Transcript:

Jill DeWit:
I am Jill DeWit.

Samantha Lathus:
I’m Samantha Lathus.

Jill DeWit:
And this is the Land Academy Show. Today is episode number… I don’t know. Do you know?

Samantha Lathus:
I have no idea.

Jill DeWit:
Someone’s going to fill that in. Well, as you can see, this is a very special show today. I am so excited and so happy that I have my sweet ambassador, Land Academy Ambassador, Samantha Lathus with me in my office today, and we are having a whole lot of fun. How are you?

Samantha Lathus:
I’m doing great. I’m enjoying the Arizona sunshine, getting out of the cold Chicago so-

Jill DeWit:
There we go.

Samantha Lathus:
… it’s been really refreshing.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, and please tell us a little more about the flight in. Please share with us for a moment, if you will, what Karl decided to talk to you about as you’re boarding the plane.

Samantha Lathus:
I know. I know. So we get on the plane. He’s like, “Do you know what model number we’re on?” I’m like, “No.” He’s like, “Have you listened to the news in the last week?” I’m like, “No. What’s going on?” He’s like, “These are the same model that are losing their doors mid-flight.” I’m like, “Oh, why are you telling me this now?”

Jill DeWit:
Now? “Wait. You mean the same plane that my whole family’s on, my whole life, you and our two children who are right next to us?” Minor details.

Samantha Lathus:
He’s like, “Just don’t sit near the exit row.”

Jill DeWit:
Like, great.

Samantha Lathus:
There we go.

Jill DeWit:
I just thought about that. People used to pay extra, because of the extra leg room, for that.

Samantha Lathus:
Yes, I wonder if people-

Jill DeWit:
Now it’s going to be like, “I want to get some compensation if I sit there.”

Samantha Lathus:
If you sit right there. Thanks.

Jill DeWit:
That used to be a good thing. “Do you know how to open and operate…” I’m sure, I feel so bad saying this, especially because I’m a pilot. My dad was a professional pilot and then I come from that background. I worked at American for years, but I got to say it, when they say, “Do you know how to open and operate the door?” And they’re giving the little safety speech, I bet everybody’s going like, “Doesn’t it open by itself?”

Samantha Lathus:
Right.

Jill DeWit:
So yeah, “I’m not needed, right?”

Samantha Lathus:
Automatic.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. Okay, so back to the show. This is going to be fun today. So while we are recording, the guys are in Jack’s office recording, so this is going to be really good and nobody knows what each person’s talking about, so I don’t even know what order you’re getting this, but you’re getting one week of Carl and Jack talking and you’re going to get, the next week, Samantha and I talking. And we’re going to share, Samantha and I are going to talk about something informational first. Then we’re going to talk about a deal. We’re going to give some good deal chat, ’cause that’s why we’re here, this is what we do. And then we’re going to wrap it up with something inspirational too for you. Just so we have a couple good things lined up.
So let’s dive in. Informational. We’ve been talking about this a lot. You and I talk about this all the time, but it’s amazing to me. There’s two things I’ve noticed. One is, over the last couple years we’ve had more strong women-

Samantha Lathus:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
… Come into Land Academy, not just as couples, just on their own, and I love it.

Samantha Lathus:
Me too.

Jill DeWit:
What do you think?

Samantha Lathus:
I absolutely love it. When we were on the pro call the other day, it was funny, I noticed there was about 10 of us all meeting, and besides Carl and Jack, there was one other boy.

Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that amazing? So there were 10 people on the call-

Samantha Lathus:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
And the majority of them were women. And these deals that we’re doing. It’s just, it’s phenomenal to see how much better we are at this than the boys. I go back to, we make different decisions and I go back to, especially this one, you’re so smart. I mean, I make different decisions than Samantha makes, which is good. We’re really good.

Samantha Lathus:
I was going to say, you make different decisions too than me, which is good.

Jill DeWit:
I’m like, I go to my-

Samantha Lathus:
We balance each other.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. My decisions are, “Okay, here’s how I feel about this. This is my stomach gut, and this is why.” Samantha’s is, “Well, please let me run the trending report and I will tell you if I support that or not.” So there you go. I was just thinking, so this was on our pro call that Samantha’s talking about, and we had, there’s one, the two women that I’m thinking of in particular, that have just kind of come from behind. There’s a man behind it all, but he’s never there.

Samantha Lathus:
Oh no, he’s not.

Jill DeWit:
They’re running it all.

Samantha Lathus:
It’s always the girls. Yeah. Yep. They’re the one answering the calls. They’re the ones sending out the mailer.

Jill DeWit:
Doing the deals.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, doing the deals, showing up to these meetings and continuing their education. They’re really committed and it’s awesome.

Jill DeWit:
So, you who know who we’re talking about, you girls are smart cookies, and by the way, is he even smarter? ‘Cause he’s like, ‘I’m going to put my wife and this other person in charge and I’m going to sit back and let them run.” And boy, are they. So cool. So why, then it comes to, okay, we’re obviously getting the word out and we’re working on it more. There’s stuff coming, we’ll just say that. And because we want to motivate and inspire and even, man, we’ll financially back them, other females who want to be investors like us. I’m trying to think of what holds people back, holds women back.

Samantha Lathus:
I think that they just are intimidated with the industry ’cause a lot of the real estate investors are male and for whatever reason, they just feel like they need to either over prove themselves or they just are intimidated by that or I’m not so sure, but I just think that we are better at it and so we shouldn’t just put that self-doubt in our own minds or-

Jill DeWit:
Totally.

Samantha Lathus:
… whatnot.

Jill DeWit:
Were you ever afraid of it?

Samantha Lathus:
No, but I kind of…

Jill DeWit:
So that’s the thing, I was waiting for that.

Samantha Lathus:
I’ve been around real estate my entire life. My dad always spoke to me about it, growing up, and so it was always just like, “Oh yeah, I totally understand that. I get that part.” And then, when Carl started doing it, I was able to keep up with him when he was talking rate of returns and such and I was comfortable with it since I’ve never been…

Jill DeWit:
Will you speak of that please? Because please share for someone who doesn’t know that much, your background before Land Academy. ‘Cause that’s really good. Not only your real estate stuff, but your other stuff and then how it all came together.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah. So a little bit about me, I guess. I had a corporate job for 15 years and it was good in some aspects because it really showed me how to use data and trending and how to use Excel, and I was really, really good at it. I did international accounting for a huge company.

Jill DeWit:
That’s the thing. It’s not like, “I just worked for a big company. I answered the phones.”

Samantha Lathus:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
No, no, it’s not what you did.

Samantha Lathus:
I was in the finance department-

Jill DeWit:
There you go.

Samantha Lathus:
… and I was helping out with everything that I could, learning as much as I could.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, but let’s keep going a little higher. You were doing these financial reports for the executives?

Samantha Lathus:
Yes. We were doing-

Jill DeWit:
This is nothing to sneeze at.

Samantha Lathus:
No.

Jill DeWit:
You were way up here.

Samantha Lathus:
Yes, were compiling all of that, making sure it was accurate because we had to present it to the exec board. It was a publicly traded company, and so you had to meet all these requirements and so we were the ones that were aggregating everything together, verifying it, trending to make sure that we had a good plan in place to talk about like, “Yes, we’re here and this is where we’re going to end at the end of the year.”And we had all these models and different formulas built in. It was great. It taught me a lot.
And then, Carl on the side, was starting his construction company and on the other side, he was starting to buy and sell houses because he thought that that was the easiest way to have some sort of passive income or to generate income. And through that he met a fellow Land Academy member.

Jill DeWit:
And all was going great too.

Samantha Lathus:
Oh, he was doing great.

Jill DeWit:
That’s the thing, you guys were not struggling.

Samantha Lathus:
No, not all.

Jill DeWit:
It was all going good.

Samantha Lathus:
We were able to-

Jill DeWit:
You had a big office.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, we were able to be committed and we stuck to all of our plans and everything was going good. And then our friend whispered, he’s like, “I was doing this Land Academy thing.” And then we started researching it and within the next year, Carl was like, you need to quit your job and we need to do Land academy.

Jill DeWit:
I’m sure you’re like, “I have 15 years in. I’ve got this much… I can get stock options.”

Samantha Lathus:
Yip, I have my staff, I have everything here. My coworkers are awesome. Why would I want to leave this job? And then we ended up doing career path and through Career path I was like, “Wow, I could just do this and I could have more time at home. I can just have this work-life balance while still making the same income, if not more.” And in my mind, it made no sense to go back to my W2 job. And so I ended up putting in my two weeks and I was like, “Peace out.”

Jill DeWit:
That’s what I love, she starts Career Path. And Samantha, I feel like, “Okay, I’m still a little bit skeptical. Who are you people?”

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, does this actually work?

Jill DeWit:
And then by the end, yeah, she’s like, “I quit. I already resigned, during this whole thing. I’m done.”

Samantha Lathus:
And so it was great. And then, we were able to focus just on the land and it’s been amazing. I’ve never looked back and I’ve never had any regrets about quitting my job to do this. And I feel like, because it was the right time, I feel like I know what I was supposed to be doing now, was the right move.

Jill DeWit:
Right. I’m going to say too, you guys are still doing all these other things.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, we didn’t quit any of the other stuff.

Jill DeWit:
You still have a full born construction company, you have apartment buildings, you have all kinds of other rental properties.

Samantha Lathus:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
All that’s still going. And I wanted to bring that up because some people think that you can’t do… They think it’s a hard transition or they can’t really understand. That’s a good one actually. Did you have any trouble transitioning from flipping houses or owning an apartment building to just, wait a minute, buy and sell a piece of land with nothing on it? Was that hard to understand?

Samantha Lathus:
That was hard for me to grasp because it’s like, okay, what are you doing with this land? Are you improving it? Are you splitting it? Are you doing all these other things to make it more appealing? And the answer was no. And that was the hardest part for me to grasp. It’s like, so then how are we buying this so cheap?

Jill DeWit:
It’s true. That’s a funny thing. It’s like, “Well, there’s something wrong.” You go, “Okay, I bought this, I sold it. I now have $50,000 in my account that wasn’t there a month ago.

Samantha Lathus:
Right.

Jill DeWit:
What? Oh, and I can do that again and do that again and again.

Samantha Lathus:
And it was mind-boggling to think about. And then you just have to trust the process and then once you get into the flow of it all, it’s like, oh yeah, this does just work. And you have to be consistent with it. Just like with everything. I feel like, in your construction company, you have to consistently find work for your employees to go out. You need to constantly be buying material. You need to be constantly running your business. Well, the land business is no different. It’s like you constantly have to be working at it and sending out the mail, constantly answering your phone, returning phone calls, and just staying on top of the escrows and the real estate agents, if you choose to sell with them, it’s the same thing. It’s just this consistency factor.

Jill DeWit:
True. It’s true. But the startup costs are less.

Samantha Lathus:
Oh, they are so much less and the timeframe to move through everything. I feel like Carl’s been at his construction company for 10 years and it’s good and it’s profitable and it’s great, but I could do what he can do [inaudible 00:12:13]. Like if you just divide it up. At first, we were doing that a while. A couple of years ago, we were doing a game with this guy Frank in Land Academy. Like, all right, “Let’s race to a million dollars, my way and his way.” Oh, no. What takes Carl to do 10 years, I could do in like two.

Jill DeWit:
Yep.

Samantha Lathus:
I’m like, this is fun.

Jill DeWit:
There you go. Diversification is not bad.

Samantha Lathus:
It is. It is. So that’s so good.

Jill DeWit:
Well, you were talking about… Tell me about this deal that you guys got. You started to, earlier today at lunch, you were dropping a nugget about this deal that you guys are doing right now and what it could be. I love this too, because when you explain, here’s what it’s worth, but here’s what we’re going to do, ’cause this is who we are.

Samantha Lathus:
So this is like a bucket three property. We grabbed this one and we were just like, “Okay, now what do we do with it?” It’s like seven acres in the middle of town and it had so much road frontage that we were like, “We can’t miss this opportunity of splitting it.”

Jill DeWit:
This was not Sammy’s boatyard, was it?

Samantha Lathus:
No, no, this was not the boat yard.

Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:13:16].

Samantha Lathus:
No, this is a different one, different state. And so, at first we’re like, “Well, let’s just list it. We just don’t want to go through the hassle of it.” And we started listing it and it just was in the back of our minds that we could actually just split this and make more money. So we started looking into the process and the process was actually not as long as we thought it was going to be.

Jill DeWit:
Is it Midwest? East coast? Midwest?

Samantha Lathus:
Midwest.

Jill DeWit:
Okay, Midwest. All right. And then if you don’t mind, give us the sizes, give us numbers and was it a 90-day process or a…

Samantha Lathus:
Sure. Ah, I can’t remember. I think the survey… So we’re hiring a surveyor to go out there and to divide up the tracks. It’s seven acres. We bought it for 95,000 and we are going to divide it into four different tracks that are pretty much equal. And so I think his total costs were right around 3,500. And what he’s going to do is he’s going to plot out all the tracks. He’s going to go to a couple of the board meetings. His best friend is one of the board members.

Jill DeWit:
You found the right guy.

Samantha Lathus:
[inaudible 00:14:26].

Jill DeWit:
Did you find him through the county? How did you find him?

Samantha Lathus:
Actually, when we went through escrow, they found an old survey from back in the day and it had a name on it.

Jill DeWit:
Nice.

Samantha Lathus:
And so, we’re like, we wonder if this person is a still around and doing surveys or…

Jill DeWit:
Brilliant.

Samantha Lathus:
… What have you, because he must be familiar with his property if he surveyed it.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly.

Samantha Lathus:
And so we gave him a call and he was still in business-

Jill DeWit:
Still alive.

Samantha Lathus:
… Still alive. Still a surveyor. And so as soon as we said the property, he’s like, “Oh, I remember that property.” And he was like, “This is what we’re going to need to do.” He’s like, “I think it’s a perfect opportunity to split it.” He was like, “I think four tracks.” He instantly had all these ideas.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good. It’s a good acre and a half each.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah.

Jill DeWit:
That’s nice.

Samantha Lathus:
In the middle of town where all the other lots were more like a half acre. So these are big good lots that you can have. And then he’s like, “And I know all the process to do it. So one of the things that they require is a perk test, which we normally don’t do.” And I was kind of huffy about being like, “Is there any way around this?”

Jill DeWit:
Exactly.

Samantha Lathus:
Because don’t want to dish out all this money.

Jill DeWit:
Can I go dig a hole and pour water in it myself?

Samantha Lathus:
Right?

Jill DeWit:
I’ll videotape the whole thing.

Samantha Lathus:
But he’s like, “Oh, no worries. One of my friends is a teacher and on the side gig he does these tests and so he’s not that expensive.”

Jill DeWit:
So great.

Samantha Lathus:
So he sold me on it. And so we ended up hitting him out there and all four lots are perking for three bedroom homes and we’re hoping, so he still has to go to, now that he has the perk test, now he can divide up the lots. And so he’s anticipating going to two board meetings to get this all passed, two or three. So within the next three months we’ll have it all done.

Jill DeWit:
That’s great.

Samantha Lathus:
And it’s going to be great. And then I think we-

Jill DeWit:
So buy for 95. So what are your other costs? How much was he? Three grand?

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, he was just over three grand. And then the other cost was like 1200 bucks.

Jill DeWit:
So you’re all in for like 100 with closing costs, maybe? 105?

Samantha Lathus:
Yep. Yep. I would say that. Yeah. 100, 105, all in.

Jill DeWit:
Okay.

Samantha Lathus:
And so we were looking to see how much these smaller acres were listed for and you can’t find under two acres for a hundred thousand dollars. And so we’re thinking of starting-

Jill DeWit:
And now we have four of them.

Samantha Lathus:
And now we have four of them. And so now we’re starting to think, do we just list them there and have people counter us lower or do we move them a little bit faster and list them maybe at 80 or 90 and just kind of take what comes. So now we have some decisions to make, but it’s going to be super profitable and we’re super excited.

Jill DeWit:
That’s awesome. Now are you going to list them or are you going to get a local broker?

Samantha Lathus:
We’re going to get a local broker. Just because they’ll know more, they’ll have a buyer pool.

Jill DeWit:
Take that in.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah.

Jill DeWit:
And then you don’t have to take any phone calls and everything.

Samantha Lathus:
Exactly.

Jill DeWit:
You don’t have to answer all the questions.

Samantha Lathus:
Just have to review the offers that come through.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. I hope one person comes in and buys them all. That would be smart.

Samantha Lathus:
I hope so too. I really do.

Jill DeWit:
That would be really good. One builder could do four of them next to each other.

Samantha Lathus:
Mm-hmm. And they’re already perked for three bedrooms and that’s the most common layout. I was looking at new builds in the area and the three bedrooms are the common one in the area, so I’m like, “Oh, this is perfect.”

Jill DeWit:
What do the homes sell for around there?

Samantha Lathus:
So the newer subdivisions, some of the houses are going for like five, 600,000.

Jill DeWit:
That’s great. Okay. That’s perfect. That’s great. Those are awesome numbers. Well, what a good deal.

Samantha Lathus:
I know. We’re super excited about it so.

Jill DeWit:
So that’s just what’s possible. You could have turned around and flipped it for… I mean, knowing what’s possible. Well, in its current condition, so all in around 95, closing costs 100 and add in broker fees, whatever. So would you have sold it for two, 250?

Samantha Lathus:
We were just trying for 250.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. And now you’re going for 350, 400?

Samantha Lathus:
It was funny, ’cause we got a couple offers at the 200 mark and we’re just like, “That’s funny.”

Jill DeWit:
That ain’t funny. That alone is like… You are clearly in a financial position that you’re like-

Samantha Lathus:
We’re just…

Jill DeWit:
…I don’t need my a hundred grand back that fast.

Samantha Lathus:
We just knew it was worth more.

Jill DeWit:
Let’s do the smart thing.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah, and we just were like, “This can be divided.” And that just stuck with us.

Jill DeWit:
And this is actually going fast.

Samantha Lathus:
It is going really fast.

Jill DeWit:
No, when you really think about it, to make a couple hundred grand in a couple months, you could be all cash in, cash out, like 90, 120 days with all this going on. That’s phenomenal. And I’m glad you made that decision. But it’s like, “Do I just take the money and run?” And how much more time is it? You hired that guy, you paid for this. It’s like, what are you all in for maybe eight hours?

Samantha Lathus:
Right, exactly. It’s not…

Jill DeWit:
Eight hours of your life.

Samantha Lathus:
Answering emails and a couple phone calls.

Jill DeWit:
Wait an extra 60 days and eight hours of my life and I made an extra 150 on it.

Samantha Lathus:
Mm-hmm.

Jill DeWit:
All right, I think that’s-

Samantha Lathus:
It weighs out.

Jill DeWit:
There we go. That was a good decision. I love it. That’s so good. So that’s kind of just normal stuff we do. I love it. Thank you for sharing that. That was a good story. My most recent deal is a stinky deal. You know what? I’ll share a personal thing and this is what you don’t do.
So I started down the path emotionally, this is not what you do. This is not what we talk about. This is not how we roll. But boy, this property just landed in my lap and it was a dreamy ranch in Colorado. We go looking at it. It’s on the MLS, problem number one. It’s got an agent problem, problem number two, and then problem three, it just came… There were like 10 after that of these red flags. We obviously didn’t pull the trigger because I have never seen, and I need to put this… I think I might even do a whole show on this, what a nightmare inspection looks like. Because on every single thing, and I knew, we went out there to see the property and get all this stuff done and anyway, it was a disaster.
We were in and out of there in 48 hours. ’cause it was not a good deal. So I’m telling you, even I goof up sometimes ’cause I let emotions get the best of me.

Samantha Lathus:
But the thing is, is you’re still doing your due diligence.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I got out and then you’re like, “This is not a good deal.” Your head takes over, your heart’s like knock it off, put down the pen. Get your earnest money back, which we did. And go do it. You know what? And that’s the bottom line. So this is my story. So this has all happened in the last seven days. We went to another state and we’re back and I’m like, “Knock it off, put the pen down. Do what you know how to do best. Send out the stupid offers and just wait for the right one.” And so that’s what we will do. We have identified our dream area.
And why would you not? There’s people in Land Academy that are here just for that. They’re like, “I’m not here to do what you guys are doing. I’m only here ’cause I found out this is a better way to buy my dream cabin, my dream ranch, my dream lakeside home, whatever it is, I can save money on it and then maybe if I buy something along the way anyway, I find a great deal, I’m going to buy it and flip it ’cause I know how to do it.” But that’s not-

Samantha Lathus:
I mean, we’ve done personal mailers too ’cause we want to have extra land up near our lake to store our boats and stuff. And so we sent out mailers with the intention of well, if we buy something, we might personally use it and keep it. And so I mean that’s a great way to do it.

Jill DeWit:
Totally. It’s the only way to do it.

Samantha Lathus:
I know.

Jill DeWit:
So we have a few minutes left and I want to… Now might be the time to, we want to talk about working with your spouse. So Sam and I thought, if we’re going to devote a few minutes, because let’s be honest, there’s a lot of us in Land Academy that are working with our spouses and there’s a lot of people that see us and go, “This is easy, right? You guys make this look so easy. I want to do this too. I think that I’m going to get my wife involved.” Hello? I can’t even open this. So it is Italian by the way, but it does have a twist off, shockingly. So I’m going to do you first.

Samantha Lathus:
Thank you.

Jill DeWit:
So we are going to talk about the real… I actually love that. I wonder how that sounds on camera. As I’m pouring a glass of wine, Samantha and I are going to share with you what it’s really like working with your spouse. ‘Cause we make it look easy and romantic and fun. Everybody’s all laughing, but no, no, it’s not always like that.

Samantha Lathus:
That’s true.

Jill DeWit:
You go first. Tell me, let’s do this. What’s the number one… If someone says, “I want to work with my spouse, just like you guys,” what’s your immediate reaction?

Samantha Lathus:
Make sure you guys aren’t the same and do the same tasks because that is right where you are going to start butting heads. We learned early on, to stay in our lane. I handle certain tasks and Carl handles other tasks and we’ve learned, because through process of messing up, if I accidentally get in his lane or he accidentally gets in mine-

Jill DeWit:
Well messing up, meaning, someone’s sleeping in another room?

Samantha Lathus:
Yes.

Jill DeWit:
That’s really what messing up means.

Samantha Lathus:
That you just need to stick in your own lane and trust your partner. And so that is my golden advice is, know your lane. It makes it easier for everybody.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good. We now have different zip codes. So, we are right now, in my office. Jack and Carl are in Jack’s office, which is on the other side of this wall, but during the day to day, it’s better if Jack’s not even in the zip code. So we have a little townhouse where he has another studio in there and he just goes down there. Which you know what’s funny? You know what he does? Our kid picks up our mail and delivers our mail for us once a week. He goes to our mailbox and collects it all and brings it to the house. And I’m like, “So how’s it going over there?” He is like, “I saw Dad today.” I’m like, “Okay, good.” He’s 20. He has his own pad and everything. I’m like, “I think that’s just a place for him to go snack and watch TV all day.” He’s like, “Yeah, pretty much.” He rats him out [inaudible 00:25:01].

Samantha Lathus:
He’s off his diet.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. I’m like, “I don’t even want to know what goes on over there. It’s totally fine.” All I know is I don’t have to walk past him and he doesn’t have to feel whatever. I guess he’s going to goof off. How many times do you walk in on Carl playing video games on his computer?

Samantha Lathus:
So he’s not a video game person, but it’s mainly like, he’ll sit there and be looking up articles or stuff and it’s like he goes on this rabbit hole and it’s like, “Are you working or are you just sitting here playing?”

Jill DeWit:
Is he shopping? Is he shopping for toys?

Samantha Lathus:
Sometimes he does that. Work-related toys. He needs a welder of some sort now.

Jill DeWit:
There you go.

Samantha Lathus:
He’s like, “Check out this model.” I’m like, “Uh.”

Jill DeWit:
“Didn’t you get one six months ago?”

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah. Oh my gosh. It just looks the same.

Jill DeWit:
This is better. That’s good. That’s so good. I’m trying to think what else that I’ve learned. Boy, you have to have a sense of humor and a whole lot of patience.

Samantha Lathus:
Yes, patience.

Jill DeWit:
We have a sweet dear friend near us in Scottsdale. His name is Dennis and he has this whole theory, and Jack has said it before, I think, and this is where we got it. Dennis is really good at saying, “A year from now, are we going to care?”

Samantha Lathus:
That’s true.

Jill DeWit:
That’s actually really good. So some of the things that I get excited about and heated about, I’m not going to care a year from now.

Samantha Lathus:
That is true. Put it into perspective that way.

Jill DeWit:
I might remember it.

Samantha Lathus:
You might keep bringing it up.

Jill DeWit:
But is this going to be important? No. I learned how hard I can bite the inside of my mouth before I actually produce blood. I learned that one.

Samantha Lathus:
I learned to walk away sooner.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Oh, that’s good. That’s really good. Let’s see. And you know what’s true? The main thing is, in our land business, it started with, don’t work on the same deal together. And then that grew into, don’t work on the same project together, which grew into, don’t work in the same company together. So we have little divisions like, I mean, really deal funding. You know what’s funny, I think the same as you. I think in both of our households and our family businesses, the deals come in, that people who need deal funding, they come to us and then we do our review. They don’t know anything about them.

Samantha Lathus:
No. Carl has no idea who I deal fund, what I do.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly. They might see the money going out. I go, “Yeah, that’s right.”

Samantha Lathus:
I don’t even know if he sees that.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, that’s good. You’re in a better position.

Samantha Lathus:
He never logs on to my bank.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, Jack-

Samantha Lathus:
He just guesses how much is in there. I’m like, “Sure…”

Jill DeWit:
That’s brilliant.

Samantha Lathus:
“You can think that.”

Jill DeWit:
Shoot. I could do that. See, this is the problem. See, Jack’s the money guy. He’s always a numbers guy. He sat me down this morning and said, “Don’t you…” He’s like, “Hey, I just ran all our numbers for 2023. Do you want to know?” I’m like, “Not really.” He’s like, “You should know.” I’m like, “Why? I have you. I trust you. I know what’s going on, the gist of it. I don’t need the details.” He’s like, “Okay, great. Well, here’s what I’ve got planned for this year.” I’m like, “Perfect, awesome. I’m in,” kind of thing. But yeah, ’cause he sees money going out and I have to go, “Hold on a moment, wait ’til you see what’s coming back.” Give me 30 days and then that’s all fine.
You know what’s funny about it? Not about you ’cause he only cares that month. When he sees the money going out that month, it doesn’t matter how much it is. And then once it’s gone, it’s like and the next month comes, it’s totally off his radar. He forgets all about it.

Samantha Lathus:
Yeah. I’m pretty much the same way. Yep.

Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that funny?

Samantha Lathus:
Like reset to a new balance. And so, at that point it doesn’t matter. It’s like, “Okay, now we’re just starting here.”

Jill DeWit:
Yep. It’s out of the account, it’s done, it’s spent. And then sometimes, he’s like, “Where did this money come from and why is it coming at the end of the year?” I’m like, “I just sold my soul.”

Samantha Lathus:
Oh yeah, he probably gets so mad at you.

Jill DeWit:
“Couldn’t this come in in January?” I’m like, “I’m sorry. Don’t you remember that money I spent? It’s back. It was a great deal and you’re welcome.” That was fun. This was good. All right. I know I had fun. Did you have fun?

Samantha Lathus:
I did.

Jill DeWit:
Good. Maybe we should do more of these.

Samantha Lathus:
We should.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. I love it. So thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed the Sam and Jill show here and join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. As you know, you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Sam and Jill.

Samantha Lathus:
We are Sam and Jill. For information…

Jill DeWit:
… And inspiration…

Samantha Lathus:
… To buy undervalued property.