Unlock the secrets of creating real estate equity that your high school education missed in this captivating episode of the Land Academy Show. Join hosts Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit as they explore two fascinating topics: the stuff they don’t teach you in high school about creating equity and why Land Academy has stood the test of time.

Whether you’re a seasoned investor or just starting out, this episode offers a fresh perspective on creating lasting wealth through real estate. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn from two of the industry’s most experienced professionals.

For a sneak peek of the Land Academy Discord forum, visit LandAcademy.com in read-only format. If you have questions or want to be part of the community, simply text them at 480-530-7383. Tune in now and take the first step towards mastering the art of land investing!

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Equity Secrets They Didn’t Teach You In High School | Land Academy’s Timeless Success! (LA 1960)

Creating Equity: What High School Didn’t Teach

This is episode number 1,960. We are talking about a couple of topics. Number one, stuff they don’t teach you in high school about creating equity. You had to carry a little egg around so you wouldn’t get pregnant. That’s beneficial.

I never had to do that. I remember going, “How did I miss that class?”

I don’t know.

I don’t know what happened. Maybe they thought, “Jill, you’re not going to go there anyway, so you don’t need an egg.”

There are a bunch of reasons you need an egg more than a lot of people.

I should have carried around a checkbook. That’s what they should have been monitoring, which is what we’re going to talk about.

It’s how to balance a checkbook.

Jill, it’s not supposed to save all your money. Spend it on one concert and start over again. That’s what I did.

Number two, why Land Academy stood the test of time. We get this question all the time from our staff. We decided to address it on the show.

Did you do that thing?

I didn’t do it personally because I didn’t take home economics. I took it in middle school.

That was the same as me because I did that, and I loved it. Do you remember we had a little kitchen? We had 5 or 4 kitchens around the room. You would maybe make brownies. We had a full-size oven.

We did a budget. It was way before computers. Everything was a printout. You had to fill in how much money you made every week.

I didn’t pay attention to that. I focused my energy on how to write a check. Not how to balance but how to write and fill out a check.

I can tell this is going to be an interesting topic for Jill. Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum. We review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars. We take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of our Discord forum, and I would highly recommend this, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free. It’s in read-only format. All of our members are in there talking to each other. “What should I do here? Should I do this deal?” You can take a look at all of it.

If you have some questions that you want us to answer, you want to be read here on this blog, or you want to get involved in our community to find out more, all you have to do is text us at 480-530-7383. We read all the texts. Your question might be here. Here’s our first question. John wrote, “My wife Kristen and I are now starting our land investment career. We would like to do this as a permanent business starting soon. I am an HVAC/R contractor. I’ve been in the commercial and industrial sectors of this industry for several years.”

He said, “My wife has been in the education industry for many years. I would love to hang up the tools within these next several years to pursue land investment full-time. My current business will be funding the land investment business until it gets off the ground. We live in Montana and are several years away from becoming empty nesters. We’ll be moving back to the beach somewhere. Maybe Florida. I don’t know. We are originally from Huntington Beach, California. Beach life is in our blood. We are excited to start this new journey and be part of this community. Thanks for having us.” This is a nice comment. There’s no question here.

I chose this because you are already in business. You are my favorite type of new land investor. What you need to learn is less than half of what everybody else on the planet needs to learn. You got payroll. You understand what it’s like to get paid last in your own business. There are a ton of tiny little things that we all take for granted for ourselves for running a business. What you need to do is learn how to buy land below its current value.

You’re going to learn it if you haven’t already.

That’s all you have to learn. You don’t have to learn about, “I need payroll. I have to start an LLC. I’ve got what I need with this employee over here. How to deal with a partner, especially if you’re married to her.” You’ve got that licked. What you need to do is focus on buying and selling land.

Moving helps.

Our first topic is stuff they didn’t teach you in high school about creating equity, but I’m learning now, after talking to Jill, she has a lot more to say about what she did or did not learn in high school. We’ll get to equity in a second. What would you change? What do you think they should have taught you? Do you think it’s you?

I wasn’t signing up for the correct courses. I should have signed up for business. I didn’t sign up for any of that. I love Math and Physics. I did that. I was half enjoying French, even though we didn’t take any great field trips. That would’ve been more worthwhile if we went to France, but no. My French experience was selling French candy. I was the President of the French club. That’s a great idea.

Jill and I, in real life, have assigned ourselves these educational-type roles. We don’t need to do this. We didn’t need to do this back in 2015 when we started all this craziness. For whatever reason, we assigned ourselves an instruction-type role. I think about this a lot. I’m like, “If I went back to high school or even talked to somebody who writes curriculum for a high school, what would I say?” How about a class called Sales 101? How about having a dynamic personality after you take the stainless steel spike out of your nose? How about that class?”

What is that?

You’re not going to get what you want in life if you’re running around all goth. I don’t have anything against that.

I didn’t have anything in my nose.

I know you didn’t. This isn’t about you.

I thought you were directing it at me.

It’s like a 101 Dale Carnegie course, How to Win Friends and Influence People. That would be fantastic.

In Psychology, they didn’t teach that. It’s almost like they teach you enough to pass the test, like a real estate exam. If you took the courses to take the real estate exam, every state, we did it for Arizona. It’s like they teach you what you need to know for the exam. It’s not always real life. I want to pause for a moment and give you some context of why this topic came up. We’re driving around in these Midwest states. We’re looking at these people and looking at their homes. They have nice lives. We were driving around Northern Minnesota.

Geography is not one of the things that Jill took in high school.

Is that not where we are?

No, we’re in Wisconsin.

My point is, I’m like, “Look at these homes. Look at the pride of ownership. Look at everybody’s cars. Look at how chill people are. They’re well.” I’m trying to state some facts and my observations here. I’m not trying to offend anyone. There are many people in my hometown, Garden Grove, California, who have settled into a nice, stable, consistent, affordable, no-surprises, and accepting life. If they have a hiccup in their financial plan, they will take out another job.

I’ve seen them get a different degree to increase their earnings at a job but stay at this job. They don’t take a lot of chances. I see it from my friends on Facebook. They’ve taken roommates. They’re creative in those ways. That’s good, but they don’t blow it out of the box. They don’t take some chances. Do these people not know how smart they are and what’s possible? You and I start talking about maybe the ball was dropped in high school.

Don't just settle for a stable life. Take chances, blow it out of the box. You're smarter and more capable than you realize. Share on X

We watched a family in a small town right out of a postcard farming community in Northern Wisconsin. They pack up their car with their kids with smiles on their faces. I don’t know where they were going. I was struck with two thoughts. This is what Jill is getting at. That’s great. They’re happy, and they figured it all out. They’re raising a family. Congratulations. It’s wonderful.

This is the second thought that I had. Do they know that you can create equity while you’re doing that? How many people would be creating equity for themselves to raise their quality of life if they want that? How many people know that that’s possible or an option? They didn’t teach you that in high school. They should tell you.

Equity Creation Through Mortgage Payments

I’m going to leave accounting out of this. You can create equity. The easiest way to describe creating equity, and this is how most people do it, is when you make your mortgage payment. Part of that is the principal pay down. You buy a $300,000 house, and you make a $2,000 payment. A certain percentage of that is interest for the privilege of borrowing money. A certain percentage of that is principal. In a $2,000 payment at the beginning of the loan, $1,900 of it is interest. Every month, you’re paying more principal. First, $100 and $125.

You’re creating equity by paying that off. Let’s say it’s a 15-year or 30-year loan. In the end, it’s the reverse. It’s an X on a graph. There is way more interest upfront and a way smaller amount of principal. Way more principal as you go on and a lot less interest at the end of the loan. That’s equity creation. If you would start like our HVAC contractor here, at the beginning of the episode, he is creating business equity for himself by fixing HVAC contracts. If he does twenty a week, he’s creating more equity for himself. He’s making more money than he is spending. He’s putting it away. He gets a second location and hires a bunch of guys. That’s more equity.

Nobody is criticized. That’s what Jill was careful about earlier. If you don’t want to change your life and everything is great, there are other shows. If you want to change your life and create some equity for yourself and wealth, there are incredible ways to do it. The HVAC contractor way is the beginning. There’s a ton of stuff in between.

Creating equity should be part of your life plan. If you want to get ahead and really change your lifestyle, there are incredible ways to do it. Share on X

Let’s talk about what Elon Musk does and did. He created a car company. He did a bunch of stuff before that that nobody knows about, but he created Tesla. There’s a documentary about it. It almost bankrupted him because he was out of money. He spent all the money that he personally had, but he took the company public. He created an amazing amount of equity for himself by taking that company public and raising equity. They can build a company freely with investors like you and me if you own Tesla stock. I wish there was a whole course on creating equity if you don’t like it. Even if it’s like, “Making a ton of money is not something that I’ve been interested in.” I’ve had those conversations.

Jack, I’m nineteen. I’m a freshman in college. I know this needs to happen. What would you tell me to do?

It’s different than if you were nineteen when we were nineteen. Now, I would say, “Go out on the internet and find your community.”

That’s easy. I’m in a football sports fantasy league. Does that mean community?

You’re not going to create a community there. I don’t mean different types of cannabis. You’re not going to get any further from anything there. You need to understand and look at everything in a spreadsheet about buying something and selling it for more or buying something, improving it, and selling it for more. There are a lot of different ways to create equity. Finding your community about other people who want to create equity and following somebody who’s done it would be helpful in small business.

Find your community of like-minded individuals who want to create equity. Follow someone who's actually done it – it can be incredibly helpful. Share on X

I’ve heard of a lot of people doing this. They know how to do cars. They know how to work on cars and create equity there. They know how to buy them cheap, fix them up to run and sell them. Maybe it’s at an auction. You can find them on Craigslist. Maybe even something like that can help you build up some money, and you can start making different decisions.

There are many basic concepts out there. Find something where the sum of its parts is worth more than all the parts separate. Television is a great example. There are tons of parts that go into a TV. They’re all visualized on a workbench somewhere. Somebody puts them all together, and you’ve got a functioning, great, brand-new TV. That TV’s worth more than all the parts on the workbench.

One way to create equity is to put stuff together, like rebuilding a car. I wouldn’t recommend rebuilding cars. It’s a lot of work, but if you’re into it and understand it, that’s great. You can write software. There’s a ridiculous amount of opportunity to write software for other people in the beginning. I see a lot of people in that industry trying to start to finish writing some software. By the time they’re done, it’s obsolete.

Contract yourself out. If you’re good at that, it comes naturally to people who need a little subsection of whatever they’re developing. It doesn’t matter if it succeeds or fails. You created some equity for yourself and branded your name along the way, which is great. What sang to me in the beginning was representing people when they’re buying and selling nursing homes and taking a fee out of that. Although you’re not creating, it’s a fee. You’re creating dollars.

What sang to me is in my eBook. If you go to LandAcademy.com and download the eBook, it’s all free. I bought a piece of property on the internet for $8,000. I never saw it. It was a piece of land in Northern Arizona. I repackaged it all up and resold it on the same venue and eBay 30 days later for 2 or 3 times what I paid for it because I presented it differently. That was it. From that, I don’t remember the exact moment. This is having that light bulb moment. All I have to do is spend my entire life buying, locating land that’s undervalued, and repackaging it, or putting it through a different scenario on the south side.

I did it all wrong. I was a W-2 person working hard for somebody else. All I was doing was helping get planes off the ground on time and seats filled. That’s it. I was watching and seeing those other people in real estate get rich all the while. I didn’t have that G part. I didn’t have any of the parts until you came along.

Jill, you were that person who needed that equity class in high school. You’re a total math person. I know you.

I would’ve jumped in. It wasn’t offered.

Jill is an airplane pilot. She’s technical when it comes to a lot of this stuff. That would’ve sunk you. In high school, how about the classes called How to Get Rich?

I wouldn’t have gone to that class. Back then, I wasn’t into it. It’s dumb.

I would’ve been the teaching assistant in that class.

Do you know what class I would’ve gone to? How to pass high school and only put in 5% of the effort? That’s the class I would’ve gone to because I was more interested in going out, having fun, and being on the beach. Things change.

Learning about World War II is not that useful in life. It’s interesting for me. I didn’t care about it when I was nineteen. The whole thing in high school needs to change.

It’s not setting up for life sometimes. It’s almost like that stuff should have been done in middle school. There’s college. I like to think college sets you up for life. We should take it back a step. Let’s stop some of this minutia in middle school and give four years of life skills. That would be my high school.

I’m not sure that you need to study Shakespeare at all.

It’s at seventeen.

I used to think otherwise. I used to think that’s what being educated is. You can quote things, and you’re aware of it, but you don’t need to know anything more about Shakespeare except that the guy wrote a bunch of stuff, and he’s English. You can take that how you want. He’s got a lot of stories that people replicate even now in the movies.

Thank you.

Next chapter.

Move on.

It was bad. Next chapter. Here’s what you need to know about getting married. You should have a class on marriage. This is what it means when you get married legally.

Analyzing A Land Acquisition Deal

Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Would you do this deal? It’s in Richmond County, North Carolina. The accepted offer price is $220,000. We could sell it for $600,000. Neighbor Scoop/Parcel Fest. It says 80 acres, but it’s 65. I see the front road. There’s access there. That could be a highway. The parcel in the center needs to be addressed. Would it be assumed it would be included? The seller happens to be a real estate agent, but it’s not on the market. Not sure if it’s a red flag. Not necessarily. Sometimes, I’ve talked to agents. They collect property for whatever reason. You know what my initial thought is. Did you take the flood? Didn’t I miss it?

There’s no flood issue. This was deforested.

I’m okay with this.

I like it.

Who owns the property in the middle?

This is deforestation.

When’s it dated? That was 2018.

I wonder what it looks like now.

We’ll know as soon as Sam gets a photographer out there. I don’t like that. Subdivide owner financing. That’s been up for years.

I loved the deal until we got to this.

I love everything about it. I like it. I want to know what the price is. Even real estate agents sell properties for weird reasons at different prices because they have to get them off their books.

$1.2 million sold for how many acres?

Can you go from $50,000 to $100,000?

It’s $1.17 million for 131.

There are 50 for $210,000, but they had a price cut.

A price cut of $385,000. There’s something going on with this deal.

I have looked at a handful of deal funding deals for areas that I wouldn’t be playing in because the days on the market are high. It was a simple little, “I didn’t know how to do it,” or it skipped the red, yellow, and green test. The red, yellow, and green test would’ve smoked that out.

If this is commercial property, this is a good sign. I wouldn’t kick this to the curb at all. Whatever you find out, you can go back to the person or the seller and say, “This is what I found out. This is what the property is worth. You probably already know that because you have been trying to sell it for several years.”

They know what it’s worth. When I talk to them, my bottom line is, “This is all I’m willing to pay.” It’s a different conversation. I’m like, “I don’t care what you think it’s worth. None of that matters to me, how long you had it, this and that. I’m prepared to give you X. If it works, it’s great. If it doesn’t, I wish you all the best.” You are always in the driver’s seat.

She was not like this when we first started doing this. She was like, “We have to make these deals work every single one of them.” Now, she got her little finger stuck up to everybody. Unless it’s like that situation Before this one with that infill lot, that $16,000 has to be that deal, or we are not going to do it. You have to find out if this is that deal. We don’t have enough information to know if this is a good price or not. The agents will tell you.

I am excited to share that not only is it my birthday, but, importantly, there is an amazing special going on. If you are thinking of joining Land Academy, I have two announcements. One is to go to LandAcademy.com and check out the special wave going on. That’s number one. If you saw me live on July 3rd, 2023, you know about the details, but it’s also on the website. You could also go to Facebook and YouTube.

My second announcement is Career Path is officially open to the public. As always, our members get first dibs. They’ve had a month to lock in their spots for Career Path numbers 7 and 8, which are coming up this fall of 2023. What’s Career Path? It’s an eight-week program. It’s the highest level of coaching taught directly by Jack and me. It is personalized. It is intense. It’s designed for those of you who want to make this your career. Check that out on LandAcademy.com. If you go into programs, you’ll find more information, dates, schedules, all that good stuff, how to apply, and how to schedule a call to get your questions answered.

Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. If you want to sneak peek at that, go to LandAcademy.com.

Jack wrote, “I have a seller that wants to sell two acres. We offered him $5,000, but the alive is the issue. We have six As. One of them is alive. Is the person alive and able to sell? We’re about to figure out what’s going on here. The property was in his grandfather’s, who is now deceased. The property is willed to his mother and his sister. His mother, father, and mother’s sister all passed away several years ago.” He does have some estranged cousins from his mother’s sister, who doesn’t even know where they live. He’s been paying the taxes on the property for the last several years. I assume the fact that he has cousins can make the transfer problematic. Is there any advice I can offer to help or tell him to call if he figures it out?” Call me when you have something to sell. I’ve done that.

What you need to know is this, Jack. Get your hands on that deed. The most recent deed is called the vesting deed. If it’s JTROS, which is joint tenants with rights of survivorship, and there’s anything on there, that would be mom, what that means is whoever’s on that deed, say there are 4, 3, 2, or 1 people, but usually two or more.

There are two or more people or entities listed on a joint tenant’s deed. If it’s joint tenants with rights of survivorship and anybody else passes on, it’s automatically transferred into the surviving person or entity’s possession name, whatever you want to call it. Normally, the counties will require you to show proof that that person passed on, like an original death certificate, no questions asked. That would do at the time of transfer. Nothing needs to happen before then.

Anything other than that, you could have problems. There are errors and this and that. There are all kinds of things that could happen, like tenants in common. That scares the poop out of me. That does mean it’s going to be aired until everybody airs down to the surviving members. Did I cover the comments? That’s what that means. Get your hands on that and figure it out.

The last thing is I won’t kick it to the curb. If it’s a great deal, it’s easy for you to pick up the phone. If you’re not sure about these situations and you think there’s still something there, call a local attorney. Better yet, if there was an attorney who handled Grandpa’s estate and the guy still has that information. I would call that person to say, “Did you know about this property? What do you think? Is there a possible you can get this done?”

If you don’t have that, a local attorney where the property is, see if they can get it done and find out what, and they’ll tell you. It could be a five-minute conversation, and they’ll say, “Yeah, it can be done, or it can’t be done. Here’s what’s involved. Here’s how long it will take. Here’s what it will cost.” You make a decision.

If you buy and sell land a lot, you have stories about this topic. If you’re getting into it, please don’t blow this off because it’s going to happen. It’s going to be part of your life. This is important. It happens all the time. It’s not infrequently. The first thing you do that I do in these situations is look at the value. They’re going to buy it for $5,000. Is it worth $50,000? Is it worth $500,000?

If it’s worth $500,000, all those trickling errors that may be out there might have some interest in it. If you’re going to make $20,000, they don’t care, especially if they’re going to divide by fourteen. It has to be dramatically worth your time from a number standpoint. There’s also something to retain this, no matter who you are. This business with wills doesn’t apply to real estate. I know it doesn’t make any sense.

People think it’s automatic.

Wills are huge. They’re incredibly relevant for personal property.

It’s like a grandma’s ring or a watch.

These are things you don’t record at the county. In real estate, everybody wants to know whose name it is because you don’t want to break the chain of the title. If you put real estate as part of your estate planning into a trust, there’s no chain break. Everybody knows what’s happening. It’s all spelled out in the trust. If Grandpa says, “I own this property over here. I will it to my daughter or my granddaughter.” That’s not going to convey at the time of death. There’s a bunch of stuff you have to go through from an estate standpoint. If it doesn’t happen, it’s a several-year mess.

Wills don't automatically transfer real estate. Always put property in a trust to avoid breaking the chain of title. Share on X

You brought up something good. What if it’s not JTROS, but it’s in the name of a trust? That’s going to help you right there. You have to get your hands on that vesting deed, and that’s easy. If they don’t have it and lose it, and it’s in somebody’s safe, and nobody knows where it is, get with the county. You may have access to it already. With our tools, DataTree and TitlePro, there’s a good chance you already have. You can get it yourself. If not, you can call the county and get a copy of it.

You brought up something funny. Remember that graph? There’s this graph, and there’s that graph. Here’s what you need to happen with these properties. You need to have the money of the property worth your time to untangle the mess, but not too expensive that all the family members want a piece of it. It says, “It’s a buy for $5,000, sell for $100,000.” That’s like, “I’ll untangle this mess, but all the members might want to get involved in it. This is funny. Thank you.

Why Land Academy Has Stood The Test Of Time

The second topic is called Why Land Academy Has Stood The Test of Time. Why do you think? Jill and I have been doing this for a lot of years. You could see all this gray hair. It didn’t happen by accident.

I didn’t do it.

We were talking earlier about equity and finding a community. You need to find the right community, where the people who are involved in the community and the leaders of the community in general sing to you. In your eyes, they have some long-term credibility. They’re putting their money where their mouth is. Not within the land business, flipping real estate business, or doing whatever you choose to do to create equity for yourself. Please choose something. Please choose some equity to create for yourself and some community that sits well with you to create some equity, and choose them carefully.

It’s not to insult you, Jack, in any way. Here are my thoughts on why we are and are still here. Number one, we’re going on nine years number in 2023. That’s Land Academy, not as investors. I sat and did the math. You’re over 25 years in this business in 2023 because it was in the ‘90s. I’m going to go with 25-plus years of being your own boss as a full-time investor. What the heck does that say?

It’s not like I left my corporate job a year ago, and I’m like, “I got this. I can show you.” You have been doing it for 25 years. I have over ten with you full-time in our whole gig. It’s way before Land Academy. That’s my point here on why Land Academy is still here and what’s going on. I’m an investor first. I’m doing deals right now with you. I’m making mistakes. I almost made a big one that I’ll share when it all gets resolved. I almost made a $121,000 mistake. It could be okay. I’m waiting for it all to work itself out.

We’re here because this is my business, and it’ll never change. We have weathered multiple financial ups and downs. It’s not our own, personally. It’s like market-driven stuff. We know how to recover from this stuff. This is Jack’s number one job. His job is to be out in front of it all, ahead of everything on what’s coming with market changes, technology changes, how we find these properties, find these sellers, and get these offers out.

I’m right behind him, making sure that we know how to communicate with these sellers, get the deals done, and buy and sell them right. I’m working with those people. All of that goes on after that part. That’s how we stood the test of time. We’re not educators first. We can improve on that. We do the best we can. We provide such good support. I know that because you tell us that, and we tweak it all the time based on what you tell us, but we are number one investors first. We will not fail. We do everything we can to make sure you don’t fail.

Buying and selling land has been around since this country. It’s been popular with the railroads moving out West in the middle to late 1800s. There was no internet back then. There was barely a Pony Express post office. People had been successfully buying and selling land. When I started this in their early ‘90s, there was no access to the internet at all. It got started. It became a thing. There was no application to do this.

Manipulating data and analyzing data has been around since there’s been data. The internet is prevalent now. It’s how you do things. It’s how everybody does things. We’ve done that way before the internet. We will do it way after that. Whatever tools are available to us, we’re going to utilize them. Ask yourself, “Who’s older than the internet in this space or in any space for however you want to create equity for yourself?” You have something there. It’s standing the test of time. There are all kinds of changes that will happen with technology, and we will change with them. We will still be buying and selling land successfully through that.

Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Cook County, Texas, 6.79 acres, $100,000 is the offer price. The proposed sale is $150,000. It’s an hour and a half from Dallas, which is great. It sits on a hill. It’s a great spot for a house. My five-second reaction is positive here. We can value these houses. We’re going to get the value.

Let’s do it right now. Cut to the chase and see if we can get a value for these houses. The best value has nothing to do with what we do on the same block. Two twenty-five is an estimate on a house two doors down. This property is $100,000. This is way overpriced, in my opinion. Let’s confirm that. The house in the immediate area is 225 for larger acreage. It’s overpriced, but we’ll see.

Buy for $100,000, sell for $150,000. I’m okay with that. I’m going to make $50,000. That’s fine. We were talking about days on the market. Did you guys cover that? You know what we’re looking at now. You know it’s going to sell because everything in there is selling, and you can see it.

It’s five acres for $220,000. A hundred days on market. Two hundred fifty days on the market. Five for $200,000. That’s the bottom. Five acres is $200,000. This is six acres for $100,000.

That’s bad. That’s the dead I don’t like.

This is all good news so far.

This makes me feel good that they got close. Look at their creative pricing on the sales side. We don’t often think about that, but let’s get creative. When you post it for sale, you do it when you buy it. $156,400 is what they came in with. Several weeks later, they had it pending and sold it. I’m going to think it was that person. It was over the holidays because they never re-listed it at that point.

It’s higher than I’d like it to be. I want the press to be around $60,000 or $70,000. You will have the cheapest six-acre property on the MLS.

You sell it for $140,000. You’re still making a nice chunk of change. As long as it goes like this, if you find some other, they’re still moving our houses. There’s something about this area that I don’t worry about. There are many possible buyers that make it wonderful. I’m trying to get her for $80,000. I’d feel better because I want more money in your pocket.

Jill, do you have something inspirational to share?

The Land Obsession Level

Let me put this out there as a question, and I’ll tell you where I’m going here. What I want to talk about for a few minutes is your land obsession level. Is that okay? Here’s why. It has come to my attention that we had a discussion. This is how it goes. Every morning before we record the show, we sit down and come up with our topics together. We take everything that we had going on this week. We look in Siscord and see what’s going on in our community. This is a hot topic. We need to talk about this. I had this little image. I said, “Do you think I’m obsessed with land?” His answer was, “Yes.” I’m like, “We need to talk about that because I’m sure I’m not alone.” First, I apologize.

I think it’s funny.

I am obsessed.

It’s less work that I have to do.

If you have been reading our blog post for a while, you’ve read me being a deal junkie, which I am. I’m a total deal junkie. I can’t stop it. I could turn things off. You’re better at turning things on and off, shockingly, than I am. I suck at toning down my love for buying and selling land. I don’t know why. I don’t know how I have the energy to keep doing it. I am sure many people are sick of me talking about this topic, but it’s who I am. It’s in my blood.

I used to drive around with you as a passenger. This is our rule. Whoever is the passenger has to do the phone stuff, not the driver. You would say, “What are the values around here?” Have the tables turned. On the long-haul drives, Jack is our driver. In the round town and the little nitty gritty things, I am the driver. I am driving you nuts when I say, “How much did the house sell for? How much did that suck? What’s that listed for?

No, it’s in my soul.

I do have an obsession with it. My point is if you have the same condition that I do, know it and acknowledge it. That’s the first step to recovery. Apologize to your family. I’m lucky. Could you imagine if he wasn’t into this at all? This would be hard. Some of you have spouses and partners who are not into this at all. You’re like, “What do you hear what I bought?” They’re like, Here we go again.” Take a temperature check. Make sure that they’re on the same page. If you’re obsessed, ask them if they think you’re obsessed. Tone it down, set some rules, or give them a break. We have to take breaks. There are times that he doesn’t want me to talk about stuff. That’s my point.

When you’re doing something that you don’t need to do, it’s not for your family, the betterment of yourself, food, shelter, or water. All those things have been taken care of by money. Jill, do you know how much money we’ve made by buying and selling land in 2023?

No, I have to look it up.

Neither do I.

It’s in a spreadsheet.

Why are you doing another deal?

It’s because I can’t stop.

She’s obsessed. When you are doing things that you don’t need to do, and you’re not doing it for money, you’re doing it because you’re on autopilot, and that’s what you do, you have to ask yourself some questions, “Do I need this, this last drink, which will end up being not the last drink tonight, but maybe the third from last drink?”

I’m going to argue. Mine is a healthier habit.

I’m talking to myself. That might be an obsession or some type of unhealthy thing going on there. There are a lot of other things that you can apply to this. Apply a number from 1 to 10 to show how obsessed you are with land. What do you think? I can tell you what my number is.

Is your number for you or your number for me?

No, I’m not going to give you a number. I want you to give yourself a number, and I’ll give myself a number.

My number on a 1 to 10 of my obsession level with land is probably an eight.

I’m a four, but I used to be an eight.

I understand.

I was an eight forever long before we joined forces. Maybe a nine. I had to do it. A lot of it was to get to that equity point that I thought we should all get at. I get to, and I’ve stepped off a little bit, and she hasn’t. I started earlier.

I have two reasons why I’m into it now, and I will stop at this topic. One is I love it. This gets me high every day. I’m happy doing land deals. I love looking at land deals. This is fun for me. Number two, more than 60% of the deals that I’m doing are other people’s deals. I’m helping them by funding their deals. That’s another reason why I love it. I am helping them by being the bank. They won’t need my help anymore.

That’s not about you. That’s fantastic. That’s healthy.

Thank you very much. Jack, do you have something you want to share?

RV Types And Land Investors: A Comparison

We are coming in on a month here, being on the road in the RV for 4 or 5 months this entire summer to get out of Phoenix because it’s hot. I’m noticing that there are five types of RVs out there. I started to think about it. How I would relate that to land investors are general business people. Number one, you got your tent people. They’re in a minivan. They’re with children on the weekend because everybody is working full time. The kids are out of school. It’s a popular thing. Everybody’s got a smile on their face. Nobody took a shower. All are having a blast. It’s healthy. There’s no goal to ever get an RV. They’re in a tent, and they’re having fun. It’s awesome.

Number two, overlanders. They overequipped. They have a beard. Thirty-something guys. Maybe early 40s. There are women involved. They are particular about the type of coffee they drink, and they love craft beer. Here’s the thing about overlanders. If you’re in an RV park like us and you come across an overlander, they’re posers because they’re supposed to be overlanding.

They bought all this equipment. They’re supposed to be out in the middle of nowhere, being by themselves, enjoying nature, and doing whatever they do. If you come across an overlander, they’re a poser. I hope you get the idea because there are a lot of posers in business. They are overequipped posers. You see them selling sunset or selling whatever those shows are. They are selling Orange County.

Selling sunset is a show.

Those types of people are real estate agents. They don’t know anything, and they’re getting in the way like overlanders.

They are the wrong overlanders. The real overlanders. You never see. That’s

Number three, you got your Class C people. I know this from personal experience because Jill and I in 2022 were classy people. They’re younger in their 50s. They have more time on their hand. Some of them can work remotely. They have their own companies and they’re deciding if they like RVing or not. They’re buying a relatively inexpensive RV, or they’re renting one. They’re usually couples. They’re going through marital hell because one person wants to be there, and one person doesn’t, and one person always does all the talking, and the other person stands there.

There’s no room in there. There’s nowhere to hide.

The attrition rate in a class C RV is high. You won’t see them in 2024. You have my personal favorite, the travel trailer. There’s a guy involved. He’s maybe in his 40s and early 50s. He has children, and his wife is all into it. They were travel-trailer people when they were kids. They can fix anything.

They’re hauling all kinds of toys.

They have 800 square feet. They have a garage in the back. The kids all have helmets. No one is taking a shower in days, and they don’t care. They cook their food out on a fire. I’ve never seen travel trailer people dug in like that, who aren’t amazingly fun, and people you want to hang out with. Finally, you got your class a people, which is us. These classes don’t mean socioeconomic status. It’s this freaking size of the rig. The Class A people are a lot older than us. They’re interested in taking a shower every single day, eating good food, and having high-end cocktails. They can be annoying as hell. They can be uppity looking down at your nose and the whole thing.

If you apply those five types of personalities and those RV people to investors or people in business, you can start to think about who you want to hang out with. The Class A real estate investors don’t have time for you. I’ve achieved all of this. I’m amazing, and you are not. Go away. The Class C people are like, “I’ve done a bunch of stuff, but I’m not sure if I want to go to the next level.”

The travel trailer people are who you want. They’re the people who own the HVAC companies. They have a jet if you have never known it. They don’t care to even talk about it. You want to hang out with them. The ten people are the W-2 employees. They’re probably not going to ever own anything, but they’re happy. That leaves your overlanders.

In business, be like the travel trailer people – knowledgeable, capable, and fun to be around. That's who you want to hang out with. Share on X

Don’t judge a book by its cover because what we roll around in and who we are are two different things.

Judge a book by its cover. You’re usually right. Not all the time.

Nevermind. You are hilarious.

Stay away from the posers and the overlanders.

Don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and help simply by texting 480-530-7383.

Join us in the next episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.

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