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 1,955, and today we are talking about how not every, but maybe any, land deals go as planned. Whatever. What goes as planned in your life?

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Later in the episode, we’ll talk about when and where it’s appropriate to build a buyers list and when it’s not for land.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. I have a lot of experience here. That’s probably why you’re listening. Do you know what’s great? We’re going on… This is going to be… Well, heck! Next year will definitely… Will it be 10 years? I’m trying to think. When did we start the podcast? I have to go back and look, but I mean, quickly, we’re going to be rolling on 10 years of this podcast and 10 years of Land Academy, which is amazing! My point in saying that is because we speak of what we know, and in the years before Land Academy, holy moly! There’s 15 or so years of you doing this business before we even did Land Academy.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
So.

Steven Jack Butala:
We had the experience is what she’s saying. So you can see all this gray hair.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. This didn’t just happen since we started the podcast or since I came along! Since I came into the picture, more importantly. I didn’t do that. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord Forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and we take a deep dive into two land-related topics by request, which I just read. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord Forum, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
And by the way, if you would like us to answer your question, they are rolling in now too, by the way. So cheers to you guys. Or you just want some help getting involved with our community, all you have to do is text us at 480-530-7383. We do read all the texts, and your question just might be answered here on our next podcast.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, before we actually answer this question, Jill’s going to read a success story from Discord.

Jill K DeWit:
Cool. So we closed on a two-acre property at the end of April for $7,700. Had our drone guy and signs out a few days later. Hadn’t even gotten the property listed with a realtor before we had a call. Had a full price offer. Two weeks later, closed for 30,000. This will never get old!

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how you do it.

Jill K DeWit:
I love it!

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s how you do it.

Jill K DeWit:
Yay!

Steven Jack Butala:
So you netted, geez-

Jill K DeWit:
What was the purchase price?

Steven Jack Butala:
After fees? Probably 8,000. She said 77.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, 77. She didn’t even get the realtor.

Steven Jack Butala:
Right. So.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s even better!

Steven Jack Butala:
So you made 20,000 bucks. You do that once a month, you’re going to make a quarter of a million bucks a year.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why we’re here.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. All right, so here’s the deal. So we got this message in from Jack. He wrote, “On a recent 4,000 piece mailer I sent through Offers 2 Owners, 3000 units went to one county and 1000 units went to another county. I received multiple calls from the 3000 unit mailer, but zero from the 1000 mailer county. Seems odd that I wouldn’t receive a single response from that county. Could it be something I did wrong?”

Steven Jack Butala:
No, and it’s very- Go ahead, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say, I’m just thinking by the time this is aired, he probably got calls from it.

Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s my answer too. So it’s very common to really wonder what did I do based on certain responses, but in the end, if you just wait maybe two days, it’ll all start rolling in.

Jill K DeWit:
That used to happen all the time on our weekly Thursday calls. People were like, “I think I did something wrong! I don’t think the mail hit!” And then the next day they’re like, “Oops, nevermind! My bad. Here they came.” It’s always at the very last minute you think too much time has passed and then it hits.

Steven Jack Butala:
This shows me you want to do it right. So congratulations. You care.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m hoping you got 3000 to an area that you know and you’re looking at other areas to branch out into.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. Today’s first topic is not every, or maybe any, land deals go as planned. This topic was generated from a discussion, a detailed discussion that Jill and I had in our last session with Career Path. Career Path is this thing Jill and I instruct where there’s a handful of people that get access to Jill and I for eight weeks, and we in-depth take a look at everybody’s situation and how to help them in their land business.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s our highest level of personalized coaching basically.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.

Jill K DeWit:
Is really what it is.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think it’s very natural. It’s very natural for the personality type that I have to want to put everything into a box, into a spreadsheet let’s say, and quantify it. In accounting, we call it budget to actual. So I want to budget everything out and then I want to write a line right next to it, what’s going to happen, that’s the actual, and then look at the variance. I’ll tell you, as much as I want to do that with a real estate deal, that’s just not how it goes.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s very, very insightful of you to know that much about yourself and to openly share that. So I appreciate that. That’s not how I do things at all. This is not bothering me at all. I know this bothers you. You would love to know exactly, it’s going to be bought here, sold here, this much, times 10.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
But it doesn’t go like that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Buy a donut, you’re done.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s, to her credit, just wakes up and she’s just going to see what happens. I’m pretty good at sending the mail out, making her phone ring, and then she’s just fearless. She just rolls with whatever happens in a real estate deal and she gets it done. She gets it across the finish line.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny, I can wake up though. I can wake up and go, “Okay, I’m going to buy one of these three properties I’ve been looking at today,” whatever it is. Say I’m working with a seller and we’re not on the same page. Or I’ll even say, “All three of these guys don’t realize it, but we’re going to get a deal done today,” and I will not stop until I make that happen.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to hurt yourself if you go into this thinking that you can put it into a box and then repeat the box and then continue forward and just over and over and over. That’s what manufacturing is.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
Or how I perceive manufacturing. I was involved in manufacturing a long, long time ago as a teenager in my early twenties in the Midwest, and I mean, I just watched this happen. So as an outsider watching somebody stamp out a part or machine a part, especially on a computerized lathe or something like that where you know the raw material costs $3 and the stainless steel part that’s getting machined, they ordered 16,000 of them to go in some car somewhere or 16 million in some cases, and you’re making 150 bucks on it. It’s like that’s an accountant’s dream.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate deals could not be further from that situation. They’re all different. You have to completely pay attention. Stuff’s going to change and happen all the time. There’s people involved.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
When a machine’s stamping or lathing something out, there’s no people involved in that.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what’s funny, at least our deals, there’s not as many people involved as there could be. We don’t have lenders involved and inspectors involved and fill-in-the-blank involved. That’s nice. But yeah, you’re right. You have to roll with it. Every day is kind of different.
You don’t even know how many calls you’re going to get back. You think you know. We joke-Not joke about it, but mailer yield comes up, we keep telling everybody, “Don’t think about mailer yield. Think about getting one! Think of a low number for mailer yield and you get something really good out of it that pays for your mailer, that’s positive mailer yield. So let’s not think about that.”But you can’t really accurately say, “All right, I know I’m going to get these four, eight, ten deals out of every mailer.”
Even in escrow, things happen. I’m just thinking about that too. It’s not a high percentage, but I’m going to say at least a couple out of a hundred that something goes wrong. Maybe it’s even me. Things not going as planned might not even be there was a problem with the property, it could be I changed my mind. I’m not loving this like I thought I was and now I don’t want to do it.

Steven Jack Butala:
I tend to associate risk with variables. So the more variables that there are in any situation or any business situation specifically, the more risk there’s going to be. When I look at the risk involved in buying a piece of land, we have control over who gets an offer from us. We have control over how much we offer, and we have control over the number of offers that we send out. Total control.
If I send out 10,000 offers at 20% of retail value, we’re going to get some response back. We’re going to get a predictable response back. I don’t know the exact numbers. And then I know from experience, because my business partner historically closes two to five deals in that situation, and we have control over what we pay over those for those deals. Complete control. So with our experience, we don’t pay too much. So that’s the good news.
The bad news is these deals, all land deals, there’s variables. Variables become, after you sign the agreement, then you send it to escrow and you start to find out maybe there’s some back taxes. Yeah, I can live with that variable. Or if I can’t, then I adjust the purchase price.
Oh, well, turns out one of these people that’s on the deed, they passed away three years ago. I can deal with that variable. It’s not something we’ve dealt with the entire time. There’s a couple of flaws in the piece of dirt that maybe it doesn’t have access or it has limited access, or we have to go do some stuff to get access. I accept those variables and I adjust the price accordingly. So that’s the good news.
The fact that these land deals never go as planned, it keeps a ton of people out of this business. There’s millions of real estate agents in this country. How many manufacturing companies are there? Geez, I’d bet millions. How many people buy and sell land like this?

Jill K DeWit:
Right. No, I was just thinking about when we were thinking of this topic, there was one property and one transaction that prompted this for me because it didn’t go as planned. We all went into it. There were first of all, A, too many of us involved in this transaction because it was a high dollar amount. So there were a few of us that all pitched in to take down this deal. It took way too long. It sold for much less than… We still got three times our money. So it’s not like we’re all hurting, not crying poor here and made a mistake, but it didn’t go as planned. We were like, “Ah, man. God, it took too long. How many agents did we have involved? How many times did we have to talk about it? How many hurdles did our buyers have to, perceivably in their heads, overcome and that we had to talk them through?” It just was a pain!

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to ask you a couple questions.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because this is not a negative topic, although it was written that way. Whoever wrote this topic is a pretty negative person.

Jill K DeWit:
Hm, I wonder who that was!

Steven Jack Butala:
As a percentage, if somebody signs and sends you an agreement back or they call you and say, “Yeah, I want to do the deal. What’s the next step?” And you look at the deal and you agree in the first 30 seconds that you look at it that you want to do the deal. It has a percentage. How many after that point, that light bulb point, do you think just don’t go as planned? To get them closed, I mean, on the acquisition side, not on the sales side.

Jill K DeWit:
On the acquisition side?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, acquisition side as planned, 85%.

Steven Jack Butala:
I was going to say 90, but yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
I was going to say 90 too, but I was being conservative!

Steven Jack Butala:
85, 90%. You buy the property and then-

Jill K DeWit:
On the acquisition side, because I’m the one that’s controlling that.

Steven Jack Butala:
From the moment you own it, again, that’s light bulb moment. You own it.

Jill K DeWit:
This is a good point.

Steven Jack Butala:
As a percentage, how many are not, that don’t go as planned on the sell side?

Jill K DeWit:
This is where it all goes sideways!

Steven Jack Butala:
Really?

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I want to say… That do not go as planned?

Steven Jack Butala:
How many go as as planned? Like, “Hey, I bought this thing for 30 and I know it’s worth 60 or 70 and I sold it pretty quickly.”

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, so I’m going to say 75% go as planned.

Steven Jack Butala:
I was going to say 85, 90.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m feeling pretty good about that because I already have a number. I know that this is where you taught me this. I love it at this. I’ll take this. I love it at this. I can do this and I’ll settle for this.

Steven Jack Butala:
How many times have you lost money on a real estate deal? That’s really doesn’t go as planned. That’s my definition of, oh, wait a minute. I really missed something.

Jill K DeWit:
I got one two years ago. I think I broke even. I can’t remember, but it was really close.

Steven Jack Butala:
One deal.

Jill K DeWit:
I know.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is the point I’m trying to drive home. Yes, stuff goes sideways. You make sure that you get the deal back on track. You’re the deal maker.
So I think this is great news. It keeps a tremendous amount of people out of the business. Really, really low startup costs. And you go into it with the right attitude, and I’m going to fix this no matter what goes on kind of entrepreneurial spirit, you’re going to get out of it just fine. Worst thing that happens is you do a price reduction and you don’t make as much money as you thought.

Jill K DeWit:
There you go. That’s it. I’m going to go look that up. I think I’m going to make a little separate thing about that. That was Lancaster, California.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep. I know exactly which deal you’re talking about.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, dumb dumb.

Steven Jack Butala:
I approved that deal personally because it was in LA County.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, we knew that guy!

Steven Jack Butala:
If it was one county over, which the county line was like 500 yards from that property. If it was in I think San Bernardino or Riverside County, I would’ve not done it. But for whatever reason, it was in LA County, it was super cheap, and I made a mistake.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m like, “Oh, okay. Yeah!”

Steven Jack Butala:
You still got of it.

Jill K DeWit:
Who cares? It’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, if you have the right attitude and the right entrepreneurial spirit, you’re going to smash this. Most of you are who are in Land Academy already.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what? That’s the whole point here.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s really good. If you can roll with these punches. That’s why people who come to us that have deal experience or even owning a business experience, you know how to roll with the punches and not give up and just say, “Well, we’re closing up shop!” Kind of thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, this thing doesn’t work. No, it works!

Jill K DeWit:
It does. You got to stay with it.

Steven Jack Butala:
You already know that because you’re successful at other stuff. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

Jill K DeWit:
Thinking, thinking, thinking of what I want to share right now.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, if you want to hear our whole story, go to LandAcademy.com and download the ebook. It’s free. It tells starting from the early nineties when I was buying and selling long-term care facilities all the way up to right now and the things that we went through and the tools that we didn’t have back then.
We didn’t have Google Earth. Jill and I had an amazingly difficult time trying to find property just based on a legal description. It wasn’t difficult, it was just really time-consuming because there was no tool online that you could go type in an assessor’s parcel number and find it. We’ve since then created those products, most of them, and bought our own printing company so that we wouldn’t have to deal with a lot of that.
So you get all of that. It’s a good story and it’s a real easy read and it doesn’t cost anything. Check it out at LandAcademy.com and look at the ebook.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. That was great.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek at it, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Patricia wrote, “Hi guys! I recently joined Land Academy in April.” Yay! Congrats. “Although I’ve been buying and selling land for the past two years, I’ve just now been able to take this on since my wealth has grown over the past two years as a result of my land flipping. So I’m listening to the education sections, which we can always benefit from, whether learned or need to be learned, and they talk about Title Mine and Infill Reports, but neither are available any longer. Sounds like great programs. What do you use in place of Title Mine and Infill Reports?”

Steven Jack Butala:
So I’ll tell you a story, a story about Jill and I, and Jill and I decided to, from the moment that we released the program to the public, the Land Academy program, it took us about a year to put together part-time. From the moment we released it, what we learned, and I was shocked about this, I don’t know if you were, but we learned that our members wanted more tools. They wanted more programs, more access to people like us that have done a bunch of deals and more tools.
So one by one by one, upon our members’ requests, Jill and I rolled out tools. Some of them survived and thrived, like Offers 2 Owners and ParcelFact.com. Geez, those are thriving. Financially, they’re thriving and everybody loves them. They all rave about it. Both members and non-members. Some of them didn’t work. Title Mine’s a great example.
People were coming to us saying, “I bought this property in Tennessee. Can you guys close it? I can’t find an escrow agent.” And so we said, “Sure, we’re going to open this thing called Title Mine.” It just got misused. Many of these programs worked great. They just weren’t used by our members the way that we intended them.
So they would give us all the deals that they couldn’t close themselves, the real problematic ones, like people are dead and there’s all kinds of medical liens and mechanical liens and real problematic properties. So we looked at each other and said, “I just don’t think this is worth it.” We knew this because we’ve done a million deals.

Jill K DeWit:
They’re messy.

Steven Jack Butala:
These aren’t deals that are going to close anyway.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s not any title company or escrow company that’s going to close it.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
So, we said, “It’s just not worth it.” And in the end, we’re not doing anybody a favor and nobody wants to hear, “Yeah, this is probably an unclosable transaction,” or, “Maybe it’s closable, but-“

Jill K DeWit:
We’re not the people to do it. We’re not attorneys!

Steven Jack Butala:
But financially it’s not going to matter. Buy for five and sell for eight and it’s going to cost you $9,000 for us by the time we get it closed?

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
So we decided not to do it. Infill report, where can you go get that? There’s no replacement for good old-fashioned, get a local title company and find one you like.
Infill Reports was a partnership situation that Jill and I put together with a guy in Los Angeles, a super, super nice guy who had a tremendous talent for analyzing – When an infill lot would come in, analyze it and say, what can you do with it? Does it have access? Yes. Can you put a mobile home on it? No. Can you put a house on it? Yes. What are the setbacks? And all the details, nitty degree details of infill reports.

Jill K DeWit:
It was a great product.

Steven Jack Butala:
And again, by the time we got done with it, by the time we’ve got done with a given infill report he did and we put the time in and all, we were charging a thousand bucks. That price point did not work for most people.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. It was an awesome product. I kind of miss it too.

Steven Jack Butala:
Right. I’ll tell you what has worked and people just want more and we’re giving them more, is advanced level education. I thought this would’ve been the exact opposite. I thought everybody wants tools and nobody wants to talk anymore because that’s who I am. That’s not who most people are.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
So now we have Career Path, which is crazy successful. We do it two or three times a year depending on which year Jill feels like she wants to do two or three.

Jill K DeWit:
Thanks!

Steven Jack Butala:
We do now a program that we’re going to release here in next week actually called Land Academy Pro, where you get access to the same people that do my mailers and the same people that close your deals. The very same exact people, the same database template that we use, the same everything. We’re going to see how everybody responds to the price point, but it’s way cheaper than learning all the stuff yourself and hiring people. You get access to the people that we’ve vetted for years and years and years. We’ve already gotten a huge positive response to that.
And Man Plan. What we’ve learned too is that not everybody joins Land Academy because they want to be a land investor. They just want to have access to some people that have figured out how to seemingly comfortably make a bunch of money in life and have a good relationship. So ManPlan.com, I anticipate, and the price point there is going to be very, very, very low. So those are real positive things too. If we terminated a program, we terminated it because it just didn’t work out for our members.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I’m going to throw in there though, by the way, Title Mine is going to be… It’s basically included in Land Academy Pro.

Steven Jack Butala:
Right. Exactly.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s kind of funny. Title Mind is kind of coming back in a different way.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s a way to say it.

Jill K DeWit:
It is.

Steven Jack Butala:
Great way to say it.

Jill K DeWit:
So yeah, really cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic, when and when not to build a buyers list.

Jill K DeWit:
So I was going to talk about this for a minute because I… Can you scroll that up? It just helps me to see that. I did this… Maybe not. Thank you. Back in the day.
Okay, so I would have buyers call me. This was me personally taking the calls and selling our own property, and they were asking about certain properties and maybe that they loved everything about this one, but instead of five acres, they wanted 20. Or they really hoped it was in closer to fill-in-the-blank.
I thought, okay, hold on a moment. I’m clearly canvassing this area. I’m in this county. Or even all over the country. We’ve always and forever had mailers hitting different states, different sizes, different whatever. So I would say, “Look, I always have new stuff coming in anyway.”
I would do two things. One, I would tell them, “Get on my buyers list which is on my website.” I’ll put their email on there so you get notified when I get things. Number two, I would try to keep track of it and try to queue things up for them. When I talk to them and they’re like, “I’m really serious. I just wish it was twice as big. Fill in the blank.”
So I started making notes of this. Especially people that were repeat buyers, this guy loves this, this guy wants these. Then I would go out and keep my eye out for any 40-acre in this part of the state with this attribute and queue them up for them. It never worked out.
Every time I’d say, “Hey, you gave me a list of criteria, here it is. This is the one. I just got this in. It’s going to fit your thing perfectly.” They’d be like, “Ah, I don’t know. I don’t like the way the sun bounces off the trees on that rock,” or something stupid. I’m like, what? They didn’t feel it or they would come up with some other thing and I realized what a waste of my time.
So in the land world, this does not work. This is a huge waste of time. And I see people doing it all the time. It’s so funny. I’m watching social media, they’re like, “Hey, does anybody have any properties in fill-in-the-blank county that are with a well between five and 10 acres? I’ve got a guy.” I’m like, “Oh, this is funny.” How much time is going to be wasted on that?

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, now you’re representing somebody else in the acquisition and potential sale of a property, which you need to be a licensed real estate agent for. It’s totally different. Here’s the thing, before Jill finishes, because she’s got, I’m sure-

Jill K DeWit:
I was going to wrap that up.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, okay. Go ahead.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, and then I’ll pass it to you. So I see people doing it all the time and I’m like, “This is not what you should be spending your time on. I have other solutions and other ways to do it and then go for it.”

Steven Jack Butala:
I think that you can really quantify it like this. When people have, or your customers have really, really similar interests, then you can establish a list, and when you get a product in, like a piece of land or a certain gauge of stainless steel, whatever business you’re in, then you can send out a list or send out a note and say, “I got another one in and all of you guys wanted the last one. So whichever one of you want it, it’s here.”
So that’s just not the case with land. What they’re doing is dreaming. Jill, you have an example. Buying houses that need to be renovated are a great example when you should establish a list.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s different. So yeah, here’s back to the land thing, when and when not to build a buyers list. For land, no bueno. Don’t do that. Don’t go there. It’s dumb.
The only thing I would say is do collect emails. If you’re selling your own property, it’s really beneficial. And we’ve done this over the years, I mean throughout the years I should say, I still have it going on, my collected buyer’s list. If I’m going to wholesale any property, I just send it out as a spreadsheet. State, county, APN. If I’ve got an attribute in there or something I need to tell them about the property, it’s listed, and my sales price. And it’s a good sales price, not a make-me-move, not a retail dumb number. Just because I’m reaching out to other professionals. That’s a great thing.
But again, I’m not building a list. I have emails collected that they have opted in to be and get notified, and they do get notified.

Steven Jack Butala:
She’s not servicing clients or customers.

Jill K DeWit:
Nah.

Steven Jack Butala:
She’s collecting a list and exposing people to products.

Jill K DeWit:
Here’s all the stuff I just got in. If you want it, great. If you don’t, fine. You know?

Steven Jack Butala:
Why? Because they have similar interests and they’re not end users. These people, they’re people who are going to resell it and somehow, maybe it’s on terms, maybe it’s for more, take a long time, two years to sell it for cash.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. Now, when to do this that I have been really successful is when we have done House Academy, and the way that we buy them and the way that we sell them to other wholesalers. We’re selling to someone who’s going to pull the dumpster in the driveway and they’re going to do the renovation and all that good stuff.

Steven Jack Butala:
The rehabber.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s their game. When they find us or we connect basically, and I tell them, “Here’s what I got,” and it’s gone. They’re like, “Text me please. When you get another one in this zip code,” because those guys are serious. Those guys really… And they mean it. “I’ll take any three bedroom, two bathroom in this zip code in this school zone north of those railroad tracks with no pool and a garage. I’m buying it.”

Steven Jack Butala:
For less than $200 a square foot or something like that.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s easy and we can do that and I can buy it. I can queue it up like that. I can get that precise. Really easy to do. That’s a good buyers list and it’s a short buyers list. Usually it’s like 10 people and they all get an email.
Something comes in, not even an email, it’s a text. I’ll text. Actually what I do, I’ll tell you truthfully, this is House Academy. I text them, I email them and I phone call them. I blast them three different ways and it’s first come first serve and they know it. They’re like, “Can’t wait to go. I’m driving there now, Jill. What’s the lockbox code?” All right, here you go. Let me know what you think.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s another circumstance that it really makes a lot of sense to build a buyers list. We have a person in this most recent Career Path that stumbled across a specific-use piece of property that is for a 15-unit apartment building, and it’s right between two existing multi-unit buildings, two existing apartment buildings.
It’s very quick and easy to accumulate a list of all the people who own apartment buildings in that county and just send them a note, send them a letter or send them a text that says, “I’ve got this property, and it’s off-market.” Everybody loves off-market property. We love off-market property. We’ve made a career out of buying land that’s off-market, creating a real estate deal for ourselves where it’s not a deal until we call them or send a note.
It’s going to be very easy for her to establish that list. And then once she talks to a few people, let’s say there’s 10 or 12 of them that respond. During that conversation, they’re going to say, “Hey, if you ever come across any more multi-tenant land in these eight counties, please call me first.” So it’s real easy for her now then to send out a mailer in those eight counties, real small strategic surgical strike mailer, and expose these people that own these apartment buildings to those pieces of dirt.
You got to be careful. It can backfire because it’s what Jill said right from the beginning. Yeah, I don’t like the way the sun shines on that one. But let me wrap this up with this topic with this, our way’s the right way. We’ve proven it. Buy a piece of land-

Jill K DeWit:
And tested it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. You buy a piece of land as cheap as you possibly can, within reason, and then let the real estate agent that you choose go do his job. Let him get it on the MLS, make it look fantastic, put maps in there and all the features that it might have, water, all kinds of whatever. Make it look as good as you can on the internet and the right buyer will find it. It’s way better. Then you don’t have two or three or four jobs in life. You have one. To find and purchase undervalued land.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Then everybody else does all the work.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something inspirational to share?

Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Today I want to talk about the top three traits that I’ve noticed in successful people. This is coming up because we are wrapping up… By the time this airs will be our last Career Path for group six, as a matter of fact.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, sure. Yeah!

Jill K DeWit:
I’m just thinking about that and that’s going to be a little sad! It’s always sad when we say goodbye, but we don’t all just go, “Well, see ya!” We all get together once a month so we’re not gone. But anyway. But we’re not spending the same amount of time together as we are every week right now.
Every group is different, and there’s phenomenal people in every group and there’s often some that just stand out like, wow! That person is going to kill it. We know.
I was thinking about this individual, we’ve talked about her a bit, and I’m like, what is it about her that makes her special and what can I share with everybody else so they are aware of this and can try to mirror this? One is no fear.
If I tell her, “Here’s what you should do. Call this person, find out this, this, and this and this,” she’s immediately on the phone. It’s not having to gear up for it or having to think about it or wrap her head around it or whatever it is. It’s like, okay, doing it.
That kind of goes into number two, which is she follows our advice without hesitation. She doesn’t question it. She’s like, “I know you guys-” Well, clearly you know what it is? It’s like, “Clearly you guys know what you’re talking about! I’m going to, no fear, do what you tell me.”
The third thing is she’s constantly building. She’s constantly pushing herself. She’s constantly changing her deals. She’s constantly sending more mail. She’s constantly adding a zero. And I’m like, “Oh…”
Our discussion the other day ended with, “You realize we’re not going to hear from her again.” I said, “Yes. That’s what happens.” People come into Land Academy and then they go into Career Path and they go off and become wildly successful and then they go dark. They’re like, “I don’t need you!” Kind of thing. It’s kind of funny, but it’s good. It’s positive, and we know that. It’s like when your kids leave the nest and they’re like, “I got this, Mom.” It’s a positive thing. So that’s it.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re supposed to graduate from college too.

Jill K DeWit:
You are.

Steven Jack Butala:
Not just stay there.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you are. My main thing, of all the three things that I would pick out is the top one… No fear, follow advice, and constant building. I’d say the number one for me is no fear. You have to just do it. What would be your number one? Of those three things what do you think is the top?

Steven Jack Butala:
Tony Robbins has long said this is the one number one reason why people don’t reach their potential and it’s emotion. Because what she does and what you’re describing is just mechanically get through it.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not going to sit around and worry about what the assessor thinks about me because I have a bunch of questions about a property in this county. I am going to listen to two people who have done 16,000-plus deals, go out and talk to the other apartment building owners. Just mechanically do it and you’re going to do incredibly well.
The people that I’ve seen that just do so well, they don’t know when to quit. There’s no off switch.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
They sleep however many hours they do and then they get backed up. They don’t give themselves any reason or excuse to not get something done. My kids need me to do this. My husband wants me to make dinner. I’ve got to get a master’s degree. Successful people that I’ve been exposed to, I’ve never heard them… I don’t think they think about it, let alone say it. So where there’s a will.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. Good point. Thank you. Jack, do you have something Man Plan-ish? ManPlan.com-ish, I should say. That’s a mouthful. To share with us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I’ve been running across people that have statistical obsession recently and I’m very, very aware of what that’s all about because I had it and sometimes I still have it. I’m analyzing something. It’s a version of analysis paralysis, but it’s a little worse.
Analysis paralysis, you can get over. Where you’re just analyzing and analyzing and analyzing. Am I pricing this mailer right? What else can I be doing? Can I do this more?
We learned this in school. The problem with formal education, one of the problems, or it was for me anyway, thank God that chapter of my life is over, is that unlike a job when you’re done at three o’clock or five o’clock or whatever, you’re done. In college, oh man, I really probably should study more for this exam. Oh no, I should do this over here instead.
So analysis paralysis is in my mind a psychological extension of that. Of, oh Geez, it’s just not done. Well, the mailer’s not done yet. I see this a lot with the computer designers and programmers, because no computer program is ever going to be released bug-free. It just doesn’t happen. How many updates do you do on Windows every single month?

Jill K DeWit:
Good point.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s just not done yet. It’ll never be done. Artists are like this. The painting’s never done. If you’re a true artist, somebody made you stop. I’ve heard animators say this too, like Disney animators say, the little section that they’re working on, “The only reason that I released this is because they told me I had to be done with it.” They had a deadline.

Jill K DeWit:
I love this! What version of Jack are we on right now? Blank.0.

Steven Jack Butala:
19.0.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh! I thought you were going to say one for every year!

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, yeah! Yeah. 58.0.

Jill K DeWit:
How about – You know what we’re on Jill? This is Jill 102.0!

Steven Jack Butala:
No, it’s over. Statistical obsession.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, it’s over? Oh, this is as good as it’s going to get?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, great!

Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, I’m going backwards now.

Jill K DeWit:
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Wait, time out! Are you telling me I get to expect no…

Steven Jack Butala:
No improvements. Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
No updates of any kind?

Steven Jack Butala:
No improvements.

Jill K DeWit:
For the rest of my life with you? Oh!

Steven Jack Butala:
There won’t be, I’ll tell you this, no improvements at work, but socially there will be.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Got it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Will have improvements.

Jill K DeWit:
That would be bad coming home and saying, “Baby, this is it. This is as good as it’s going to get. Today is the height of my everything!”

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve been saying that since I’ve met you!

Jill K DeWit:
Just so you know-

Steven Jack Butala:
And she just refused to believe it!

Jill K DeWit:
-It is really downhill from me. I mean, really downhill from here. You just can expect this – See this body? It’s all going to fall apart more than it already has! I’ve just stopped caring!

Steven Jack Butala:
Most women, this is Man Plan right now.

Jill K DeWit:
I know!

Steven Jack Butala:
Most women-

Jill K DeWit:
Now I’m going to eat whatever I damn want!

Steven Jack Butala:
Most women believe they can improve their man, even if they’re in their eighties. Oh, he’s going to be fine tomorrow. He’s an idiot today! He’s going to be fine tomorrow.

Jill K DeWit:
That is kind of true.

Steven Jack Butala:
And this is what I’m going to do to make sure.

Jill K DeWit:
We see potential.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to do this, this, this, and this to make sure he’s better tomorrow.

Jill K DeWit:
Every day we see potential in our man!

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s hopeless, ladies. It’s totally hopeless.

Jill K DeWit:
There we go!

Steven Jack Butala:
Statistical obsession is worse than analysis paralysis because I’ve noticed that people ask the same questions over and over and over again until they get the right answer. And then they ask a different question over and over and over again until they get the answer that they want. Then it continues and continues and continues.
The opposite of that is Jill. Jill says, “Let’s send a bunch of freaking mail out and see what happens. And whatever happens, I’m going to make something happen. We’ll buy some property. Trust me.”

Jill K DeWit:
Watch me.

Steven Jack Butala:
You send out 15,000 mailers at 20%, we’re going to buy some dirt. She takes it on. A person that’s got statistical obsession is going to say, “Oh, I’m going to send out 15,000 mailers and I’m going to buy three properties, and if I don’t, I’m going to break down and have a nervous breakdown because I only bought two. I’m supposed to buy three.”
It’s a Rain Man thing. It’s worse. It’s worse than analysis paralysis. So you have to just prepare yourself, and it’s not just land or real estate or anything. I think this is a personality thing.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you for bringing this up. I think this is prevalent in our group because you know who you are, data people.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
This is your thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
Not my thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think you put a lot of completely undue pressure on yourself, and I think, I’m sure that this stops a lot of people from continuing on in whatever they’re trying to pursue in their life, whether it’s relationships or accumulating the wealth that you know that you are worthy of.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, do you think the people that in our group who are hung up on mailer yield are only because they want to do better than the next person?

Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-uh.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think they want to implement. It’s a budget to actual that I talked about earlier.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think, “Jack, you said it’s every 5,000 units and I got 8,500. I had to send out 8,000 units.” I see this in Discord all the time. “I had to send out 8,000 units instead of five. I thought it was supposed to be five. In fact, three years ago you said it was 2,500.”
After that, their personality scenario takes over. They either blame themselves, they blame me.

Jill K DeWit:
Their mom.

Steven Jack Butala:
In the end, there’s something going on below the surface that is not allowing them to chill out and say, “Yeah, but I made $82,000, so my mailer yield’s a little bit different than I thought.” So what? It doesn’t fit into that box that I’m so trying to chase. Worse is, “I married this girl and her hair was long and now it’s short and that’s it.” Statistical obsession. You’re just stuck!

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
It makes you stuck!

Jill K DeWit:
Wow! Okay. I’m learning new information.

Steven Jack Butala:
It doesn’t make you stuck. You stuck yourself by glomming onto a couple of statistics, mailer yields is just an easy way to- That’s just scratching the surface. But you thought these five things were going to happen in a marriage and none of them happen, and these other things over here happen. That’s the way life is.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
You have to embrace the fact that it’s all going to change three weeks from now. Geez, if you’ve ever had children, wow. You have to know that the kids that when they were five are different than when they’re 15. And if you’re trying to keep them five, I’ve seen people try to do this. They want to keep them little!

Jill K DeWit:
Yep.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s totally selfish.

Jill K DeWit:
I understand.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the condescending tone on the way down to make me stop.

Jill K DeWit:
No, I’m just going to say, are you upset?

Steven Jack Butala:
No!

Jill K DeWit:
Are you okay? All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, not at all!

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ve had analysis paralysis early in my career really bad. But obsession is, you have to really look yourself in the mirror and chill out.

Jill K DeWit:
Hey, don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and help just by texting 480-530-7383.

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.