Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.

Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is The Land Academy Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode 1,981. And today, we are talking about first, our year-end checklist for our land business, and then a little bit later in the show, the biggest challenges we think we’re going to face in 2024.

Jill K DeWit:
I just realized, we were talking this morning and I put notes on my phone and screenshots of some things. Should I have those with me now? Because I don’t.

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Just sit there and look pretty.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, good. I made notes. You’re like, “You’ve got to bring this up.” I’m like, “Oh, sure.” Now I totally forgot. Anyway, we’re all good.

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 took a deep dive into two land related topics by popular request.

Jill K DeWit:
By the way too, if you want to know more about Land Academy, please just drop my team a note at support@landacademy.com, or if you go on our website, go to landacademy.com, there’s a place right on there you could schedule a call with Christopher, and he will fill you in.

Steven Jack Butala:
[inaudible 00:01:11].

Jill K DeWit:
All right, so here’s the question. Stacey wrote, “What is the most recent adjustment you guys have made in your land business to the new real estate market we are in?” Love it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Very interesting question. You know what the point is here, I love this question. We’re constantly making adjustments. I think that there’s a sentiment maybe that’s not just with the land business, but anything in life, where there’s this huge learning curve, then there’s this period of reward, and then it’s like you can pat yourself on the back and you’ve made it. I’ve never experienced that third phase.

Jill K DeWit:
[inaudible 00:01:56]. You are always in the third phase, you just don’t even know it. That’s hilarious, really, seriously. What are you running around doing crazy right now, not a lot of anything? Packing for a trip, planning some over land adventures. What else you got?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all true.

Jill K DeWit:
See. You don’t even know you’re in the third phase and you’ve been there for quite some time, sir.

Steven Jack Butala:
Spent a bunch of time on the podcast today.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, that’s good. You worked today. We’ll call that done.

Steven Jack Butala:
This ties into what we’re going to talk about today, what we’re actually working on for year-end stuff, year-end checklists and all of it.

Jill K DeWit:
What’s funny is I’m in other Facebook groups and I’ve seen this theme in other not even land groups, but other, let’s just say general real estate investor groups that I’m in. And people are … It’s funny, I’m watching them pivot to things we’ve been doing the whole time. And one of them was someone pivoting from house flipping to not doing the remodel. I’m like, “Hello? We stopped doing that years ago.” And they’re just catching up. And the comment was something along the lines of, “I don’t suck at buying them,” kind of thing, “But now, I’m just reselling them to somebody else because I’m not hitting my numbers. The margins aren’t there for me right now.” If I buy a house, in the old day, the person would pull the dumpster up front and do the whole remodel and flip it.

Steven Jack Butala:
That was four months ago.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. Right? And they’re like, “Now, I’ve got this inventory and the numbers aren’t working out for me.” That was the whole discussion. The numbers aren’t panning out. If I go do this home remodel and I hold it for this many months, and I’m paying these fees, and oh heaven forbid. What if it doesn’t sell fast enough? They’re like, “I’m just selling and moving on right now.” I’m like, “That’s a huge pivot for those people.”

Steven Jack Butala:
What Stacey’s referring to here in this question is the same thing I think Jill is getting to. There’s components. So what’s changed? I mean, she says, “This new real estate market we’re in.” The new real estate market that we’re in is one of interest rates. So for years and years and years, we’ve enjoyed virtually no real material interest rates, which is not the norm. And so if you’re a super young person, you might think incorrectly so, because it’s all you’ve ever been exposed to.

Jill K DeWit:
It should be 3%.

Steven Jack Butala:
What is this interest rate thing? Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
When you have to pay to borrow money.

Steven Jack Butala:
The fact is, we are in what I think after doing this for 30 years or so, the norm. We’re in a normal situation where CD rates are 5%, mortgage rates are 8%. It costs money to borrow money. And so in a purest accounting form, I’ll try not to make this boring, when you go loan money, you are charged an interest rate. If you borrow $100,000 and your interest rate’s 8%, you’re going to pay $8,000 a year in interest, in the simplest form. And that is a tax, that’s an actual expense. And so in your payment for that $100,000, you have interest and principle. Principle’s the actual $100,000 that you’re paying back over the life of the loan. And the interest is of course the interest, what I just said.
And principle, it’s not an expense. You’re just paying it back. Interest is, what it does is seriously mess with your cashflow. The higher the interest rate is, the more you are being put to the test to make whatever you’re borrowing this money, put it to work. In our case, it’s real estate.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s one thing when it’s your primary residence. Well, first of all, no one’s really borrowing $100,000. They’re really borrowing $500,000. This is getting expensive.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m trying to make this easy.

Jill K DeWit:
But why? We’re smart here. You don’t need to. So I am too.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s how quick it was for Jill to get bored.

Jill K DeWit:
No.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because I wasn’t even close to-

Jill K DeWit:
I want real numbers.

Steven Jack Butala:
Actually really make my point.

Jill K DeWit:
I want some real numbers, sir. That’s my thing. I’ll get my little point out of the way and you can go back to yours and we can spend all day on it if you want.

Steven Jack Butala:
A $500,000 loan is going to cost you $40,000 a year.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. So if this is my primary residence or whatever it is, maybe I can wrap my head around this. Right? Maybe because I’m going to live here forever, I’m going to die here. Some people are like that. I’m buying it. This is it. This is where we’re going to be, raising our family, doing it one time, and that’s just the cost of it. Okay, but for people who are in the business and you’re doing house flips and things like that, where it gets expensive really fast, think about 8% times $500,000, and you’ve got three or four of them going at a time because you’re smart.

Steven Jack Butala:
I would choose quality of life over money. I mean, money over quality of live. Jill’s like, “Maybe I can justify.” Yeah, I’m not going to justify that. I can live in a hole for free.

Jill K DeWit:
He always picks money first. Thank God I’m a cost center. I’m not a cost center. I’m a revenue center. I’m a profit center, excuse me. I said that wrong. I’m not the cost center. [inaudible 00:07:17].

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re supposed to describe yourself as a profit center. I think you’re supposed to let other people do it.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to do it today.

Steven Jack Butala:
So the good news is we’re all in this equally together. I’m not achieving some better interest rate than you are. I’m subject to the quality of my transaction and that’s my real point here. She’s asking, “What are the adjustments that you’re making in your land business to respond to this new market you’re in?” Number one, and this didn’t happen by accident, we are not subject to interest rates in the land investment business, none of us. We buy for cash and sell for cash. There’s a possibility that there’s certain subtypes of land that might be subject to interest payments. Let me go sell it. But it’s doubtful. I’m trying to think if we did any deals this year where our buyers-

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I’ve had buyers finance them.

Steven Jack Butala:
This year?

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm, but not a lot, very few. Totally have buyers financing. I’ve got one right now. And you know what though, I don’t care. They’re building on it. They’re going to love on it. That’s their thing. But it’s not that many, and again, it’s on the sell side, so it doesn’t apply to me.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. This is what Jill earlier alluded to. If you are in the cog of hard money financing because you’re redoing a house, you’re not a good position. You do not want to be in a situation where you are borrowing money, especially on a monthly basis, geez, and it’s taking you a few more months to sell the property because the market that we’re in, or possibly got stuck between real low interest rates and now what I think are normal interest rates, and you’re paying interest on that. It’s going to eat into your profit in a real serious way.
And so how are we adjusting? We are expanding our land funding business pretty dramatically, and as are many people in our group. That’s one of the huge … We don’t talk about it that much, but funding deals is a huge difference between Land Academy and all the other schmos out there that think that they know how to buy and sell land and teach it, I should say, huge difference. The level of sophistication and the amount of money that is in this group that’s available to do your deals to make sure you are not subject to this interest rate situation, it impresses me even.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree.

Steven Jack Butala:
So constant adjustment, that’s what we’re doing to answer your question. We are constantly adjusting to the new market. And then if you’re now going to buy houses, let’s say rural houses because how fantastic the internet coverage is in this country, and because there’s a lot of work from home more than ever that seems like it’s never going to go away, and you’re paying cash, you’re putting yourself into a major competitive situation. You know what it is?

Jill K DeWit:
What?

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what it is about you, I was thinking about this, this morning.

Jill K DeWit:
Uh oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
Before we move onto the topic, because Jill and I were talking about … We were just listing topics to talk about today because we’re recording more than one episode, and you gravitate toward the positivity. I don’t mean in a silly say. But no matter what’s going to happen in the market, you’re going to make it work for you.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I’ll figure it out.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.

Jill K DeWit:
I’ll come up with something.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s not that usual to run into people like that.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m saying this because I would, you, listener, I really believe that. If you’re going to make some changes in 2024, no matter what the environment is, I don’t care what environment you’re in from a real estate economy standpoint, you can make it work. You can’t do the same old thing and expect it to work, you have to adjust to whatever’s happening out there, but you can make it work. High interest rates are a massive asset for us because we’re not subject to it.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re flipping houses, it’s really bad. It’s going to break. At some point, it will break a marginal deal. Today’s topic, today’s first topic, our year-end checklist for our land business. Here’s some stuff I jotted down. What’s the first thing that I do? This is December, so we have 30 days. What’s my taxable income? And what can I change between now and the end of the year to reduce that? Everybody usually gets new computers in December.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
And stuff like that. How did we do this year? I literally take my December 1st cash balance in our operational account and look at it against our … I’m sorry, January 1st, 2023 and look at it against December 1st. I just did it. And we’re millions of dollars in the black, and so that tells you-

Jill K DeWit:
Uh oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
Exactly, exactly.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t like that.

Steven Jack Butala:
So my first gut reaction is great.

Jill K DeWit:
Get rid of it.

Steven Jack Butala:
We did what we were supposed to do. We’ve got to address … The fact is, I do this all year anyway.

Jill K DeWit:
I know.

Steven Jack Butala:
What I don’t look at is how my mailers did yield wise, I just look at the cash. The money that we spend on mailers come out of that same bank account, as does everything, our salaries, our people’s salaries, all of it. So if it’s black and it’s-

Jill K DeWit:
Did you ever care about your mailer yield?

Steven Jack Butala:
Not after the first five deals, no.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that’s what happens.

Steven Jack Butala:
Cost of data, all that stuff’s in there, and if we’re generating a bunch of money, I’m good.

Jill K DeWit:
When you sit back, the point I think Jack’s making here is when you sit back and go, “Oh, I made $100,000 this month, and 125 this month, and then 75 the next month, on everything,” you stop going, “Hm, how did that one mailer do?” And my data costs me four grand recently, big whoop. You don’t really care at that point.

Steven Jack Butala:
The land business in general on the internet, including our Discord channel, depending on what day you look at it and how much attention you give to each entry, is riddled with comments like this. I sent 2300 units out. I got 10 hate calls, three people called me back, and I have one property under contract. What the hell is this? I thought it was going to rain money on me. I thought I was going to push a few buttons and it would rain money. So mailer yield and checking those responses, look, if you are set up mentally to recklessly send out mail, you will win in this business. You will win. You might have to send 10,000 out on average to get a … A hot property, you might have to send 2,000, you might have the to send 25,000 out. The numbers still work. They’re staggering, staggeringly in our favor. But yet, that just never goes away for whatever reason.

Jill K DeWit:
I sound like a broken record, but it’s true. The folks that are killing it are heavy mailers. That’s it, they don’t care.

Steven Jack Butala:
I also mentally look at, this is just dollars wise, because Jill’s probably going to have some other stuff to say from a people standpoint, this is all money. All they look at is money. And so, look, I know what the best deals are and the worst deals are. The worst deals are the ones we still own. The best deals are the ones where, jeez, we owned that for 30 days and made a few hundred thousand dollars on it. So we have a few of those this year in a real good way. Which leads me, we have a bunch of property that’s still for sale. Why would property still be for sale?

Jill K DeWit:
Because they’re [inaudible 00:15:21] three and Jack won’t let me dump them.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s correct. So check your balance sheet, check your balance sheet for non cash items. I don’t mean the money that you’ve made. I mean the properties that maybe you fell in love with them, maybe you bought them and said, “You know what, I might own this for five years, and I’m selling it for retail.” We have a bunch of properties like that. The only reason that Jill and I have any properties that we still own is because I get in the way and say-

Jill K DeWit:
Yep. 100%.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m not about doing a deal on this. It’s not about the money anymore. It’s about, this is a great piece of property and we’re just going to wait for the right buyer to find it.

Jill K DeWit:
Or not, because I secretly hope I get to keep it. That’s what’s really going on. Don’t go look at your property.

Steven Jack Butala:
My final entry on my year-end checklist is I take Jill’s happiness temperature.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, hilarious. For real?

Steven Jack Butala:
December 5th, yeah. It’s December 5th? Is she happy? Is she overworked? Did we take enough freaking trips? Because that’s super high on Jill’s list. We’re going to Colorado for Christmas this year. And so yeah, it’s a huge factor.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
And I think actually, you’re pretty happy.

Jill K DeWit:
We usually go to Colorado for Christmas now. That’s kind of a theme. I like it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Are you happy?

Jill K DeWit:
I’m very happy. Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Good.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m a little overworked, but I’m very happy. Just kidding. Can I talk about my list?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yes, please.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So my list for year-end checklist, the reason I wanted to talk about this today was not really a year-end checklist money-wise, account-wise, balance wise.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m aware of that.

Jill K DeWit:
No, I know. I’m thinking about: What should I be thinking about at the end of the year? And it’s on my mind because people are asking. Do I take a trip? Do I shut down my land business at the end of the year? Heck no. My point, I have really one point to make, which is deals are still happening. You should still be sending out mail. You should still be buying property. You should still be selling property. Every year, there’s a home run for me at the end of the year. There’s always somebody that says, “Man, if you could get this done between now and the 31st, Jill, so I can cash out in 2023 and have this out of my life for my accounting purposes, you can have it for X,” fill in the blank. And it’s like, “Oh, we’ll get this done.” And I can and I do, so that’s my main thing. Don’t start thinking about closing up shop yet, or not answering your phone, or even not sending out mail because I’m going to argue you’re going to miss some great stuff. You could miss a whole month at the end of the year.
And you know what’s even better about it, it’s a get it bought home run. So it does two purposes, one, it gets some of the money out of my account, then I’m going to sell in 2024, makes them happy and solves a problem for that seller. There’s a lot of people. Who knows what they’re trying to qualify for next year? Who knows what their financial situation is? Maybe their mortgage is getting out of hand right now because you know what, pretty soon we’re going to be having more and more people where their 3%, which was an adjustable after X amount of time, oh, that’s coming. Those situations are going to start to reset and they’re going to get higher interest payments and higher house payments. And they’re not going to get rid of their house. That’s where they put their head at night. They’re going to get rid of some land and some other things that they don’t really need anymore. So I say have cash ready and really pay attention to your phone, the calls that come in between now and the end of the year. That’s what we do.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, don’t stop. I wouldn’t. We never stop, not even for … We just don’t stop. I think that’s a good personality trait to have. Think about this and we’ll move on here in a second. How much control do we have? How much control do we have over the financial position that we’re in?

Jill K DeWit:
A lot.

Steven Jack Butala:
We have a ton of control.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
We decide what we buy, what we sell, for how much, both of those things. Nobody’s putting a gun to our head and saying we have to do 10 acquisitions.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what, and with your red, yellow, green test, and I know the days I’m marketing areas, I kind of know when it’s going to sell. And I can even follow the trends, and I know in different months or different times of year, how quickly things are going to move.

Steven Jack Butala:
Think about, I don’t know about you, listener, but I know where I’ve been career-wise in my career and I have not been in a situation very many times where I have almost complete control of my financial security. And it’s the nature of this business. Again, it’s not … This isn’t by accident. I don’t buy bad land deals. Neither does Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Nope.

Steven Jack Butala:
And we don’t sell them for prices that we don’t want to sell them for.

Jill K DeWit:
Correct.

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what I control, where I send mail. And I have, there’s a slight risk in, I don’t know exactly how many properties they’re going to buy in this mailer. One would be good. That’s what I kind of really expect, one unit per mailer. Total control. If you are a surgeon, you’re doing a bunch of stuff today you do not want to do. If you’re a pipe fitter, same thing. If you’re a grocery store owner, same thing. We just have huge control in this business. You can do this from anywhere.
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Hey, it’s the end of the year. Offers 2 Owners is busier than ever in December.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then in January. December and January are huge, huge months because everybody’s-

Jill K DeWit:
Getting mail out.

Steven Jack Butala:
They’re expensing things too. They’re pre-paying for mailers and they’re getting them out.

Jill K DeWit:
And they’re motivated. This is it.

Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s like they’re setting themselves up for 2024, so check it out, offers2owners.com. Jill and I 100% own. It’s the result of us being frustrated with other commercial mailing companies, so we started our own.

Jill K DeWit:
Correct.

Steven Jack Butala:
Go get your mailer out.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what I was going to say too about mail right now, you want to buy stuff in the colder … If you’re going to do some beautiful summertime, fill in the blank, Rockies, any state that has the Rocky Mountains in it, properties, you want to buy them when they’re buried in snow, and then sell them for a great price in May.

Steven Jack Butala:
Seasonality is real. Jill’s right.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s another reason there’s a lot of mail happening right now, so that’s really good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on our Land Academy Discord online community.

Jill K DeWit:
Ed wrote, “Has anyone had any success with properties with no physical access? Have you been successful getting access? And was it worth the hassle? How about success selling it to a neighbor? I’m getting quite a few, and I hate to see them go to waste, but don’t want to waste my time either.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Access, access, access. We have the eight As now, the due diligence short list of phase on due diligence is eight As. I’ll let you go. You can just look them up.

Jill K DeWit:
Look those up later.

Steven Jack Butala:
First one is access. Can we get to it? This has been and will be forever an issue. Has anyone had success with properties with no physical access? Hell yes. Jill just solved one just now. We’re just about closed on it on the south side. Have we been stuck with properties that have no access? No. Here’s why. We buy them. We still buy access-less properties for next to nothing. Access can be a great friend of yours, and lack of access. Very often on the Thursday calls, somebody will present a: Would you do this deal? We’ll look at it. It’s buy for 30, sell for 60, and it doesn’t have any access at all, physical or legal. What our answer is nine times out of 10, don’t kill a deal, but just offer them five grand.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s always depends. Depends on the property. What else is going on? Is that the last thing? Is it possible? Do you have physical and not legal? There’s all kinds of variables to it, so I hate to … I can’t give you one straight answer, Ed. If you’re brand new and you’re worried about it, and you’re really not sure, move on. Save it, push it aside. Get to it later when you have some stuff figured out. I don’t want you to spend all your time on this trying to solve something. I’d rather you work on the next phone call, or the next letter you open might have great access and they’re ready to go, so I would spend time on that. But you can solve this stuff. And you know what, Ed, you’re a member, so you know this group. I’m sure everybody’s already saying, “Okay. Where is it?” I’m just going to tell you right now, bring it up in the Thursday call because we’ll physically, as you know, we will physically look at it with you.
We’ll pull it up so we can all see it and talk about it and say, “Okay, here’s what I see for physical. Looks like it stops here.” And then you can say, “Yep. That’s what I found too.” And then we can say, “Have you got a plat map. Let’s look at that.” And we can work through it together with you. It’s hard to answer just … You can’t blank answer here, depends.

Steven Jack Butala:
People get physical and legal access to properties that have never had access all the time.

Jill K DeWit:
They sure can.

Steven Jack Butala:
The question is: What kind of business do you want to have? We are at a point in our career where we only do slam dunk land deals. That’s the truth.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. High dollar.

Steven Jack Butala:
When I was in the beginning of my career, it was exactly the opposite. I did every single deal that was $100 an acre or less. I never looked at it. I didn’t look at the property. That resulted in a lot of property that didn’t have any access, but it was so cheap. It was so cheap on the south side, my south side, people had to buy it. And so in every market, there’s somebody, usually an older person, retired guy, who knows how to get access to properties in the local market because they know the county, they know the cities. They know everybody who works there because he has years-

Jill K DeWit:
His brokers too.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, exactly.

Jill K DeWit:
They can.

Steven Jack Butala:
Years of experience finessing his way through these municipalities to get access to properties and finessing himself to neighboring … You’ve got to go through somebody else’s property to get to yours, and so if you can finesse yourself with those people, those land owners, you’re going to do great at this. You just have to decide this is a career. You have to decide what your career is.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what, I’ll tell you too, Ed, I personally don’t, but I want to know if it’s possible for my buyer. So a good broker’s going to be able to say, “You know what, Ed, I know that area. It’s going to cost about two grand. If you can get one of the neighbors to say okay, it’s going to cost about two grand for it to get all done, and take about six months,” kind of thing. They’ll know. And you’re going to go, “Okay, got it. That’s what I needed.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is, Jill and I are going to share the biggest challenges we think we’re going to face in 2024.

Jill K DeWit:
I already got one.

Steven Jack Butala:
Go ahead. I do too.

Jill K DeWit:
Spending money. You think I’m kidding?

Steven Jack Butala:
I know you’re not kidding.

Jill K DeWit:
No. That’s what’s happened. This is a common thing. It seems like every year in our world, and it’s not just us, it’s so many people in Land Academy, right around September, October, we deplete our inventory and we panic because we’ve sold everything. Seriously, summer months, things are beautiful. People are out, loving the land. They’re not buried in snow, so we all are running out of property. Right? So I’m like, “Doggone it.” So every year, I swear we do, we talk. We need to buy more. So coming into 2024, my biggest concern is: How much can I buy?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s exactly what I … This is number one on my list.

Jill K DeWit:
I want to spend flipping money. I want to load up on inventory. I don’t care if it’s mine, or yours, or ours, so that’s a whole thing too. Spending money on inventories, not just my personal, our personal inventory, but happy to deal fund like a crazy person, so that’s really what I want to do. That’s my biggest. What’s yours?

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, there’s … I mean, that was it. There are a few more. There’s offshoots of that. So how do you do that? Let’s deconstruct it for a second. How do you spend more money, place more equity, is what she’s talking about. And placing equity, it’s been going on on Wall Street and Palo Alto forever. Placing equity is the biggest problem that a rich person has, that private equity has. I have all this money. I don’t want to make 5% in a CD.

Jill K DeWit:
Correct.

Steven Jack Butala:
Which I don’t understand, because that’s typically what we do. I have all this cash, we’ve got to place it. You have a couple choices. You can, in our business, send a lot more mail out. You have control, is my point. They send more mail out and send it out better, learn how to price it better. Learn how to do the red, green, and yellow test even better than you did it in 2023. Number two, add product types. Rural houses are going to be the future. They’re affordable, if you work from home, especially if you work in the land business, geez, you should be in a rural market, not in an urban area. And so expand your product type and send more mail out. Those are two very, very controllable things, and that’s how you place more equity.

Jill K DeWit:
I love it. Trying to think of any other challenges I have in 2024. I’ve got new products I want to do.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s our land business, that’s correct.

Jill K DeWit:
I like challenge.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s going to launch landgals.com.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m working on that.

Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s an investment group, land investment group for women.

Jill K DeWit:
Won’t that be fun? Yep, yep. Yeah, I’m excited. I’m trying to think of the challenges though in 2024. I was thinking about this a lot as we were talking earlier. Do I have any staffing issues? Not in my land business. Can I process deals fast enough? Yep. Do I have the right people in place? Yep. Do I have good title companies and good brokers and everybody I work with? Yep. I don’t have any holes.

Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.

Jill K DeWit:
If you will, there, which is … Woo, not a lot of people can say that. When I was thinking about it, I’m like, “I got nothing.” I feel like if someone says, “How’s your day?” I don’t have anything to complain about. It’s great. Why? How’s your day? I don’t have to commute. I’m thinking about where we’re going to go next and what fun we’re going to do.

Steven Jack Butala:
Kids are out of the house.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, kids aren’t here. I already bought my own Christmas present to go under the tree and it’s phenomenal, by the way. You killed it this year.

Steven Jack Butala:
My God, December just started and you’re-

Jill K DeWit:
I’m done.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re done shopping for yourself.

Jill K DeWit:
Almost done. Yeah. I’ve got to get you a few more things, but that’s easy. I don’t know. Biggest challenges for … That’s just it. I was thinking about this too. How great is this feeling that you must have personally, Jack? Because let’s just take a step back, you started doing this in 1990 whatever, and I don’t mean to age you, but please tell me how … Were you 30?

Steven Jack Butala:
It was 1994, no.

Jill K DeWit:
29?

Steven Jack Butala:
In my 20s.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay, you were in your 20s. You were in your 20s when you figured this whole thing out, so you and I have been doing … I’ve been with you doing stuff-

Steven Jack Butala:
Early 20s.

Jill K DeWit:
For 15 years now, going on 15 years, so for 15 years, I have slept so well. I can say I’ve been my own boss in control of everything. I haven’t had a W-2, and I will never have a W-2 again. And I just don’t think about it. And here we are helping all these people. It’s so nice. We’re going on … 2014, so I mean technically, 10 years of Land Academy’s inception, even though nine years that we launched it.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s 10 years. Next year, it’s 10 years.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, we launched in 2015.

Steven Jack Butala:
Wow.

Jill K DeWit:
But we started it in 2014.

Steven Jack Butala:
Filming, and planning, and all of that, yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, 10 years.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s 10 years, Jill. Just say 10 years.

Jill K DeWit:
But, I mean, we’ve definitely been helping people for 10 years, that’s for sure. It wasn’t called Land Academy before that. So it’s just amazing. I was thinking about this because, oh, my gosh, how cool is this. There are some people in our world that are in their 20s and in their 30s, and they never have to think about this stuff anymore. Isn’t that the greatest?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
They’ve come alone and found us at that age and we’ve been able to coach them and help them and get them to this point where they’re like, “Life is set.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s turn this around for a second before we move on. If you’re brand new, well, because we were all new at this at one point, what would be the challenges that you would face next year?

Jill K DeWit:
If I was brand new.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, if you had four deals under your belt.

Jill K DeWit:
If I was brand new, it would just be how fast can I … It would be time. If I was brand new and I’m young, I’d have to make sure that I either didn’t have much on my calendar. Hopefully, not to pick on people, but if I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids, it would be a lot easier.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m saying pick on somebody.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m just saying, if you’re in that situation-

Steven Jack Butala:
Here, let me help. Don’t get married and don’t have any [inaudible 00:33:31].

Jill K DeWit:
Hold on a moment. Maybe you’re already there. Maybe you’re 35 and you’re like, “Well, that ship sailed. I have two little kids and I’m married. So what do I do?” All right, I clear my calendar of everything else. Maybe my only thing on my calendar is my family and my work. I am not thinking about this. I’m not thinking about that. I’m not doing this. I’m not doing that. My wife and I have had the conversation. Baby, I need to put my head down for five years. I know you want to go do this, I know you want to go do this, but stick with me. If we do this for five years and put our heads down, probably less.

Steven Jack Butala:
You know, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
What?

Steven Jack Butala:
We just had that conversation five years ago.

Jill K DeWit:
We did, and we did it.

Steven Jack Butala:
I know.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. And we did it.

Steven Jack Butala:
10 years ago.

Jill K DeWit:
Actually, it was more than … It was Land Academy years.

Steven Jack Butala:
Probably 12 years ago, yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
It was really Land Academy years. We put our heads down and said, “We’re going to really work hard,” not take trips we wanted to, and you guys have followed us and know. Come on. How many years of Land Academy, those of you who’ve been with us this whole time, we weren’t taking any trips? We were really head down, working hard, and working hard doing our own deals and helping you get ramped up. So my thing is, so you asked me: At that age, what would I do? And that would be it. I watched people a long time ago. I remember this person, I know I’ve said this story before that, I was in my 20s and he was saving up for a car. And this guy would only go out once a week and only spend so much money. He was a friend of ours. I’m like, “Greg. What’s up with Greg?” Greg’s kind of boring. Greg only goes where … Greg only has a couple beers. He’s really kind of not social. Why is his car so flipping important? Because Greg was saving up to pay cash for a car.
And you know what, a year later, Greg shows up in this nice car and it’s paid cash. And he’s hit that goal. I’m like, “I kind of get it.” I understand that now. That wasn’t kind of nuts. You know?

Steven Jack Butala:
In 2014, Jill and I had this exact conversation. What is our biggest challenge? And then, and I realize now, it always has been my biggest challenge, with the exception of now because we solved it, is raising private equity, raising capital. And our answer to raising acquisition capital was to start Land Academy so we can have a bunch of real estate partners to go do land deals. We didn’t have to go out and get mortgages or any of that stuff. And so whatever challenge you have, that’s a big … If you’ve thumbed through your pockets, and type in challenge, people have real issue with raising capital for good deals.

Jill K DeWit:
And I’m right here.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is us.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m right here.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is why we created Land Academy.

Jill K DeWit:
Feel like a broker marketer. I don’t go in there and say that. Hello. But it’s kind of funny. We’re right here.

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 share.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what, I do. I am really impressed. We have changed the way that we’re doing Land Academy now. Enrollment is closed. And I’m coming at it a different way. I’ve mentioned it a little bit before in other shows a couple weeks ago, where I really want to protect and make sure that the right people … Word’s out. People know about us. You know about us. And I don’t want Land Academy 5000. I want to keep it with this group that we’re all doing amazing deals. Right? So my point is, now enrollment is closed, I have a really good pre-screened group of individuals on our wait list. I’m pretty darn impressed.
So for those of you who are listening, who are on the wait list, sit tight. I’m going to have some openings coming soon. I really am. So I don’t know if it’s maybe not by the time this airs, but we’re going to start opening up the wait list. Because you know what happens at the end of the year, people, life gets in the way, and I understand that. There are times that people just, I wasn’t in the right mindset, and they laeve. But you know what’s funny, they come back, and I love that. And you know who you are too. Many, I have several Land Academy members that came at this, I got all excited and I know it’s right, and I know what you guys are doing. I didn’t mean to let you down. I didn’t mean to let me down. But I stopped and I’m coming back. And they do come back.
But anyway, my point is I do have some openings coming up and it’s good for you guys. So my motivational point is, think about what you want to do in 2024. If you want to be an investor, you could wake up tomorrow and be an investor. Reach out to my group. We’ll help you. I’ve got everything figured out, including the money. You just need to be motivated and serious.

Steven Jack Butala:
Everything’s a constant in Land Academy, is what she’s saying, with the exception of one thing, great real estate deals. Sometimes there’s tons of them, sometimes there’s only a few. That’s it.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, we’ll find them.

Steven Jack Butala:
Your job is to find a great real estate deal, not to worry about money. That’s it, one thing.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s good. What about you, Jack? What do you have to share about informational for us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
My advice to everyone, including myself, is to, whatever you’re going to do, do it with intent. These air on Wednesday. For next week, the week after this airs, you should intentionally fill your calendar with stuff that’s going to get you where you want to be financially. And then that goes for all of 2024. You can break down all the mailers that you think you should send out and divide by 12, divide by 52, 12 months, 52 weeks. Time’s the constant, and so 2024 can be the year that you smash it. Jill and I just wrapped up Career Path, which is the … Career Path Eight, I guess it was. And we had people in there that were making $6 million or $7 million a year, and more than happy with that. And so we talked about, “All right, what’s your calendar look like? How much more mail do you need to send out? What’s the single point of failure? Where do you improve?” So whatever you do, please do it with intent. Don’t let life happen to you. Go out there and punch it in the face.

Jill K DeWit:
I love that. Thank you very much. Don’t forget, you can reach us for questions and for help simply by reaching out to my team via support@landacademy.com. Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. Buy land cheap and sell it for more on the internet, a lot more. I’ll help you here. We’re Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill. Information.

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.