front of the guy and say, “This is an absolute outrage. How much do you charge for this milk?”

Jill K DeWit:
Like at the convenience store?

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to buy it. But it’s an outrage how much this… And if I ever did that, I would hope the clerk looks at me square in the eye and says-

Jill K DeWit:
You can go to Walmart.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s pretty convenient, isn’t it? Yeah. Go to Walmart if you need to. You want to save some money, go to Walmart. Why? Because it’s convenient. Because I wanted the milk. It’s quick. I was doing it anyway, driving right down the… People sell land and houses by the ton because they don’t want to deal with real estate agents.
They don’t think that their property, for whatever reason is worth what it’s worth. They can’t do math like Jill in her head or like you as a Land Academy member. They didn’t want to do any work. They got a letter. It’s all immediate gratification. They got an offer for $32,000 for a piece of property that they never cared about anyway.
They looked around and said, 32,000 thousand dollars sounds great. They don’t have a conversation with themselves most of the time and say, “This property’s probably worth more than $32,000. Maybe I should call my friend and check, my real estate agent friend.”

Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what’s funny about that? They do say those words, but they don’t do the second part. I’ve had them talk to me on the phone saying, “I know I could go through the motions and get more for this, but I just don’t want to. Jill, how fast can we close?”

Steven Jack Butala:
I can name probably very quickly, I’m not going to do it, but I can name probably 10 at 15 things off the top of my head that are in our house or in our office where if somebody sent me a letter, yeah, I have a pile of computer equipment, pile of computer equipment that’s probably pretty valuable that if somebody said, “I’m going to come over for… I’m going to hand you $100 bill…”

Jill K DeWit:
And I’m going to clean out this closet.

Steven Jack Butala:
“And I’m going to come over and get all that stuff and just take it out of your life, what do you say?” I would say, “How fast can you get here?”

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because I don’t care. And it’s super convenient. I love the free section and offer up and Craigslist for different, it’s just come and get all my stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
What about… Are we going to talk about the situational aspect?

Steven Jack Butala:
Sure.

Jill K DeWit:
Because I do think that’s part of it. So Jack just described the number one reason and which is true, it’s convenience. It is. I’m here with an virtual open checkbook ready to go and I can and do clothes really fast for people. Like the weight is lifted for these people. It’s out of their lives and they’re happy. And that’s when Jack says they shake our hands and hug us.
I’ve had people hug me literally saying, “Thank you. I know you’re going to make more money on this and thank you for getting this out of my life and thank you. I needed that money for X.”
So that’s the other piece of this, which is situational. It may be that… Like a lady I was just thinking about, it was her master’s degree, that was going to pay for that. You had one where it was going to take the mom… The mom had cancer and they could afford to go to Hawaii. She really wanted to take her mom-

Steven Jack Butala:
Take her to Hawaii for a-

Jill K DeWit:
And afford to do that. Sometimes it’s just some life event like maybe they got laid off, maybe something happened, somebody’s sick, whatever it is and their car broke down. I’ve had everything from car broke down to this couldn’t happen a better time. I just got the vet bill back and I want to save my dog.
Really, those are serious real stories or situations that I’ve helped people with and they’re like, “Thank you. There’s no way they could get the $10,000 right now today to pay those vet bills, to save their dog. If they had like, “I’ve got to wait? Find an agent, do this, do that.” They’re like, “Nope, let’s do this and I’m ready to go.”

Steven Jack Butala:
In most big cities, if you drive around, you’ll see check cashing places, which I’ve never understood. I’ve had employees who take their paycheck and go cash it and I’ve asked them, this is a distant past, way distant past, why are you doing this? Why don’t you just deposit it in the bank? “Yeah. I don’t believe in banks. I don’t trust banks and I like to get my paycheck and get the green cash. I want the cash and then that way I know how much money I have to spend for the next two weeks until I get another paycheck.”

Jill K DeWit:
I Understand that. It’s cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
I do too. They don’t even think about the 19 or 20% that it costs to actually do that.

Jill K DeWit:
I see what you’re saying.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so if their paycheck is 2,000, it would’ve been $2,200 or that’s 10%, but $2,400. It doesn’t enter their mind. They’re not doing any math at all. Am I criticizing these people? Absolutely not.
They have good and valuable lifestyle reasons for these choices that they’re going to make. Are they going to get rich making these choices? No, probably not. They’re not like us where it’s premeditated and we’re facilitating this. Are we taking advantage of these people? Absolutely not.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s a good point to bring up because some people go, “Oh, well then you’re talking, I’m into it and all this stuff.” I’m like, “No, I’m not.” That’s [inaudible 00:19:02]. That’s not how I roll. I had too many people blowing up my phone when these mailers go out. I don’t have time to talk to somebody. I’m not going to do that. It’s kind of like, “Hey, here’s my price. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, I understand this is exactly what I say. Please hang on to my letter and let me me know if we change your mind.” That’s it. Now, if you think that’s coercing and talking someone into something, we’ve got to talk. Because-

Steven Jack Butala:
Believe me, I’ve seen Jill talk people into stuff that they don’t want to do and-

Jill K DeWit:
That’s different. And I put back that flowery comforter because of you. Just kidding. I don’t have 18 pillows on the bed.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s about nine. You’re right.

Jill K DeWit:
No, you know what’s so funny?

Steven Jack Butala:
But in Jill’s mind, that’s a compromise.

Jill K DeWit:
More than three are yours.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s do some math.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Now that we’re all hopefully understanding, this is a very, very difficult concept for anybody who’s in real estate who comes to Land Academy and they say, “How do you guys make money?” And I explain this, many, many of them shake their head and say, “Why would that ever work?”

Jill K DeWit:
Can I just talk about that for just a moment before we do the math? Because this is the part that perplexes me. People can’t get it in their head. And I’m like, I don’t understand why 16-17,000 transactions as proof doesn’t spell it out.

Steven Jack Butala:
We got lucky.

Jill K DeWit:
I admit. That’s it. I got lucky 16,500 times. Yay. There you go.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s probably over. We’re not going to do another deal.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. Yeah, that’s right. We’ve just pushed it. It’s funny and this is one thing that I talk about with people when they’re coming in the Land Academy. I’ve had some really good conversations in the last several weeks with new people and they’re like, “What do I need to watch out for? I’m in. I’m doing it. Please tell me what I need to where I’m going to catch myself so I don’t make those mistakes like other people.”
I said, “Good question. What you should do is don’t second guess this. Things are going to come up. I’m telling you, you need to offer this percentage of what you found and send the mail out like that. And people go, “What? Are you really telling me to put this number on this thing?” I’m like, “Yep. Because watch what happens.” The smartest best people listened and do it and they watch what happens and they go, “Okay. Well, nevermind.” I’m like, “Right?” And it’s all because of what we’re talking about right now.
You’re sending out these offers. For these people, it’s a situation, it’s timing, it’s convenience. We’re good people. They trust us. We follow through. Everybody wins. That’s it. We’re not talking to anybody. We’re not cold calling. We’re not trying to tap into the elderly community or whatever, you know, think or people have said or whatever. I’ve heard all kinds of things. I’m like, “Yeah. No, that’s not this at all.” But anyway.

Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s use some math or some kind of simple math. Once you’ve accepted this concept and many people don’t accept it, the most difficult person to accept this is a really well-seasoned real estate professional who’s been used to doing real estate deals successfully by dealing with brokers and paying people.
They’re used to buying a piece of property. Let’s use a trailer park for an example. Buying a trailer park that’s 70% occupied. Hiring a professional person to live on site, to lease up those last 30% maybe… Well, there’s all kinds of things you can do. Put older trailers on a park and then lease those out. But anyway, get the thing to 100% occupancy, maybe do some improvements and then resell it for the same cap rate. But because it’s got a lot more revenue, you make a good spread on that.
That’s a very typical commercial real estate play. It has never entered their mind that it would’ve been a hell of a lot easier to negotiate if the property wasn’t for sale, if the broker didn’t bring it to them. If they got there first, sent a letter to the owner of the trailer park and said, “I’d like to buy a traffic trailer park for half a million dollars instead of paying a million through a broker.” Then you would never have to go through all those improvements. You could have listed it with a broker and sold it for a million bucks and then you’re done.

Jill K DeWit:
Could you imagine, I wonder if that… The same person you’re describing, it’s like they walk up to the counter and they say, “Here’s…” Like your gallon of milk story. It’s like they walk up to the counter at Walmart or Costco and they’re like, “You know what? This is actually too cheap. You should be pricing at whatever. You should be pricing at the convenience store pricing. So here, I’m going to give you an extra $10.” I don’t need the… You know what I mean? You wouldn’t do that. Isn’t that funny? No, I know it’s on sale but I’m used to paying retail for everything, so please charge me retail.

Steven Jack Butala:
People are not selling their land on price. You’ll get a lot of phone calls if you’re in the group, you do get a lot of phone calls where people are very price conscious. They’re very clear about what their land is worth. And they’re usually career salespeople like corporate sales and something and they just want to talk about their $100,000 piece of property that they think is worth 1 25 and they just got an offer from you for 23,000 and they think that they’re going to talk you into it into paying $100,000.
That person cares about price. Those that are not people we do deals with. Often, and Jill will describe this 15 different ways, if your offers $23,000, they might come back because they’re negotiators. You should do a show on this where different personality types call you back.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
$30,000 would do it even though the property’s worth 120.

Jill K DeWit:
They just need to get that little extra whatever.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then that’s what they want. They just want some juice out of that. I don’t know if it’s an endorphin rush for them. I don’t know. I’m not a big fan of negotiation.

Jill K DeWit:
To feel like they got something out of it. I know you said 28,000, but I need 30. Okay, I can do 30.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve done many, many, many, many deals where they really have patted themselves on the back because they feel like they got… Price is sort of involved with that person, but I don’t think so. I don’t actually think they know what it’s worth at all. They don’t and they don’t care. They don’t. What matters to them is getting a little bit more out of us.

Jill K DeWit:
Feeling like they won.

Steven Jack Butala:
They’re negotiators.

Jill K DeWit:
Feeling like they won and I’m good with that. I’ll let them have the win. That’s good. Do you know what’s funny? You bring that up at the price. One of the things that I don’t do hate doing, not going to go down this rabbit hole, is a guessing game about price.
This scenario you just said you offer $28,000. The person doesn’t have a number. They’re like, “Nope, doesn’t work. Try again.” I’m not going to go 29. Nope. Try again.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s an auction.

Jill K DeWit:
30? Nope. Try again.

Steven Jack Butala:
Reverse auction.

Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:26:09]. Not going to do that. Don’t even go there. So what I’ll do though, this is so funny. I’ll say, “All right, you know how I roll. We know how this is going to… We know how this could end. What is your rock bottom number that if I handed you cash today, you’d say, ‘Fine Jill. I’ll take. It’s yours kind of thing.'” And then let him give you a number and then you try to make that work. But what’s funny is I sincerely believe that that number has nothing to do with the property.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I think, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Do you know what it’s tied?

Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly what I think.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s tied to… His wife just came in this morning and said she wanted to remodel the kitchen. I’m not kidding. That’s what the kitchen costs or fill in the blank. It’s something back there that they’re like, this money will solve that problem. That’s my number. You just have to get that out of them. It’s so funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
So let’s do the math. So now you’ve accepted this, whether you’re the trailer park guy, the buyer or the seller or a potential Land Academy member or an existing Land Academy member that’s wondering how many offers you should send out a month. Does it make more sense to try this 5,000 times or 500 times?
The obvious answer is the more people you reach by sending out a mailer, the more opportunities, acquisition opportunities that will physically and literally be signed agreements on your desk for you to review.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re really shooting yourself in the foot if you think you’re going to send out a 500 unit mailer priced at 25% or 20% of the established retail value and get a lot of response because the people that don’t care about price or the people that are negotiators or the people that we just described, the situations that we described are less prevalent than people who think that their property that’s worth a million dollars. We didn’t talk about that. There’s a handful of people that believe their $50,000 property is worth 50 million.

Jill K DeWit:
Priceless.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because there’s gold in there.

Jill K DeWit:
That exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Literally gold.

Jill K DeWit:
Those are people that… When you get those situations, they don’t want to sell. That’s what’s going on.

Steven Jack Butala:
This last career path, we had a person who is on Jill’s side of the world, not mine, who’s not a tech person and not into the data piece at all. That’s just lifelong salesperson. And she said, “What are you guys talking about? You send all this mail out?” I send about three or 400 mailers units out, and I don’t even price it. I just say, “I want to buy her land.” And then she proceeds to stay on the phone with each person who calls her back and wear them, filibuster them down. I don’t know, women can do this for some reason.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know if that was the right term. But she would just talk to them for an hour though.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the exact strict definition of filibuster. Talking to you to get what you want.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m choosing to be very supportive here. That was just her way.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so there’s nothing wrong with that, but she was very surprised that we send all this mail out.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, there is one problem with that. You can only talk to eight people a day or 10 people a day. How long [inaudible 00:29:25]. If you do an hour long call, I can’t do that. If I have eight hours a day, I’m talking to 50 people or more.

Steven Jack Butala:
It would stand a chance and I came up with this program, this methodology of sending out offers. I’m not slapping myself on the back here. I’m really not.

Jill K DeWit:
You should.

Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t learn this from somebody and I didn’t take away that somebody was doing it and do my own offshoot of it and the offshoot version of it, go make tons and tons of money with Jill and then Launch Land Academy based on this concept. I came up with this and I failed at it a lot many, many, many times until I honed into actually sending people an offer.
Why? Did I come up with this in? Because I don’t want to cold call people. I don’t want to talk on the phone all day. Some people do. I want to send out a bunch of offers in a perfect world, not talk to anybody, get a bunch of offers, a much smaller number back in the mail of signed offers that the numbers that I can control and pick the ones that I want and do the deal.
I started sending mail out like this in the early two thousands and we never stopped because it works and we still don’t stop. Jill and I get thank you notes every week because we have a person in the advanced group in the career path alumni group that just sent out 80,000 units of mail. He said he’s got maybe 25 deals that he’s looking at that are… He ran out of acquisition money, which is a great thing. And so he is seeking deal funding. These numbers really work. The more mail you send out, the more deals you’re going to do.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from the weekly Thursday member webinar.

Jill K DeWit:
I am so excited. Here we are, 2023. Land Academy is open. We’re open arms. Come if you’re interested. I have career path coming up. We’re going to do two this year by the way. Career path is our high level, kind of… It’s like our…
People call it a mastermind group. I know you’re not a huge fan of that term, but it’s kind of our level of our mastermind group. That’s happening right now. We have one in the spring and we have one coming in the fall. So check out landacademy.com for more. I know our direct mail company offers to owners, it’s offers in the numbertwoowners.com is killing it too. There’s a lot of people following us and sending out a lot of mail. So if this is something you want to get into, go to Land Academy, download our free ebook or just send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek for free, check out our Discord channel on landinvestors.com or landacademy.com.

Jill K DeWit:
Becky wrote, “Hello all. This was my Christmas present to me this year. I’m very happy to have found Land Academy and looking forward to learning and sharing with everybody. I’m narrowing my focus to land investing and have a couple of properties under contract after my first set of mailers in November, still filling the OMG! What have I done? What if I can’t sell them jitters?” That’s so cute. “And this seems like a great place to work through it and move forward.”
What was your question?

Steven Jack Butala:
What’s your advice to her? She’s got jitters.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, just the jitters.

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:32:59].

Jill K DeWit:
I’m like I thought that was just like, “Oh, I’m just working through it.” Kind of comment. Like, “Oh, you’re fine.”

Steven Jack Butala:
I asked Jill this because I have to tell you that on a personal level with Jill, she’s fearless.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I didn’t hear that was the question.

Steven Jack Butala:
For some reason, since the day that I met you, it’s always been like that. Just if I said, “Let’s go to Taiwan for a month.” Jill would say, “I can do it next Monday.”

Jill K DeWit:
Or one day. 24 hours, give me 24 hours which I did before.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve done that. We’ve gone to Paris that way and stuff. So it’s very easy. It’s drinking a glass of water for Jill to answer this question. She’s got, “Can I sell these properties?” Jitters.

Jill K DeWit:
I love this thing. It’s exciting to me. So you know what? Becky, you know what you’re doing. You just have to trust yourself. You know that you’re not going to buy them, put down the money if you’re not really, really feeling great about what’s going to happen on the back end and if you’re still not sure, run it by the community. Pot, toss it in Discord. That’s why everybody’s there. Say what they think.
Or save it up, ask us on the Thursday call if it’s something that… There’s something right away. I think that especially when you’re new, I do to… You’ve got to feel like, okay, I need to get going here. I understand. Trust your peers and trust your gut. Then after you get going, you’re going to be like, “I just saw how that happened. Now I really know this area. I know this. I know this kind of thing.”
And there’s still going to be a few that pop up now and then you’re like, “Am I having a little trouble making this decision?” Or before I write a check for $200,000, I kind of want to run this by somebody else. Make sure I’m making a good decision. I totally get it. But the best thing I could say is use us and move forward.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t emphasize this enough. If you’re in the land business or not or want to be, would you like you to memorize this sentence forever for your entire career. If you don’t think that you can sell a piece of land for how much that you think you should sell it, don’t freaking buy it.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
I did all this, put all this mail out. I got these six offers in front of me. I got to buy all six of them. I want to be in the land business. I don’t want to work for my W-2 job anymore. I’m going to take a chance. Don’t do that ever. Only buy the land that you are ridiculously confident that you can sell very, very quickly after you buy it.
How do you get that confidence? Well, that’s what Would You Do This Deal is for in Discord, the channel. That’s what the Thursday call is so you can ask us if you should buy it and if it’s the right price and what the logical outcome is.
Finally, experience. Partner up, there’s a partner’s wanted section in Discord also partner up with somebody who’s got 10 years of experience and a ton of money. They’re going to love to talk to you about the deals that you br you’re bringing in. It’s just more deals for them to fund.

Jill K DeWit:
I have a fourth way too.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. Call Jill, here’s your phone number.

Jill K DeWit:
A fourth way is ask a local [inaudible 00:36:13] broker. I love this one. If I’m really… If I just need… Sometimes you have some Becky that you feel great about and you’re like, “I just want one more person to tell me I’m not nuts.” Call a local broker. Don’t tell them anything about what you’re paid for it. They don’t need to know any of that. Just like, “Okay. Hey, I’ve got this property. I’m looking at selling it. What do you think you could sell this for in, I don’t know, 30, 60, 90 days? Whatever makes sense to you?” See what they say and then you’d be like, “Whoa!” You’re going to go, “Whoa! Okay. Whoops. I’m glad I called them.”
Or a lot of times I get the, “Wow! It’s even better than I thought it was. I need to hurry up and buy this.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Don’t put yourself in a situation where you’re taking a risk. Here at Land Academy, we’re all about all but eliminating risk. Are you going to mistakes once in a while? Sure. Yeah. Are you going to buy a piece of property that everybody told you it perked and then it doesn’t and then you’ve got a liquidate it for a lesser amount than you originally thought?
Yeah. But that’s why we buy it so cheap. So if you buy it for 20,000 and you anticipate selling it for 80 or 90, some stuff really goes sideways and you sell it for 40, double your money, you’re good.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
No risk.

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic that we’re going to talk about is called the mistakes that we’ve made in the land business and how we actually turn them around. Jill’s going to parlay it into the mistakes that I make daily as her life partner.

Jill K DeWit:
Can I start there please? Because that list, that’s fresh on my mind. No.

Steven Jack Butala:
Geez. How many mistakes have you professionally made?

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gosh!

Steven Jack Butala:
Talk to any adult, anyone who’s over the age of 22 and they’re going to save some version of, “Boy, if I could go back.”

Jill K DeWit:
All you do is you just have to fix some and move on. I’ve made mistakes from overpaying for a property. Actually, usually my most recent one is, I didn’t overpay for the property. The person I funded overpaid for the property, and I didn’t catch it. I trusted them too much.
But that’s on me. I should have caught that. Even if you’re like us and you have a staff and you have employees, sometimes you make mistakes and hire the wrong people and you’ve got to undo that too. So there’s all kinds of mistakes that can happen. Whew! The main point is, and well, I know we’re going to talk more in depth for me, is fix it as fast as you can. Don’t look back and just move on.

Steven Jack Butala:
In around 2009, 2010, Jill and I joined forces in and before that, I built a company from the ’90s to let’s say 2008, where my life was grand. The financial accomplishment that at that very young age was extraordinary by anybody’s measure. I had and lived on for quite some time a yacht in San Diego, and was pretty much living the dream by anybody’s standards financially.
What was I doing to get to that point? I was auctioning off real estate land on eBay. We were the largest seller of land in that category for many, many years in a row. I met all the executives, eBay, I did an annual meet and greet and seminar in Washington, D.C. every year where I would speak about why we’re successful at it.
I was traveling in those circles. What I didn’t realize at the time is that I had a single point of failure. We were buying land very, very efficiently, in some ways more, but sending out mailers just like we do now, very efficiently for a different product type and then auctioning them off on eBay and collecting the proceeds, the gap, and quite frankly, getting rich.
We got rich. Around 2006 to maybe ’07, people stopped buying property on eBay and it was a single point of failure. I don’t know what to do because the asset types that we were buying, which are very inexpensive, large acreage properties in very, very rural areas, west of the Mississippi, nobody had the money or the interest for, let’s call them luxury assets at that time. They’re not really luxury assets, but it’s something that you don’t need.
It was the second-worst recession in the history of this country depression. They called it the great recession instead of the depression from the 1920s. And so that was it. I thought it was over. Jill and I, a couple of years after that, I had very, very little money. And I’m being really honest here, because there are a couple of people who asked for this in Discord like, “Tell me some of that stuff.”

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Yeah, that’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
I joint forces with Jill. What I did have is a lot of real estate paid for real estate that was just collecting dust and collecting back taxes. And so I met Jill socially before we decided to join forces professionally. And we went about having a relationship successfully.
And then one day I said, “I’ve got all this real estate.” I heard her on the phone. I don’t know what you were selling. You were talking to somebody. I don’t know what your job was at the time, but I heard you selling something. And I said, the light bulb went off in my head and I said, “What if I give you these pieces of property and show you how we’re doing this? Would you be interested in that?” And she said, fearlessly, “Are you kidding me? Tell me where to start.”
And so a month later, she generated all this money off of assets that I thought were dead and gone forever. Why? Because she has the personality she has and I have the personality that I have. I’m not interested in doing that.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s one of my failures. Let me leave that one for me. Just kidding.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m very good at acquisitions. I want to be honest. I’m not that good at sales. I can do it, but I don’t have the raw in your gut drive that Jill does. So failures, geez, I had a single point of failure, but believe me, that never happened again.
Jill even took tranches of real estate that we had. I gave her a database of, I don’t know, 15 of the guys that are all crying in their beer just like me, and sent them, packaged up these deals and sent them to them and sold them at wholesale prices that they could not believe were so cheap.
We kept ourselves above water. Jill did. Jill got me out of that recession. And put us back on the map and what is it now? Geez, 12 years later. 10 or 12 years later. Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
14 years.

Steven Jack Butala:
But since we… We had to restart. We were just out of money. Luckily, we had a paid for house and we had some stuff to work from and a bunch of assets to sell.

Jill K DeWit:
But you still have to put food on the table.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Exactly. And so here we are back in the saddle. So you can come back from nothing.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
You just have to really work at it to be incredibly organized. If you have to find a partner, find some, somebody who’s got talent. I didn’t even know she had this talent when I met her. Because a lot of it it’s just really lucky on my part.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Not you, not so much.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I know. That’s one of my failures. Just kidding. Just kidding. I remember those days. That was fun. I always have trouble with questions like these because I look at everything as a stepping stone. Some people would argue, “You spent 17 years at American Airlines. Were you nuts?” I’m like, “Yeah.” In some ways probably spinning my wheels. I hit max pay.
That’s great. It’s still way lower than… I wonder what it is nowadays. But who wants max pay? This is it. This is all you can make. You can never make any more. Congratulations. Isn’t that funny? But I had seniority.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not max pay, by the way. That’s a cute little name for something-

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Max pay is not a number.

Jill K DeWit:
In our world, max pay is infinite.

Steven Jack Butala:
Elon Musk hasn’t hit max pay.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So some people would argue that that might have been a failure. You know what? Maybe in some ways it was because you know what, it was keeping me from doing something else.

Steven Jack Butala:
But you changed it.

Jill K DeWit:
I did.

Steven Jack Butala:
You actively changed that long before I met you.

Jill K DeWit:
I did. I snapped long. One day I’m like, “I’m done. I can’t do this anymore.” I felt a little bit brainwashed, to be honest with you. The golden handcuffs, I had them and I went, “What am I doing?” This was crazy.
I knew that there was more for me. I knew I could do more. I just had to get out and find it and I just left. I up and left. And all my friends were like, “What happened to Jill?”

Steven Jack Butala:
I did the same thing in accounting.

Jill K DeWit:
They’re like, “She’s gone off the deep end now.” And then they’re like, “Oh.” And then I took that step out. I found another job. I was very, very happy making more money and I was trying to lure my friends. I’m like, “You know what? There’s life out here. Join me.” It’s like the prison and I’m trying to pull them out there that they’re like, “Oh, I don’t know.” It’s safe and cozy in here and I get all my meals and everything. I’m like, “You guys are nuts.”
Anyway, I found some of the jobs and then I found you and I knew there was more and so I was looking for you. So thank you and I was looking for this opportunity.

Steven Jack Butala:
Likewise. Obviously, we both were.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. I knew that I had this in me and I knew I would never be afraid of who I’m talking to or the kind of deal or where it is or how much money or who they are or what they have. I don’t care. Let’s figure this out.

Steven Jack Butala:
Fast forward to 2015, Jill and I are along the subtle timeline between, let’s call it 2010 and ’15. We’re back in the saddle. We’re buying and selling land pretty effectively.

Jill K DeWit:
Having a good time.

Steven Jack Butala:
And this time, because Jill’s doing so much phone work. In the past there was no real, for years, we never had a phone number, published phone number. We just had instructions on how to get deals done once we auctioned the property off, which worked really well.
Fast-forward now and Jill’s doing a lot of phone work with our competitors. These are people that are very, very like-minded. People that are used to doing a lot of real estate deals, either in the eBay environment or in rural markets. We’re finding that there’s… What we found out when Jill started talking to these people on the phone was that they’re not interested in buying one piece of property from us. They’re interested in buying every single thing that we find.
It progressed itself into, well, how the hell are you guys buying this so cheap anyway? How about you just show me how to do it? And we did. And then they were sending out their own mail.

Jill K DeWit:
Most of them wouldn’t do it. Isn’t that funny? A lot of them wouldn’t do it. They’re like, “All right, thank you for filling me in. I’m not going to do that work.” I’m like, “It’s not that work. But whatever.”

Steven Jack Butala:
For whatever reason, they weren’t doing it. Some of them were. Some of them weren’t. So I put together a little 30-page document about how to send out mail and why, which I know now is the beginning of Land Academy. And so we decided to… We sat down and said, maybe we should just put this out to the world because we were always running out of money, acquisition money at that time.
We were doing great. We still had way more deals and there was no such thing as deal funding or at Land Academy community where we could go.

Jill K DeWit:
Well let me pause and say that’s one very, very positive thing about you too and we’re still this way to today, we don’t borrow money. All the stuff that we did was cash. We bought what we could afford. And you better believe. There’s times I’m like, “We need to hurry up and I need to sell this because I need the money to buy this.” Kind of thing. And just kept it going. So thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
We made a great living at the yacht level. We decided to launch Land Academy to create a group of like-minded people so we could solve that funding problem for ourselves and it worked.

Jill K DeWit:
And people were beating down our doors like, “Please tell us.” We’re like, “Okay.”

Steven Jack Butala:
But I’ll have to tell you, my point in telling you the story is that, and from 2015 to now, which is I guess 2023, we’ve launched little interior products within Land Academy based on what people wanted because that’s what Land Academy was in the beginning. It’s what people wanted. “Show us how to do this.”
And many of them, because this is about failure today, didn’t work. They didn’t work because people didn’t actually know what they wanted or they didn’t work because we weren’t operating them correctly. The most obvious one was Title Mind. Everybody wanted us to do their deals. They wanted us to be their transaction coordinator and the title company, to which I say, we’ve got all this pent up demand. Let’s do it.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
What a mess in an internal mess for us. We ended up getting all the deals that people couldn’t do, any escrow agents couldn’t do because they were so flawed, wrapped up in liens and some worst-

Jill K DeWit:
Chasing people down. Probates-

Steven Jack Butala:
What do we do probate? Do we say screw it? No. No. Our answer to that now is Land Academy Pro, which we’re going to launch this year because we’ve got really good people in place now to complete transactions, not only for us, but for our members.
My point is us, you can look at it like a failure or you can roll with it, roll with the times, roll with the economy, get a partner. There’s all kinds of things that can happen that can get you back up on your feet pretty quickly.
If you’re willing to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “No more single point of failure, I really screwed that up.” Just because you screw something up doesn’t mean you’re a terrible idiot person. Just means you made a mistake.

Jill K DeWit:
The big picture is that’s why you’re here. I think and I know that’s why people are in Land Academy because we have the experience. The years that we’ve got separately and combined into this and the deals that we’ve done and the things we’ve overcome, try to stump me.
We’ve either been in that situation or I got a really good idea how to handle that situation because we had some similar and let me tell you about how this one went kind of thing, which is great. Things like… We’re always evolving too. Whatever we did five years ago with Land Academy, now we’ve got a better data solution. Do we look at it like it was a problem? No. It evolved. It’s better now.
We learn from that and now we’re going to do this and one of my favorites is selling on the internet or selling on social media. When we figured that out, I’m like, “Who knew?” 10 years ago, that was unheard of that you would be marketing a property and you know what I’m talking about. You see houses all the time on Facebook to buy. That was not a thing 10+ years ago. That’s right. It’s great and we’re going to keep doing it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Mistakes are good. Failures are even better. Jill, you have something inspirational you want to share?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. You know what? Today I’m going to talk about just a few minutes on getting distracted and losing focus. It happens. I have to catch myself sometimes and this is coming up because I talked to someone about this recently too.
Let me paint the picture. People get into Land Academy and they send out mail and they started off really well. This is giving you a working example here. Starting off really well. And they’re like, they picked all the five acres. “I’m going to do five acre properties. This is a price range I’m going to buy them in. This is a price range I’m going to sell them in.”
Out goes the mail and here come offers. “That one, okay, that fits my criteria. That fits my criteria.” Like, holy moly, not only does that guy have this, but he has 10 mobile homes. I need to look at that too. Hold on a moment.
You could go down this rabbit hole and lose days, weeks, months, trying to make something work and you’re losing focus and you’re going to lose money, by the way, by chasing something shiny. It’s not that it couldn’t be a bad deal, but I want you to keep your focus and stay on track until you really have a good handle on it. And then start thinking of these things.
I was talking to someone recently about… We’re a niche and there are niches within our niche. How I stay focused and I don’t get distracted is I always remember every single day what it says on my thing. I’m land, I am a land person. That’s my number one thing. I know that the best. It’s the easiest, it’s the fastest, it’s the most fun for me, it’s the most profitable for me, land. I know how to do it. I have a well-oiled machine now. And that’s a niche. I don’t walk around saying, “I’m all real estate.” Okay, really? Pick one.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you that’s a common theme in Discord I’m seeing right now.

Jill K DeWit:
Which is people are just like… I’m just, everything real estate, whatever it is, comes at me.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve got the steal and it’s came back in. Yeah, there’s one in there right now about it’s next to an elementary school.

Jill K DeWit:
There we go.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so a massive-

Jill K DeWit:
It should be a liquor store.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, it should be a liquor store for teachers only.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know where that came from. I’m just thinking of foot traffic. That suck. That was totally subconscious.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. It was.

Jill K DeWit:
It just came right out.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re about to go into the Super Bowl. Super Bowl is in Phoenix this weekend.

Jill K DeWit:
And the golf tournament.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll be over by the time this airs. But Jill’s thinking about liquor stores apparently, which works out well for me in the end. I slice it.

Jill K DeWit:
That should be every next… The elementary school zoning, liquor store zone next door. That should be automatic.

Steven Jack Butala:
Should be in the parking lot on your way out.

Jill K DeWit:
He said. But the parents need it, that’s for sure. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Teachers only liquor stores. That would work. Look, [inaudible 00:55:27] so somebody, which it’s great. They sent the mailer out, they got a property back. They’re wondering what the use can be for this property. To which I say and it’s sparked a huge string of really intelligent responses. Well, you can do this, you can do this. People are spending taking time out of their day to talk about this property.
I know this is your section so I don’t want to, obviously take it over but look, please focus on this. Just focus this one. This is all we’re supposed to do to get rich. This is all Jill and I do to get rich. We send out mail very intelligently. We price it correctly and then Jill’s staff answers the phone and then she does a bunch of deals.
She doesn’t ask what’s going to happen and take the thing like it’s a rubrics cube and take the piece of property and really dig into it and bang her chest and say, “I am a real estate land person. I love this deal and I’m going to take this piece of property and it’s going to be something amazing.”
No, what she does is she says, “We’re buying it for 38 because it was priced right. I’m going to bang my chest a little on that. Jack did his job. It’s priced right. We’re going to sell it for $92,000 because everybody’s telling me it’s worth 92. Brokers and all the people that reach out. Cool. We’re buying it. Next.” That’s all we do.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. So I do ask this question. I do want you to ask this question too. When you get people and they call you back, is there anything else that you have? Bring it in, get it all in there. But if it doesn’t meet and match your immediate criteria right now, put it on the side. Move it down your spreadsheet.
Make a separate little air table thing for you to get back to those later on because you will go down that rabbit hole. Otherwise, if you lose focus, you’ll go down that rabbit hole. Now you’re not making any money, you’re not paying attention to your bread and butter.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not getting your mailer out.

Jill K DeWit:
You’re not doing all that stuff. You have to do that stuff later. I was talking about niches. So even though we’re a niche in ourselves, which I love but there’s niches within our niche. You might be the agricultural expert. You might be the I know how to get access in this area.
I figured it out. I had a tough one. That’s great. And now I know how to get legal access for all these situations. Now, I’m going to be that pro. That kind of a thing. That’s gold and I love that stuff. But if you’re constantly and people do that, like you said. You send out a really good big 10,000 unit mailer, you’re going to get back everything from a house to-

Steven Jack Butala:
A marina.

Jill K DeWit:
And a cemetery and hey, I’ve got a Dunkin’ Donuts. You want that too?

Steven Jack Butala:
Vacant hospital. These are real things that have happened to us.

Jill K DeWit:
They will come back to you. You can’t get distracted unless and the time is right. And if you really want to go there, and then you have to really have an honest discussion with yourself is how much time are you going to devote to this and then cut yourself off.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re all entrepreneurs and so we all want here to make money and we’re all constantly challenging everything and looking at things. A strict definition of an entrepreneur, the French word literally means looking at something in a different way that everybody else would look at it. When a piece of land comes in as an entrepreneur, you’re going to say, “Are you kidding? This property’s adjacent to…”-

Jill K DeWit:
Elementary school.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then your mind goes nuts because you’re a good entrepreneur. Instead of, you just got to retrain yourself. Retrain yourself to say, this property looks like it would be… I’m buying this property so cheap. I don’t care where it is. It’s so cheap someone’s going to pay twice what I’m paying.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s it.

Jill K DeWit:
Good. Jack, what do you have for us today that’s informational.

Steven Jack Butala:
My topic is quite simply called potential lies within personality. Earlier, I described the scenario about Jill where I gave her a pile of real estate that I thought was dead and she turned it into cash.
I didn’t sit around and ask myself… Jill’s got some potential. She’s got some real estate potential. I’ve never said that about her. But you can start with looking at your personality first to see if we can reverse it. Look at your personality first and see where the potential is.
The first thing that we do on day one of career path land here at Land Academy is ask everyone to take a personality test. Why? Because we want a baseline and I want you to have a baseline about who you are. If you are a Jill and you jam yourself up every day trying to be a Jack, there’s no real potential in that.

Jill K DeWit:
You’ll be unhappy. Not because of you.

Steven Jack Butala:
You need to…

Jill K DeWit:
Just because it doesn’t fit your personality.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s kind of your problem.

Jill K DeWit:
I think exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
You make choices your own choices every day [inaudible 01:00:43].

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Oh yes, I do.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s potential in your personality. There’s not potential… What potential did Jill get by working at American Airlines for 17 years? Nothing. She hit the ceiling. They don’t care. They don’t reward her for her potential.

Jill K DeWit:
No.

Steven Jack Butala:
If they would have, she’d be the vice president of sales right now. Can you imagine? You’re the vice president of Sales of American Airlines. How much more successful that company would be?

Jill K DeWit:
Are you kidding? Oh, would be. I thought you meant how much crap I’d be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, but you’d still be smashing it.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Look for the potential in your own personality. Find out what your personality is. Take a test. What’s the name of that test? Enneagram or something?

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.

Steven Jack Butala:
Take a test or many, many tests online. Do it with your spouse. It’s hilarious how different and I, Jill are in these personalities, but we want to go to the same place. Once you know what your personality is, build yourself a little team, whether it’s partners or people that work for you or funding partners on Discord or all of that.
If you don’t want to send out a mailer because you’re real concerned about pricing it correctly, find some somebody to do it for you.

Jill K DeWit:
Do you think that if you have it, a little fire in your tummy, that you can change this? Say your said potential lies within your personality. What if you know that you don’t have that drive? You have some drive, but you don’t think you have enough? Can you train yourself?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
This is one of the ways we differ.

Steven Jack Butala:
I said no because I mean no. But I know you’re going to counterbalance this and you should take some time at the end of the show here to talk about that because Jill literally, literally grew up next to Disneyland with all kinds of hope in the world and I literally grew up in Detroit with no hope.
Tell us about your hope. I was so driven. My personality was so driven to get wealthy and move to the West Coast that I would’ve done anything just about anything and I did do just about anything to make that happen.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So that’s so funny. That’s a good point. I just see it so differently because I say there’s a fire in there. I think you can overcome some stuff. It may take you a long time. Some people are like me. I know they have no fear. I’ll go running into this. I’ll go running into a fire because you told me that this suit’s going to protect me and this is at the other end. Done, here I go.
Then some people are like, “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve got to see 10 people do it first and make sure they’re alive on the other side.” Maybe a hundred people do it first and then I’ve got to put my pinky in or whatever it is. I got to test this. I understand that, but I think that if you want to, I don’t know, maybe it’s me. If you really, really want it bad enough, I think you can overcome a lot and do it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s dig just a little bit deeper here. I know I want to buy and sell land for the rest of my life. I also know I do not want to talk on the phone not even one time a day. Not to my employees, not to our executive staff and honestly not to Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
We just painted the lovely picture.

Steven Jack Butala:
Does that mean that I’m going to fail? No. It means that I was smart enough to know that about myself a lot of years ago and put people in place that are actually interested in doing that. That are really literally interested in talking on the phone and selling stuff or talking to Land Academy customers or that’s what they’re interested in doing and they want a job doing that.
Don’t confuse giving up because, well, my personality is I’m a [inaudible 01:04:49] and I can’t get a mailer out.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying is find somebody who’s going to work for you. I don’t mean on a W-2 paycheck, somewhere on Discord. There’s tons of people lurking that have my personality. They would love to do your mailer with you and split the profit.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true. Thank you. That was good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.

Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.

 

Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

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How To Be Successful At Flipping Land (LA 1998)

In this podcast episode, learn how Jack and Jill successfully flip land. They emphasize the importance of experience and knowledge in the land flipping business, and highlight the value of learning from those who have been in the industry for a long time. They outline

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LA1997WP

Respond To Change in Real Estate 2024 (LA 1997)

Jack Butala and Jill DeWit explore the real estate market, discussing the anticipated stagnation in 2024 and offering valuable insights for investors. Jack shares three crucial strategies to thrive in this shifting market: increasing offer volume, recognizing the rise in rental demand, and predicting demographic

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No need to hire staff - we did it for you.

Land Academy PRO is the brainchild of founders Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Designed at the request of Land Academy members who are ready for a higher level, we’re excited to continue to provide the tools and support needed by professional investors.

Each level comes with a preset amount of included data, Concierge Mail service, and postage. For example, the Green level includes 6,000 units of completed-for-you mail completely out the door at no extra cost to you.

All levels include a PatLive introduction and preset script (we will set up your phone answering for you), use of Land Academy’s personal Transaction Team to manage your deal flow, an AirTable (CRM) base setup managed by our (and your!) Transaction Coordinator, personal consulting, regular office hours, and includes your Land Academy subscription cost.

If you’re making this a business, Land Academy PRO takes the work off of your plate so you can focus on the things that matter – like running your business.

Green

$10,060

per Month

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers 9,000 mailers 12,000 mailers 15,000 mailers 18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value $500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value $7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value $100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
- - $1,000 value $1,000 value $1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value $2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value $150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value $23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value $300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value $8,550 value $9,550 value $12,050 value $12,050 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value $11,250 value $15,000 value $18,750 value $22,500 value
Total Value: $39,050 $42,800 $47,550 $53,800 $57,550
Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now Apply Now

Green

$10,060

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
6,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $7,500 value
Total Value: $39,050
Apply Now

Silver

$14,590

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
9,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
-
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $8,550 value
Mail Value: $11,250 value
Total Value: $42,800
Apply Now

Gold

$19,120

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
12,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $9,550 value
Mail Value: $15,000 value
Total Value: $47,550
Apply Now

Platinum

$23,650

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
15,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $18,750 value
Total Value: $53,800
Apply Now

Black

$28,180

per Month

Concierge Data+ (with data) Included mailers each month (data + concierge + mailer + postage). Our team will do your data for it and get it out the door.
18,000 mailers
PatLive introduction at no cost We will help you establish your first script and get PatLive set up on your behalf to answer your phones.
$500 value
Transaction Coordinator Use of our personal Transaction Coordinator team to manage your deals. Trained and ready to go!
$7,500 value
AirTable Ready-for-you CRM managed by your personal Land Academy Pro Transaction Coordinator
$100 value
Personal Consulting 1 on 1 personal consulting with our Transaction Coordinator each week.
$1,000 value
Regular Office Hours Regular office hours with Jack and Jill + our staff. Private for LA Pro Members Only. (Think Career Path Office Hours)
$2,500 value
ParcelFact ParcelFact is included in your LA Pro membership with unlimited pulls.
$150 value
FREE Career Path Access
$23,000 value
Land Academy No more separate charges - Land Academy is included with LA Pro Membership. This includes all education, tools, support, and future releases.
$300 value
Subtotal: $12,050 value
Mail Value: $22,500 value
Total Value: $57,550
Apply Now

Disclaimer: *We have a monthly “use it or lose it” policy with mail and data – Land Academy PRO is designed to keep you on-track and consistent.

To cancel, all packages require a 30 day notice to move you back down to regular Land Academy membership.

Office Hours Schedule

Scheduling a Career Path interview call is currently on hold and will resume closer to Fall 2024 as we approach Career Path 10.

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