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 1,995 and today we are talking about what your land acquisitions need to look like to survive the recession that’s going to happen here in 2024, and a little bit later we’re going to talk about working with your spouse.

Jill K DeWit:
Yay. That’s what I think.

Steven Jack Butala:
So much fun to work with your spouse.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s the best thing when people go, “Wait a minute, and you guys, you live together?” Uh-huh. “You travel together?” Uh-huh. “And you work together?” Uh-huh. “And you’re here at the bar drinking together?” Uh-huh, now you know why we drink.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the result of that.

Jill K DeWit:
Here we go. But we’re still laughing.

Steven Jack Butala:
I feel compelled to quote Homer Simpson.

Jill K DeWit:
Uh-oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
Alcohol is the cause of and the cure for everything.

Jill K DeWit:
There we go. That’s great, babe. That obviously sung to you 12 years ago.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yep.

Jill K DeWit:
There we go. That’s awesome. All right, so what are we going to talk about today? So land surviving, this is the interesting. I’ve had a lot of conversations, I’m glad you picked this topic. I’ve had a lot of conversations with people recently who are coming to us because of this. They’re like, “Hey, I looked around. I’ve got so much figured out now, I understand there’s money to be made in land, and it checks all those boxes, and now I’m trying to figure out, who’s best to show me the way and navigate this? Because you’re not the only ones anymore.” I’m like, “Nope, you’re right.” “And we know that we’re coming to you because you’ve been through a thing or two.” Yep, you’re right. Come on, we didn’t, like you just said last week, it’s been 30 years that we’ve been doing this, and pushing, we have around 17,000 transactions. I always clarify, that’s not Land Academy, that’s us, mostly him. And then we’ve been through three terms?

Steven Jack Butala:
This will be our third full professional recession.

Jill K DeWit:
And we are still here. And boy, I can even remember since I got involved in ’09, I can remember the actual names of people that were other investors with us and who didn’t-

Steven Jack Butala:
Gone forever.

Jill K DeWit:
Weather the storm. They’re alive, but they did not weather the storm, and I feel bad.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to talk about how to avoid that here in just a minute. All of those key points.

Jill K DeWit:
This is good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord Forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars. I’m going to take a deep dive into two land related topics by popular requests.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
We have a question, Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Yes.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have to say.

Jill K DeWit:
What?

Steven Jack Butala:
I love this question, and I’ll read it if you want because I would like you to answer it.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay, go ahead.

Steven Jack Butala:
Troy says, “Today, I called up three realtors for a price opinion in a new area to me. Realtor one was driving and asked if I could text her the APN and she would get back to me by the end of the day. End of day is here and gone. No email, no callback. Realtor number two must have let a 2-year-old pick up the phone and say something about her toy in 2-year-old gibberish and then immediately hang up. Right away I get a call back, but it must’ve been a butt dial since I could only hear distant conversation in the background while I said, hello, hello, hello. Realtor number three.”

Jill K DeWit:
This is real. I believe all this.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t think… This person’s not making this stuff up.

Jill K DeWit:
Troy, this is real.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is real life.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Realtor number three was an older gentleman who was driving but claimed to sell more land than anyone else and gave me a quick price based on acres in the area. Oh, now we’re getting somewhere. I offered to text him the details to take a closer look when I wasn’t driving, and he just said, with zero enthusiasm, “I guess if that’s what you want.” I have a gut feeling he isn’t going to take a closer look. So before I announced this possible deal to every realtor in the area, where the owner still lives, does anyone have a realtor recommendation in X, Y, Z County Florida?

Jill K DeWit:
This is real. Do you remember the other day I was looking at a property in Colorado and I came into you and I said, “This agent doesn’t want to sell?” She actually pushed back. So I have a fourth one. This is all very real. I’m going to go, Troy, with number four, what happened to me the other day. I’m like, “Hi, my name is Jill. I’m not an agent. I’m interested in this property. I have some questions about it,” kind of thing. And the bottom line was it was an older ranch, and then there’s a newer ranch really nearby. And I am like, why would I spend this? I had some questions. I’m like, “What’s going on here? What’s the situation?” Kind of thing, “Do they even really want to sell?” “Oh yeah, they want to sell. Mom moved out. The kids got it.” Well, I’m like, “Okay, then you do realize, on the other side of the river, there’s a very similar, much newer property for not much more. I could buy that instead of this.” And she’s like, “Then maybe you should.” I’m like, “Wow.”
And I think for me what happened, I’ll tell you right now, well, A, she’s a stinky agent and I think… I don’t know, because I really tried. I thought maybe I came across like I knew too much, but I was trying to just nicely let her know I’ve done my homework, I’m not wasting your time. I quickly said who I am. I’m not an agent. I’m personally interested in this property. I looked at this and this and this and these are the only questions that I have left. I had two questions. Current condition, and does that justify this price? Which it didn’t. So anyway, I feel bad. In these situations, Troy, too, whoever these agents are, and whatever people have property listed with them, I feel bad because they’re not going to sell.
Realtor number one, not taking it seriously, didn’t get back to you, not even a text. There’s no reason to. She shouldn’t have said, “I’ll get back to you by the end of the day,” unless she really could. She should have said, “You know what? I’ll get back to you the end of the week. I need 48 hours.” Whatever it is, should have been realistic. And then if she couldn’t meet that, let you know like, “Hey, something came up. I am going to look at this. Can I let you know tomorrow by noon?” And then really follow through. That’s what should have happened. Number two, again, I am sure this is real. Talk about nuts.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.

Jill K DeWit:
Not taking your job seriously. Gosh, could you imagine if I didn’t take my job seriously like this? How funny is this? And then number three, I love that he knew the area, but what? He just has too many listings, he doesn’t need one more? Who would ever say that? But you know what? There are people that say that, now that I think about it. We have an accountant, our accountant, who does a really good job, we have come to him many times over the years and said, “Can you bring on more clients? Because our Land Academy people, we have some not far from us that would love to use you,” and he’s like, “Nope, I’ve got enough clients. I don’t really want to open up to more.” And I’m like, who does that? So you know what, Steven, I’m going to tell you this. I’ve got enough deals, I don’t really want anymore. Can you imagine? Not true. So I hope that, Troy, you did everything right, and I would do what you’re doing, I would keep calling until I get the right person.
The right person is going to personally answer their phone. Here’s the example of one of my recent stories, or-

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, how should it go?

Jill K DeWit:
A repeat story that I tell about our agent that I love. It was Friday night, about 6:00, and I called him, and he answers the phone as he’s walking away from the table in a restaurant. So you get points for that right there, number one. Number two, listens to me and tells me, “Hey, I’m out to dinner with my family. How are you? How can I help you?” I love that. “Hey, well, you know what? Thanks for telling me that. Thanks. Here’s the deal. I just got this property in. I want to know what you think about it. It’s over in this area. Are you familiar with that? Does that sound like something you can do?” Heck, yeah.
“You know what? I’m going to be driving around that area on Sunday,” and I’m like, “Awesome. Do you want me to text you or email you?” “You know what? Text is great,” as soon as I hang up, or even leave me a voicemail. One time I said, “Here, I’ll hang up. Call me back. I won’t answer the phone. Leave it in the voicemail, perfect, all the details, and then I will do that and I’ll get back to you Sunday night or Monday morning,” whatever. That’s a perfect thing. Because here’s my whole point here. The person who takes your call to get you as a client is going to do a good job selling it, because I need someone that buyers are going to be able… I need a buyer to call and I need them to answer the phone. Period. That’s it.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have a couple of points to make. I think you have to ask yourself, and we have to all ask ourselves this take a step back question. What is the point of a real estate agent? And actually, ask a real estate agent this. Why am I going to hire you?

Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to get all kinds of answers.

Steven Jack Butala:
Nine times out of 10, they’re not going to know. So because what they really believe in this day and age is that they’re processing paperwork, many, many, many of them have no idea that we can buy and sell a property ourselves, without any help from a real estate agent or from a title agent, without bending any laws or rules. And so you have to ask yourself then, okay, that’s the facts, then what the heck am I hiring this real estate agent for? And a real estate agent is supposed to add some serious value to the deal, not just process paperwork. It’s the same thing with lawyers. Lawyers believe this day and age, their job is to process paperwork and navigate the system because you don’t know how to do it.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so in the land case here, or in the real estate case, I actually do know exactly what I’m doing. I’m calling you because I’d like to outsource it and I would like you to convince me that you’re going to bring some value to the deal. And Jill’s number four case, she’s not going to bring any value to the deal, she’s just processing paperwork. In fact, you’re inconveniencing her by calling her. She just wants an offer from another real estate agent so that they can together process the paperwork, collect the check, and complain.
The bigger picture of what’s going on here is this, I just read an article about why car insurance has gone up in the 20% in the last year, and whoever wrote this article, I really hope it wasn’t AI because it was wonderfully written, gave some real factual scenarios of what was going on. It started in COVID, and people who were the number one law enforcement during COVID, if you can remember and watch any TV at all, defund the police, that whole movement, that never really went away. So sporadic and terrible driving is now going ridiculously unmonitored and unpunished especially, I can tell you.

Jill K DeWit:
I didn’t know that.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can vouch for that here. Number one. Number two, everything costs more. So it costs more to labor and it costs more to repair a car. So insurance, it’s higher, and the electronics, the cars around Scottsdale are driving themselves, so there’s a lot of electronics in a car that wasn’t there in 10 years ago. So the repairs are way, way more expensive. And the final point that they made was, which is what my point here, is that drivers got a sense of entitlement and a sense of personal, this is me in the road, get the hell out of my way-

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
As a result of COVID. And I think that that has come into play in all of our lives.

Jill K DeWit:
That makes sense.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a sense of people who would have regularly been at work to pay their bills and to try to get ahead in life like the rest of us were falsely encouraged that they didn’t have to go to work, and they got this sense of, I’ve got all this power now, I don’t have to do this, this is below me. And it translated itself into these real estate agents just have… They have an attitude that I haven’t seen prior to.

Jill K DeWit:
COVID?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, I think you’re right. That’s awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
I see it in everything. You see it in the grocery store.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true. It’s nuts.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic, what your land acquisition needs to look like to survive this looming recession in 2024. I will tell you this. Let’s start from the end of your real estate deal and go to the beginning, before you even buy the property, to see if it’s going to work. And here’s what the sale of your land acquisition looks like so you can throw some cash into the deal and then get more cash out at the end. That sale process and that sale dollar, you better have the cheapest property in the market,

Jill K DeWit:
Not reset the market. People still try to do that. I’m like, why are you doing that?

Steven Jack Butala:
If there’s 10-

Jill K DeWit:
You’re going to fail.

Steven Jack Butala:
Five acre properties that are like kind acquisitions that are for sale, you better have the cheapest best one. And so here’s what-

Jill K DeWit:
I love this.

Steven Jack Butala:
Real estate looks like during a recession, there’s a lot more of it for sale, it’s cheaper, and in general, you can negotiate a better deal as a buyer. It’s a buyer’s market. So your job as a land acquisition specialist, and put this on yourself like we do, is to go in even cheaper, send out more mail, and negotiate harder. Because here’s the good news, this is all spells good news for you by the way, I love down markets. Up markets are harder, for us anyway, and our personality types. Down markets, there are a lot more people and a lot more factors involved in why people choose to sell land, so there’s more acquisition candidates for you.
People need money, they’re moving, they change jobs, they got laid off, the kids couldn’t get into the school that they wanted to so they got to move across country, on and on and on. And so all that spells acquisition opportunity for you, you just got to buy it super cheap. We just got out of Career Path and somebody brought up a question, somebody in Career Path is not satisfied with how much property they’re buying, and so their answer was, well, I’m just going to offer more. Worst thing you can do. What you can do is choose better places to send mail, price it better, price it lower, and take Jill’s job in all this and be a Jill. Create a real estate deal where there wasn’t one two hours ago.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
On the phone.

Jill K DeWit:
Not money. It’s not money. People think that too. So many of our transactions, it’s not about the money, it’s about, it’s the timing in us.

Steven Jack Butala:
We made so much money around 2010 and 11, Jill and I, buying and selling houses and land.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
You get these people on the phone and I’ll tell you, you can pretty much tell them how much you’re going to pay. Not everybody, and I’m not advocating kick them when they’re down at all. I’m just saying if somebody says, “I got your letter and I really do want to sell,” I’m not saying, oh, then if it was $10,000 for your offer, then get them down-

Jill K DeWit:
Not five.

Steven Jack Butala:
To five. I’m not advocating that ever. We don’t do that.

Jill K DeWit:
No.

Steven Jack Butala:
But if 10,000 works because you price the mailer correctly and all of that, then say, “Great, let’s process your deal. Let’s get you paid out of this thing.”

Jill K DeWit:
I completely agree. You know what I was thinking about this topic today? I was just thinking about people who aren’t… One of the things that we do correctly, and we always have because you designed it this way, is we buy and we sell and we own it in the middle. I’m not running around with a piece of paper. I’m trying to imagine how scary it would be right now in 2024 to have equitable title on 100 properties and run around trying to sell them, and all the things that can go wrong with that.

Steven Jack Butala:
She’s talking about wholesaling.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly, so I’m like…

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, especially in this opportunity scenario.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s my point.

Steven Jack Butala:
How would you let that opportunity go?

Jill K DeWit:
That’s the thing. I keep going-

Steven Jack Butala:
Shouldn’t jeopardize it that way.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to say it right now for everyone listening here. I don’t care where you deal, who you are, you do not have to be in Land Academy, I’m not going to let a good deal go to waste. We are not going to do that. So you could throw it up in front of us. Don’t run around a piece of paper because you don’t have the money to buy it. I have the money to buy it. If it’s that great, let’s do it. Let’s own it and feel great about it and not worry about losing it, because I think people, in these times, get worried about putting money down, and so they’re happy that they could be celebrating that they have a piece of paper, but I’m like, too many things can go wrong with that too. Just buy it, get it for the best price that you feel good about it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, when does Land Academy Ladies air, and can you tell us about Land Academy Ladies or not?

Jill K DeWit:
Well, currently Land Academy Ladies, in its current form, is a monthly get together of women who are members or related to partners, business partners, some other extension of a Land Academy member. We meet once a month and we have a separate thread in Discord where we communicate and talk about our own stuff and our own deals in there. It’s working on evolving this year and it’s going to be announced in April. So the week of April 22nd, after tax time, this is the first time I’ve ever even dropped this little nugget, there’s going to be some big announcements coming, with Land Academy, everything that we do, and the ladies, so I’ll just leave it at that.
But the main thing is we are getting more and more female investors and, man, these ladies are amazing. The women that find us and jump in Land Academy, I’m going to say percentage wise, have been more successful, no offense, than the men.

Steven Jack Butala:
None taken.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s because of how we are. Maybe it goes back to good news, bad news. Bad news is we don’t jump in anything until we think we have 80% of it figured out. Good news is, boy, when we jump in, out of my way, because we’ve got 80% of it already figured out. Maybe that’s it. We’ve done all our homework by the time they get to us and they get to me.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have a theory.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome. What is it?

Steven Jack Butala:
If you’re a woman and you’re a land investor, then you’re choosing Land Academy.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s no other real logical ultra women friendly environment to be in.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think that’s a lot of it. So we get really amazing investors. You do.

Jill K DeWit:
We do.

Steven Jack Butala:
In that group.

Jill K DeWit:
I do.

Steven Jack Butala:
So I love that, I’m sure there’s a bunch of young girls and women in there being inspired by older successful women and there needs to be more of that in the world.

Jill K DeWit:
I agree. Thank you very much.

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

Jill K DeWit:
All right. Umer wrote, “Hi everyone. I’m a new member, but not very new to this land investing/land flipping world. I started in this business a few months back and I’m excited to be a part of this group. I’m a certified civil engineer in Texas, so I’m very familiar with the industry. I’ve been a part of other businesses before, hoping my professional skills can translate to this business. My wife and I just had a baby in August and now more than ever I want to create financial security and achieve financial freedom. My first goal is to increase my income through this business enough so my wife can quit her job. Then I will follow. I’m going after it and hope you guys can assist along the way because it is frightening. For me what’s more frightening is coming back to the work at the age of 60 and having someone else determine if I can put food on the table or not. Let’s do this. I have huge goals for 2024.”

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to do great.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well said, well written. I love your professional background choice. Congratulations on the baby and the whole thing. Now let’s get cracking. And I love this go forward attitude.

Jill K DeWit:
I do too.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to do absolutely great.

Jill K DeWit:
I love when people have big goals. I’m always like, go higher. Just say it. Just do it. Say it. I don’t care how crazy it sounds. Say it and get it out there. Nothing’s nuts. All right, Jill, my goal is 4 million this year. Awesome. Let’s see what that looks like. Whatever it is. Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic is called Working with your Spouse.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t really have anything to say.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to stay quiet right now, just because-

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have anything.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I do while I work with Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, stop.

Steven Jack Butala:
Is remain quiet.

Jill K DeWit:
We’re both like, nothing, I got nothing. No.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is an actual sentence I said at a dinner party last Thanksgiving to all of our close friends and family. It’s taken me 14 years to realize this. I can’t work with Jill.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh. That’s funny.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, we’ve worked it out. But in general, if we were working with each other the way that we started out working with each other 14 years ago, or 15 years ago, or whatever it was, we would not be working with each other right now. Just like when you, in your land business, you got to roll with it, change it, make some changes and-

Jill K DeWit:
What does that mean?

Steven Jack Butala:
And fix stuff as it’s not working. Here’s an example. We worked in the same office in the beginning when we were buying and selling land together. It’s been more than that. It’s been 15 years. In fact, we even were working on the same deals together-

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, that was awful.

Steven Jack Butala:
It was a disaster.

Jill K DeWit:
We learned that one first. That was quick.

Steven Jack Butala:
We were both negotiating the same deal. So, geez, if we still did that, we would never get a deal done long ago, it would never have worked. But we ultimately decided I’m better at acquisitions, she’s better at sales, or I’m better at data, I should say, and she’s better with people. We now work in very separate geographic locations with separate staff and I’m primarily involved in very, very different things than she is. I’m a very good startup, big picture, next product person, and Jill is a very, she’s just fantastic with the real estate deals and has built her own staff that they all understand each other and can very effectively get deals done without my involvement. So the fact is we’re on-screen together all the time, and this is the truth, but that’s about it. We don’t really work with each other all day, day in and day out at all. And so if you’re working with your spouse house, please have a good long serious unemotional conversation with that other person about what they want, and listen and implement, and don’t be afraid to separate stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s not a bad thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what saved us.

Jill K DeWit:
You should do that. What’s better than that, actually, when you can say, I trust you? And you’re better at that and you want to do it, run. Great, I’ll stay out of your way. Call me if you need me for anything.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you too, there’s a huge element of luck here because I don’t know how this happened, but Jill just is a people person and I’m more of a data person. If we were both data people, we would try together then, I guess, to-

Jill K DeWit:
No one would answer the phones.

Steven Jack Butala:
Find a people person. Or if we were both salespeople then nothing would get done.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
We would never get a mailer out.

Jill K DeWit:
Nothing would’ve got out. It’s true. That’s actually really funny and that it’s true. I like it. I’m trying to think, but it’s challenging. From day one of Land Academy people have come to us and said, “I want my wife to be involved, my husband to be involved. I think if we just, I get them listening to you, I’m going to get a motivated and we’re going to jump into this and be a team just like you guys and it’s going to be beautiful.” Okay. Hold on a moment.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’ll never motivate your spouse. I’m telling you that. She just said, “I’m going to get them motivated.” No, you’re not.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, it’s true, and it’s not easy, it’s not for everyone, and I want to point that out because I don’t want you to think there’s anything wrong with you if you’re like, “We tried it and it didn’t work,” and that’s okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s the norm.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s okay. We tried it and it didn’t work. Just kidding.

Steven Jack Butala:
15 times. And for probably two years now, I think we pretty much figured it out.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, we do. And a lot of it is, you know what? Just like you said, you have to be honest with each other and have conversations and let the other person… I really love that. When you have honest conversations and you divide up the tasks and you let the other person run with them and you stay out of it, because if you butt in, now they’re not doing it and it’s going to end in a fiery ball of tears.

Steven Jack Butala:
I didn’t think you were going to say that. I was going to say it, but better coming from you.

Jill K DeWit:
I took your saying. I did it before you did.

Steven Jack Butala:
The problem is this. Think about where you work or where you have worked. I don’t care where, I don’t care if it’s Starbucks or a public accounting firm or everything in between. When your coworker says or does some silly stuff, they just become like, oh, that’s the silly guy. Or, oh, that’s the guy that cooks fish every Wednesday in the company microwave and stinks up the entire warehouse. But if your wife does that, it’s not funny. It’s like you dig in and find out what’s wrong with their personality, and so you have to really consciously not do that. I don’t know why we do this in our relationships. Just, not us, but people, destroy the other person’s soul and break them down. You don’t do that.

Jill K DeWit:
Its not healthy.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you work in a warehouse with six people, you don’t do that to each other.

Jill K DeWit:
You can’t do that.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s this little veil of courtesy that doesn’t seem to happen between two married people who will work together.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, not like that.

Steven Jack Butala:
There needs to be a veil of courtesy. I’m here to tell you.

Jill K DeWit:
In the warehouse scenario, you might not make it to your car that night.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, I think in a marriage situation that’s also true.

Jill K DeWit:
All I could think about, I’m like, what could be worse? And all I could think about is these commercials that we have, we’re in the Phoenix area, and we have these commercials with the husband and wife law team.

Steven Jack Butala:
I saw that.

Jill K DeWit:
What the heck? Could you imagine? They probably threaten to sue each other once a week.

Steven Jack Butala:
They probably have.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, probably. There’s probably 16 restraining orders that they’ve each filed on each other. Could you imagine? That would not be fun.

Steven Jack Butala:
Look, it takes a lot of humor and it takes a huge amount of boundaries.

Jill K DeWit:
Patience.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then if you’re going to add your kids into it, Jill and I have three children, and all three of them have at one time worked for us, and it’s all past tense now. Because the notion of a family business, we don’t have crops to harvest, or a country store. We can go get our own labor, and so the notion of a true mom and pop family business is gone. It’s not a good idea.

Jill K DeWit:
I believe that.

Steven Jack Butala:
We should teach a class, because I can tell you exactly step by step all the stuff you’re going to go through and the whole key is to try not to let one of those steps just house of cards the whole thing down.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

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

Jill K DeWit:
Give me a second. Let me think about this for a moment. Before we begin rolling, Alex, I’m thinking about this. What’d you put? Oh, okay. You’re all inspiration. How funny is that? You’re inspiration and so I’ll be information.

Steven Jack Butala:
There you go. Let me know when you’re ready.

Jill K DeWit:
I will. Trying to think of something good and technical that I can share that I’ve experienced. I’m having a total brain fade right now. Can you help me think of something technical?

Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t do it while you’re talking though.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’ll just ask you some questions. It’ll be fine. Ready?
Jill, I have something, and several questions that I think will hopefully inspire listeners.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Bring it.

Steven Jack Butala:
What inspires you to get up in the morning and buy and sell land on a normal day? Because there’s a lot less going on in our lives right now. All the kids are out of the house. We’re in a super, super good shape financially. Most of the people and staff are happy. Most of our Land Academy customers are happy and our staff’s happy. So now-

Jill K DeWit:
Are you done? Why do you still do this?

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re a little bit… Yeah, just in general, you seem to me to be very inspired and I don’t believe that there’s no put a happy face on in the morning for you. I think you wake up happy and deal ready.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it. You know what? Doing deals is my number one thing. That fuels everything else. And I think when I realized I’m a land person, I just love it. Land more even than a house. I love land and scenery and nature and animals. When we go away for the summer, we’re outdoors. We are so outdoorsy people. We are on our bikes and doing all kinds of fun exploring things.
So to me, so how does that translate to what I do every day? Looking at a new piece of property is a new area I don’t know. Every second, I’m like, “Ooh.” I see what’s there and what’s possible. Every time a deal comes into me, I look at it. I’m like, “Okay, where’s the town? Oh look, it’s on a river. What’s going on here? What are the trees like? How beautiful is that?” I can easily transport myself mentally onto that piece of property, and then I think that translate into, I can get inspired and talk to the seller and get it, and then I can be further inspired and talk to a buyer and help them fall in love with it too. So I think in my soul, I love land.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to throw you under the bus a little bit here. All in the name of this massive compliment.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
When I met Jill, she was very, very inspired and got up in the morning. She was in a core W2 job, like punch a clock, W2 job, and she was very, what motivated her was time off. Whether it was a weekend or vacation or whatever, we would obviously take vacations together and she would spend the first part of the vacation planning the next vacation before she could enjoy that one. So you’ve come a long way from a mental standpoint about, I think we’re all supposed to enjoy getting up in the morning and doing stuff that we want to do, not wait for the weekend or plan for a vacation.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s good to hear you. You know what? I’m worried about the same thing. That moment where you get a new deal in and you look at it and you’re like, “This actually could work. We should probably look into it further. We can do the deal.”

Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what else, when you really think about it? We have had many companies over the years, some not land related at all, we’ve always had land rolling in the background though, and we’ve never once had a business or company that has the same margins. So I’ll just be honest here, I love being my own boss. I will never go and not go back.

Steven Jack Butala:
I like getting rich.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, that too. So you can quickly get to a position in your life in this business where you can be your own boss and set your own schedule. Maybe that’s it. If I wake up in the morning and I have a meeting at 9:00, it’s because I scheduled it. I have the complete control over everything that I do and so does every other full-time investor.

Steven Jack Butala:
In that meeting, whatever it is, and whoever it’s with is getting toward the goal that you set for yourself anyway. It’s like whatever it does ends up being, be more wealthy, doing more deals, for some reason it’s not some staff meeting that somebody set to hit their goals.

Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. That was really good. How about you? What do you have to share with us today?

Steven Jack Butala:
So I’m going to do my side of that.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay. Ready.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you that I really believe in what we do for a living. I have been, like probably everybody, in many situations where I don’t believe in the product that I’m selling, I don’t believe in the client I’m representing, I don’t like the coworkers I have, and certainly don’t like my boss. So it’s hard to get… You need to believe in what you’re doing every day and a few weeks ago, this little segment, this inspiration segment at the end of this episode, my talk was ask yourself, yesterday, how much time did you spend doing something you don’t want to do, and how much time did you spend doing something you really do want to do? And boy, that next Thursday, when that aired, on the Thursday call, do you remember this?

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.

Steven Jack Butala:
People were typing in on our regular Thursday webinar. I remember. We would listen to this, and I spent 12 hours yesterday doing something I don’t want to do and eight hours in bed, and the rest of it, I had just a couple of hours to myself. And boy, if you can convert, if you can do, I can safely say this with both of us, there’s probably maybe an hour, maybe two or three hours a week that we do stuff we don’t want to do.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
If that.

Jill K DeWit:
True. I agree.

Steven Jack Butala:
Usually if I don’t want to do something, I delegate it, because we have employees, or one of our car needs a new battery right now and I’m just going to call AAA. I’m not going to do it. That’s why we buy and sell land. That’s why I don’t have to change a battery in a car.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
That, and it’s very lazy. All kidding aside-

Jill K DeWit:
I love it.

Steven Jack Butala:
You got to believe in what you do, or it’s just not… Ultimately it’s going to break.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. Don’t forget, if you have any questions, you want to learn more about us, check out landacademy.com, and you can always send a note to my team via support@landacademy.com.

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

Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill.

Steven Jack Butala:
Information.

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.