Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m Steven Jack Butala.

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

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 2,009 and we’re talking about how long it takes to make a million bucks with land versus the stock market. Here’s why? The Dow hit 40,000 today, this is when Jill and I were recording it, it’s I guess May 16th. That just shocks me.

Jill DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Everybody’s celebrating.

Jill DeWit:
What’s limit up and limit down? I can’t remember any of it. You know what I’m talking about?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, there’s daily limits.

Jill DeWit:
Well, then they stop it. It can’t go so high. Did they even bring that up today like we’re pushing it or everything?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. I didn’t even know.

Steven Jack Butala:
Because it wasn’t-

Jill DeWit:
It wasn’t-

Steven Jack Butala:
It wasn’t a huge jump from the previous day.

Jill DeWit:
Astronomical.

Steven Jack Butala:
And my philosophical question to you Jill is … There’s a lot of celebration today. When in real estate do you celebrate when things are at the top of the market? Do you celebrate and jump around? Are you happy when the land is selling for the most it’s ever sold for ever?

Jill DeWit:
Not really, no.

Steven Jack Butala:
How about houses? Do you love to go into a market and see people just hitting the top of the market with their remodel?

Jill DeWit:
Nope. No. I see where you’re going with this and I understand your point. Okay. So everybody’s high-fiving each other because it’s the most expensive that it’s ever been, yay. It’s only good for one person who sold that stock at that time. Everybody else is going, “Oh, I blew it” kind of thing. That’s it. So you’re talking about our world and what really makes sense to us. What you can do consistently which is a lot of getting to second base I guess. First base, second base, I’m happy with that all day long. You know what? To me-

Steven Jack Butala:
I like getting to second base too.

Jill DeWit:
I know you also like a home run but we won’t go there. Home runs happen once or twice a year for us, let’s just say that. What happens more often than not, second and third base which is doubling my money and then a little bit more than doubling my money. There’s just like oh my gosh, I can’t believe I bought this for 20,000, sold it for 120. That’s a home run. First base is I bought it for 20, sold it for 30, 35. It didn’t go that great but who can complain about making 10 or 15 grand? This is all very consistent. And then second base to me is I bought it for 20 and I sold it for 40, 45. This is great. Third base is I sold it for 60 to 70. And then you know what home run is. I’m more happy with that. You never want to be the most expensive house on the block, I’ve always believed that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s some things-

Jill DeWit:
And you don’t want to reset the market-

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s here some stuff-

Jill DeWit:
I don’t believe in that.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re going to talk about today in a big picture. We’re going to talk about the stock market versus land investing, and we’re going to dabble a little bit in comparing those two. Also with owning a different business like a convenience store or a manufacturing facility. They’re all not apples to apples. There’s a different amount of energy that you can put in. This is super important for Jill and I. Control that you have over what you’re trying to accomplish financially. I mean, here’s a little prelude to that, and then we’re going to take a couple of questions. When you go out and buy a piece of … A share of stock or a block of stock, you’re paying retail for it. You’re paying retail for whatever it’s worth that day. When you buy a piece of real estate you’re paying, if you do it our way, 20 or 30% of what it’s worth that day.

Jill DeWit:
I would like to point out one thing before we get into the big topic which is I want you to pay attention as we’re talking today about start-up costs.

Steven Jack Butala:
I love that.

Jill DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s an integral part of actually when we get into the real in-depth in this. And we will answer the question. How long does it take to make a million bucks in land versus the stock market? There’s a bunch of variables. The percentages never change in these things. What changes is your activity and your personality type. I will tell you it’s 10 to 30 times longer to make it in the stock market versus land.

Jill DeWit:
That’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
And I’ll give you all the numbers.

Jill DeWit:
Cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer a question from the Land Academy member Discord forum and we take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request from our Land Academy community. Today we have two questions. Go ahead, Jill.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. So the first question today is from Jamay. Jamay’s a sweetheart. Been with the Land gals for quite some time now. So she wrote, “Good morning, guys, quick question. How long is too long to troll for new markets? Over one hour, over two hours? I’m finalizing my weekly schedule.”

Steven Jack Butala:
Good.

Jill DeWit:
“Awesome video that Jack and Jill dropped yesterday has me looking more into scheduling my time more efficiently and to have an actual schedule. So I’m thinking to start one hour to troll, two hours for the red, yellow, green test. Test for reason, not sure how long to spend on that, and so on. So how do you guys schedule your time? Thanks.”

Steven Jack Butala:
So Jill and I are very, very, very fortunate that I do the front 30%, maybe 40% of the work which is what you’re asking about here. And then unfortunate because she takes over. Once the mail goes out she takes over. She just counts on me to find good places to send mail, spend the right time analyzing whether or not they’re actually real good places from a data perspective, and then getting a mailer out that’s priced correctly. I hate to answer questions like this but it really depends on you. I spend a tremendous amount of time trolling, it’s actually crossed over into a hobby of mine.

Jill DeWit:
It’s an unhealth, Jamay. It’s an unhealthy amount let’s just say.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t tell you what-

Jill DeWit:
“What are you doing over there?” “Nothing. Looking at a real estate.”

Steven Jack Butala:
I can tell you what houses. Here’s an example, here’s a great example. I mean, I can tell you what houses in Juneau, Alaska are worth, I just can. We sat down during the college basketball tryouts at a little neighborhood bar, and these two people sat down next to us and we started talking to them. They’re in town from way out of town. In town for watching college basketball.

Jill DeWit:
It was the Final Four tryouts. I’m sorry.

Steven Jack Butala:
We just got to talking, they’re real interesting people. This guy renovated old buildings and condos and he was, I guess, sort of retired but not really. They had a place in Florida. We had a lot to talk about and a lot in common. They were from Michigan, so am I. And they described where they’re from and I said, “Oh, you mean Sturgis, Michigan?” And they both just like, what the heck are you talking about? That’s a direct result of my unhealthy trolling all over the market, and looking at all these little areas, and trying to find the best places to send mail. And when we do we send mail there. One hour to troll for a normal person, I think that’s a little bit light. I think I would spend … I don’t want to put a time limit on it because when you’re done trolling you’re … The data’s going to tell you-

Jill DeWit:
Well, can I ask a different question?

Steven Jack Butala:
“I’m done trolling.” Yeah.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. Let me ask it this way then. How many zip codes or counties should I have identified to sit down and run a good red, yellow, green test?

Steven Jack Butala:
I would look at no less than five separate markets.

Jill DeWit:
There we go, there we go.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you like Wisconsin, for whatever reason, and there’s three markets there and they’re very different markets … Maybe one’s outside of, geez, Milwaukee, one’s in … Way north close to Canada, and on and on. Those are three separate markets. I would look at no less than five. Maybe they have five to 10 zip codes in each.

Jill DeWit:
There we go. All right. I’m going to argue that that’s a day. Have you spent a day on that?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what everybody’s answer was in here.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, I’d spent a day on it.

Steven Jack Butala:
And I was going to try to avoid that-

Jill DeWit:
That’d be my Sunday.

Steven Jack Butala:
But the truth is I really think that it’s going to take you a day.

Jill DeWit:
This might be your Sunday. Today’s trolling Sunday, that’s fine.

Steven Jack Butala:
And then the next time you go do it’s going to-

Jill DeWit:
Trolling Tuesday.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’ll take less time. And the next time less and the next time less. And I include the red, green, yellow test in that.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
A whole day.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. And so that’s a separate day or the same day?

Steven Jack Butala:
The same day.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. All right, so there’s your answer. Plan on blocking out a whole day, at least, to troll and test for reason. Troll and the red, yellow, green test, not the test for reason part that’s separate. Okay, got it. And then test for reason which is … This is after you run the numbers. You download, scrub the data, you priced it, you pulled down some comps. I’m guessing right now that the way Jemay’s asking this is she’s using Concierge in the middle there.

Steven Jack Butala:
I hope so.

Jill DeWit:
Or her kid. Her data, nutty kid who she said “Do this.” I don’t know. I’m guessing Concierge in the middle there. Because then they would take the zip codes that Jemay gave them, download the data, scrub the data, pulled comps, took out the outliers, gave her a graph, gave her the comps that they pulled, gave her the numbers she came up with, and then came back with “Here’s what 20% looks like.” Now is time to test for reason, and that’s where she’s at here. And then what are you thinking about that?

Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t get past second base.

Jill DeWit:
Okay. There’s days-

Steven Jack Butala:
Can I tell you … Can I tell you-

Jill DeWit:
There’s days I don’t let you get past second base, that’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Can I tell you about second base?

Jill DeWit:
Okay, go ahead. Sidetracked.

Steven Jack Butala:
Second base is just a stop off for most … For young men. I don’t know how it works for girls, I don’t want to know actually. For young men at second base is just to stop off on the way to hitting a triple or whatever ends up happening. You get older, and I just think you got to take the bases slowly. Enjoy the bases.

Jill DeWit:
Enjoy the bases. That’s hilarious.

Steven Jack Butala:
Tell me I’m wrong.

Jill DeWit:
I don’t even know how to answer that. And there might be kids in the back seat.

Steven Jack Butala:
They don’t know. We’re talking about baseball.

Jill DeWit:
That’s true, they are little kids.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s baseball season.

Jill DeWit:
This is baseball. That’s true, it is baseball season. Okay, you’re right. All right.

Steven Jack Butala:
So you’ve got a day’s worth of trolling and red, green, yellow tests. You count-

Jill DeWit:
Concierge.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve used Concierge, that’s going to take-

Jill DeWit:
Now it’s back.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to allocate, depending on how busy they are. Offers to owners.com, how busy they are. It might take two days to turn it around, two working days. Maybe it’s one if it’s real light. There’s another day. You’re going to get that back and you’re going to have probably a lot to say about it. They will input probably 20% for you. I just went through this with one of our-

Jill DeWit:
Arbitrary number.

Steven Jack Butala:
One of our children I just went through this because he’s smashing it, he’s sending out all kinds of mail. It’s a new rekindled interest and I hope he keeps up with it. We went in and adjusted pricing all over the place. Some of it was 20%. In some cases for large properties that were really rural, we were down as low as 3%.

Jill DeWit:
Wow.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me take a second and explain this. We’re not mailing out price … Property. We’re not sending mail out at 3% of the retail price of properties, there’s all kinds of other things to consider. If you solve for retail price per acre, or Concierge did, and it’s $10,000 an acre, that’s not going to apply to a 150-acre property, that’s way in the north end of the zip code. You just have to test that for a reason. You have to look it up as if the things came back signed. The purchase came back agreement signed. We did this many, many, many times and he said, “Oh my God, this is $180,000 for a $25,000 piece of property.” He’s coming up with that stuff, not me. You know how to price. When you’re having these independent thoughts, regardless of who you’re sharing this with, it just doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why it’s called test for reason. That’s going to take you a whole day.

Jill DeWit:
Perfect.

Steven Jack Butala:
The longer the better.

Jill DeWit:
That’s it. And there you go. And I would say Jamay, the last little piece I would add to this question before we move to the next one is, give yourself … Do enough of this that you’re covered for a couple weeks. I would do this once a month. Because you can’t do this every week. If you spend all this much time every week you’re not going to have time to do your due diligence, close deals, all that good stuff. Find a broker to sell these deals. So if you’re doing this every other week, or most preferably once a month, you’re doing this so now you have your next four weeks of mail done. That’s going to be I think what makes the most sense.

Steven Jack Butala:
The calendar that … Or the schedule that you come up with this week might change, will change next week, and then on and on, and then stuff’s going to happen. Maybe you have a funeral to go to, unfortunately. The calendar’s just not that’s it, it’s not finished ever.

Jill DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to read this one because it’s for you.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Evan says, “I just wanted to share a quick reminder that the right agent, real estate agent changes everything. I bought a commercial property back in March of ’23 for 53,000 bucks. I hired a local,” and he means real estate agent, “That I thought was a good fit. She put together a good listing, appeared to promote the property, and communicated well. After listing it for a year she never brought one offer. I gave a listing to a Mossy Oak agent” … Mossy Oak is a nationwide land brokerage that we use often. “That did a great job selling a residential parcel for me. He listed the property for 150,000 bucks, same as when the listing expired with the first agent, and brought me $135,000 cash offer in three weeks. We closed 30 days later. Lessons learned colon. Really spend time researching and interviewing your agents and no 12-month agreements.”

Jill DeWit:
I never do a 12-month agreement because here’s why. Here’s my conversation when I’m looking for an agent to sell a property for me. “What price do you think you could sell this for in, let’s just say, 90 days? There’s no fire, I don’t need it gone next week. And I’m not trying to reset the market here. I’m not looking for top dollar, I’m going to sit on it for a year and a half.” They’re like “Okay. 90 days I think we could sell it for X.” “Great.” And we all connect, we move forward.
So when we do the listing agreement, it comes back, I go, “Nope.” Cross that off right at six months. And if they ask, “well, what” … “I usually do 12 months.” “Well, you know what? We all agreed we’re going to sell it in 90 days. So we’re going to do six months, and if we need to, something weird happens, we will totally look at it, revisit this again at the end of six months.” And I’ve never had anybody say no. That’s the answer. Because if you don’t have a good one then at least you can get out of it after six months. You were stuck for a year. That’s painful. $53,000 is nothing to sneeze at. That’s not in your account that you could be using for other things right now.

Steven Jack Butala:
I have to tell you-

Jill DeWit:
Glad you brought that up, Evan.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too. Our responsibilities and what we do here, I feel like I have mine licked. I think doing a mailer hasn’t changed that much. The data we use has changed and the methodology of trolling changes but the basic stuff … If you said-

Jill DeWit:
The concept.

Steven Jack Butala:
“Please go do 150,000 unit mailer,” I would come back probably in-

Jill DeWit:
A couple days.

Steven Jack Butala:
Two working days with a pretty real good solid let’s send it out. The stuff that changes on Jill’s side it changes all the time. And it doesn’t seem to disrupt you. You don’t even have a thought about it, you just adjust that … For it and move forward.

Jill DeWit:
No, I think it’s nature. I don’t know. Or is it nurture? I don’t know. I’ve learned, especially with you, to roll with the punches.

Steven Jack Butala:
Isn’t that bad, Jill? Is it?

Jill DeWit:
I had to say that. No. No, not at all, it’s not that bad.

Steven Jack Butala:
Finding the right real estate agent. We’ve had great real estate agents and then they just go dark. We do a couple of deals with them, they get a girlfriend, and it’s over.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. Oh, these are all real stories. It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Or they change brokerages, or they move to a different state, or all kinds of stuff happens and then you got to start the process over of looking at who’s got great listings. It’s very inconsistent finding a great land broker. We have a lot of land brokers that are in our group as … And they’re buying and selling their own land and they’re real distracted.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
And rightfully so. They’re distracted with doing their own deals or raising capital to … Or whatever, as they should be.

Jill DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
So stuff changes. How Jill answers the phone changes all the time based on how … Where we’re sending mail, and who’s calling back, and how-

Jill DeWit:
Savvy they are or what’s going on.

Steven Jack Butala:
Whether or their property tax bills just came out.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah, time of year.

Steven Jack Butala:
On and on and on.

Jill DeWit:
Thank you.

Steven Jack Butala:
A lot of variables.

Jill DeWit:
Thanks.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s topic, how long does it take to make a million dollars in land versus the stock market? So let’s just think about this for a second philosophically. You’ve got 30 or 60,000 bucks to spend … And we’ll get to that in a second because you don’t need 30 or $60,000 to spend on … In real estate because we’ll fund you. But let’s just assume, We’ll try to be as apples to apples as possible, that you got $60,000 to spend and you dump it into the stock market.

Jill DeWit:
I wish you all could see this, this is cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, they can, here.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, can they? Oh. You don’t mind doing that?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, not at all. They see it.

Jill DeWit:
Give us a second, we’re going to add screen share here.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’ve got $60,000 to spend. There’s three stock markets: the Standard & Poor’s, the New York Stock Exchange, and the NASDAQ which is in an acronym for something. They all have indexes to indicate how well they’re doing without looking at the entire exchange. The S&P has the S&P 500, the New York Exchange has the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and the Nasdaq, I think they have the NASDAQ 500, I’m not exactly sure.

Jill DeWit:
The National Association Stock … I don’t know.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re just guessing.

Jill DeWit:
I totally am. I bet I’m right.

Steven Jack Butala:
Historically-

Jill DeWit:
I don’t know.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is a 10 years trailing because all the statistics came out because again, the Dow hit 40,000 today. If you put a dollar in the S&P 10 years ago it would be worth 13% more. In our case here we put $60,000 in, it’s worth 60,000, $7,000 10 years later. The Dow Jones, a much better performance, it went up 131% so $60,000 would yield 138,000.

Jill DeWit:
Interesting.

Steven Jack Butala:
NASDAQ 260% because of the tech stocks and the tech presence there would yield $200,000. Tripling your money in 10 years is amazing by anybody’s standards. That’s not what happens every 10 years. And I will tell you that if you look at it year over year, there were years where I had lost money and then made up for it and then lost again and made up for it. When’s the last time you had a losing year in-

Jill DeWit:
Isn’t that what this is right here? It’s showing-

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, that’s the Dow.

Jill DeWit:
Okay, got it. It’s a screenshot of what happens year over year.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, I’m mindful of the fact that not everybody can see this. Most people are listening to it, not seeing it.

Jill DeWit:
Well, hopefully, they’re on YouTube right now going … Or they paused and they went over to YouTube so they can see it. You’re good.

Steven Jack Butala:
With land, it’s tied to inflation. So you would pay retail price for a piece of land and it’s … You do it the Land Academy way, you don’t buy a piece of junk. But you pay 100% of what it’s worth the day you buy it which we never do. It’s tied to inflation. Inflation went up over the last 10 years, if you combine it all, about 25%. So $60,000 would yield $75,000.

Jill DeWit:
Wait, back that up again a minute. You’re saying retail is $60,000 for the property?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. I don’t do it the Land Academy way. I go out on the MLS, I choose a piece of property, I buy it for $60,000, and I let inflation do its thing.

Jill DeWit:
This is what not to do.

Steven Jack Butala:
You should never do this.

Jill DeWit:
Okay, got it. I’m like where are you going with this?

Steven Jack Butala:
You should never do any of these four things.

Jill DeWit:
This is true. Now I understand where we’re going here. Because I’m like why would I buy something for 60 and hang on it for 10 years for 75? I’m not doing that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s what’s great about putting money into the stock market. Depending on how you look at it, you have to do nothing, especially if you put it into an index like this like the Dow Jones, or the Nasdaq, or the S&P 500. You put the $60,000 in, you turn the computer off, 10 years later you turn the computer back on and you see what it’s worth. Does anybody do that? Hell no. Does anybody put $200 on the roulette wheel and then come back 10 years later and see what it’s worth? Yeah, it’s worth zero. With land, no, you get up every morning and you do some stuff. Not a lot but you do some stuff. So here’s the deal. Those are the basic numbers. I wasn’t prepared for this.

Jill DeWit:
Thank you for doing that though.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hopefully my guys will edit this out. If not, we probably just lost you.

Jill DeWit:
No. A good guy, you’re good.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of variables. Here’s the most important variables, in my opinion. The first one is time. So you are doing nothing in these stock investments annually. If it were a regular year-over-year annual return you’d get about 1% on the S&P, 10% on New York, and Nasdaq would generate 20% return a year. Again, some years you lose money some years you make a lot of money. These last two years have been huge earners for all three so they’re skewing the hell out of these numbers. What I prefer is control over my money, control over my time. I want control over everything except Jill, that’s about it.

Jill DeWit:
We want the same thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
If you buy a piece of property and you sell it for twice what it’s worth … You buy it for 60 sell for 120, buy for 30 sell for 60, you just … You make twice as much money which is our … If I look back at 16,000 transactions that Jill and I have done, I see what we bought it for, and I see what we sold it for, and it’s like 52%. We’ve doubled our money if you look at all the average deals. Buy for 30 sell for 60. And you buy one piece of property every year, one piece of land every year and you make $30,000 on it, you will have had, at the end of the 10 years, turned that $30,000 into 330,000. That’s 1100% return. Now we’re-

Jill DeWit:
It’s just one a year.

Steven Jack Butala:
One deal a year.

Jill DeWit:
A year.

Steven Jack Butala:
Now we’re talking about comparing the Dow Jones at 130% return over these 10 years versus an 1100% return. I would argue that doing one deal a year would take oh-

Jill DeWit:
An hour an month.

Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, you could just do the deal in January and then you never work again. That’s not taking into consideration, well, I got to have a mortgage. I’m not saying drop your life I’m saying, you have a little land business on the side, go to college, continue to be a real estate agent, raise your children. Do what you’re going to do, just do a deal a year. Get into the land business, learn how to do this. Buy one freaking piece of land a year, 1100% return if you double your money. You could buy for 20 and sell for 40, buy for 30 sell for 60, buy for 50 sell for 100. All of those work.
This is a lot harder to do, full disclosure if you’re … You’ll see in a second … If you’re buying for 100 and selling for 200, that’s tougher. It’s totally possible, Jill and I do it all the time. If you’re new at this it’s just … There’s a lot less people to sell a property to for 200,000 bucks than 80,000 let’s say. Moving on to what really happens. These are all screenshots. Now Jill’s yelling at me to go back into the camera. Go ahead, Jill, say what you need to say now that the camera’s on.

Jill DeWit:
Funny how you were looking at the camera and making your point but nobody could see it. You’re good. I think they got the gist of it now.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, it gets better.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, it gets better. You want to show this again? Okay, cool.

Steven Jack Butala:
They got the gist of it now means Jill’s bored.

Jill DeWit:
No, it’s all good.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’ve burned it. Burned through her attention span.

Jill DeWit:
You’re good.

Steven Jack Butala:
What really happens, and what we teach, is you take that same 30,000 that you’re … And you turn it into 60,000. It might take you that January. It might take you January through the first quarter. You take that $60,000 and you turn it into two or three deals, or you use our money to do it. So what you often hear us talk about is do a deal a month, do a deal every three months. Or, as fast as you can, or your time allows, to buy and sell land pretty consistently and double your money as successful as you will be. Now I’m going to answer the question, how long does it take to make a million bucks? It takes about three years, probably less. I did a whole talk on 24 Month Millionaire and how to accomplish that. It’s very, very realistic if you work at this and understand it versus 30 years in the stock market based on the performance of the last 10 years.

Jill DeWit:
That’s a point, I get that. I talked about this a little bit. I brought notes.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I’d love to hear it.

Jill DeWit:
Are you finished?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, totally.

Jill DeWit:
This is what I talked about last week in our Land gals. We meet the first … Or two weeks ago. Anyway, we meet the first Tuesday of every month, we get together for a couple hours. And my whole presentation was, the most important things you’ve got to be doing right now today to be successful. And it was really cool, I acted like a crazy person. I talked about this recently on a podcast too. I gave them some math. I’m like, why would I do it? Why would I push so hard? Whatever. I’m like “Hold on everybody, let’s just do some” … “This is Jill math.” I love your beautiful spreadsheet, I just have one equation here and I’ll hold it up. It’s great because we’re both thinking on $30,000.

Steven Jack Butala:
Okay.

Jill DeWit:
And here’s why. Making $30,000 per deal is so flipping easy it’s not even funny. It a great sweet spot. You’re selling things for sub $100,000. You bought it for sub $50,000, right? You bought it somewhere below 50 you’re selling below 100. Your only goal is to make 30,000. And I want you to make 30,000 after commission, after your mail costs, and that … And your data and your … Whatever it is. This is not nuts. My goal was a little … Because I was really trying to push people, my goal was a little more than one a month, mine was three a month. I was speaking to a group that they either are or aspire to be full-time at this, we’re not messing around. Here’s your carrot.
If you come at this like a crazy person like this is all I’m going to do, I’m going to say no to everybody, I’m not going to take these trips, I’m not going to do this stuff … Yeah, I’m going to put my head down. I’m like big deal. You spend two years of your life, you put your head down, and you go like a crazy person. You try for three a month … Excuse me, try for four a month, you try to do one a week. But you’re like “I did three a week. What would that look like Jill?” So three deals a week for 24 months and you’re making $30,000 a deal period. You know what that is? That’s $2.16 million. Okay, wait a minute, say that again. This is how it went on the call. On our thing. Two years so 24 months, three deals a month making $30,000 a deal is $2.16 million. Come on. Okay. Jill, I can’t do that.

Steven Jack Butala:
What if you do half of that?

Jill DeWit:
That’s my point. Okay, you screw it all up. I averaged a deal and a half a month, okay? I went at it like a nutcase and I did a deal half a month. I did all this stuff, said no. Family was on board, they all understood. So what did I make? Over a million bucks. So it’s 1,500,000 whatever. Not even that. But anyway, you make a million bucks. So what. For me, that’s the whole point here.
My other point I wanted make today, that’s really important, since we’re talking big picture and comparing … Right now just stock market. I can’t think of any other avenue in real estate. We’re all [inaudible 00:30:41] money be made in real estate, right, we all know that check. So many people are still coming at this like I need to take out loans, I’ve got to get someone to back me because I want to do a flip. Well, these homes are getting more and more … I’m just comparing it to doing a $30,000 … Say you want to clear $30,000 on a house flip. For a lot of people that’s just fine, especially if they’re doing a house flip a month, they’re happy with those numbers. You can’t get started with the same cash we need, you need a couple hundred thousand dollars to come at that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, way more than that.

Jill DeWit:
You probably need $300,000.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, no, about 500.

Jill DeWit:
Minimum three to five, okay? Three to $500,000 to come at this to try to make 30,000, maybe 50,000 a deal on a house flip. You can’t. And most people, that knocks them out of real estate right there. And I feel bad, there’s some smart people out there. Not to mention, I’m not even comparing the time, and the energy, and the costs. Cut this in half. I’m doing my one-and-a-half deals a month to make a million dollars in two years. Well, shucks, I can do it … That from anywhere. I’m not tied to this project. I don’t care what storm rolled through town and ruined the roof with hail damage or whatever it is, fill in the blank, it’s land.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re not philosophically talking to you about what’s possible here, we’re telling you what happens to us every single year. Every year Jill and I make about … These are gross numbers without expenses and stuff. This is the difference between the prices that we pay for real estate and then what we sell it for. Between 2.5 And $3 million. If you average everything out for the most recent years it’s about $2.5. And so if you divide $2.5 million, we try to make a 100 grand. We don’t always but we try to. That’s 25 deals. That’s a couple deals a month. That’s two-

Jill DeWit:
That’s not all the we have going on but that’s a good thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what we do. We’re not holding anything back from you. We’re not doing something special that oh, well, let’s not tell them about that. Nothing like that happens. We tell you exactly what we do. We send out a ton of mail. I do my homework with pricing and trolling, and all of that, and Jill smashes it on the phone. A couple of weeks ago we were talking … There’s a huge issue with the perception of saturation out there in competition. I don’t know why this industry is … Well, I’m sure it’s because other groups that are popping up are saying that they’re having trouble with saturation. Well, I asked Jill several times, “Are you concerned about saturation?” And she said no over and over and over again. And neither am I.

Jill DeWit:
It’s like saying I’m sad … Worried about too many houses.

Steven Jack Butala:
I think in the back of a lot of people’s heads they just say, “Well, I don’t have” … They’re trying to get out of it. I heard a sentence a … A couple days ago, because I’m taking a different course on a completely unrelated scenario, and she said, “I mean, are you more comfortable doing something or nothing?” Because she’s very more comfortable doing something.

Jill DeWit:
That’s very sweet.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so if it’s easier for you to do nothing then this is not the podcast for you, it isn’t.

Jill DeWit:
But you know what? Put your head down for two years you can do nothing.

Steven Jack Butala:
You can put 30,000 bucks into the stock market and do nothing-

Jill DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
And get a return.

Jill DeWit:
True. I’m more happy doing something.

Steven Jack Butala:
I am too.

Jill DeWit:
What are you most happy doing? Let’s have a sidebar conversation.

Steven Jack Butala:
I like to diversify my activity.

Jill DeWit:
Are we back to second base?

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I love second base.

Jill DeWit:
That’s really good.

Steven Jack Butala:
I like being on a motorcycle these days.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
I love that, actually. Jill and I are about to embark on a three-month, maybe four-month RV trip-

Jill DeWit:
I’m planning for five.

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m very excited for that. Are you really?

Jill DeWit:
Because you know what? I did the math, we’re … I think potentially we could be gone for five months is what I was looking at.

Steven Jack Butala:
Are you excited?

Jill DeWit:
And I’m craving that. Oh my gosh, yes.

Steven Jack Butala:
So am I.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, yeah. That’s so fun.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re leaving it in three days. We’ll do the show from the road, you’ll see.

Jill DeWit:
Oh, it’ll be fun.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, we’ve got a bunch of interviews coming up but-

Jill DeWit:
It’ll be good, you’ll see us.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’ll see it sooner than later.

Jill DeWit:
It’ll be great.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, you have something inspirational to share with us.

Jill DeWit:
Yeah. You know what I want to talk about? It ties into what you just said about, are you more happy doing something or doing nothing. I’m more happy always doing something, obviously, I can’t sit still. What was I going to say? So for me, it ties into what I do in my free time which is, I’m always learning something. And I want to remind everyone the value of continued education. There’s this sweet couple that have been a part of Land Academy not that long and they’re like “Oh, we got this.” And they stopped showing up, they stopped being involved. I’m hearing little snippets of their struggling. And I’m like you know what? Because they’re not staying involved.
There’s always things that come, up even within our group. For me, I personally pick up and read all kinds of books on all kinds of topics but it all ties to building a business or being an entrepreneur or being better at something that we do. I love sales, that’s been my whole life, right? I will still pick up sales books, I will still go to sales things. I might pick up a little nugget, I don’t know. Doing things a little bit differently. I’m never going to stop. I’m always going to stop learning … I’m always going to stop … I’m always going to keep learning, that’s what I’m trying to say. I’m getting tripped on my own words here.
Even in Land Academy, this was a discussion recently. Even though you come into Land Academy, you watched it your first year, went off and did some mail, go back and rewatch it six months later, watch it a year later. Not even just our updated versions but the same version that we have. As someone very nicely said on our member call, you’re a different person now that you’re watching it. What you knew when you first watched this one year ago, and you’re watching now, you are so different. And what you’re going to pick up on is going to be different because of that too. I’m just reminding everyone, don’t let off the gas, don’t get too comfortable, and keep pushing and you’ll get better, and more efficient, and it’s just all going to get better.

Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s my inspiration and it was … I bled into it on the regular topic. Continuing education is imperative. I am much more comfortable doing something versus nothing. I used to race motorcycle, superbikes, back in the day, drag your knee on the ground but I’m much more into the dirt thing now. And so I’m going back into continuing education, like Jill is saying, just watching videos, and taking classes, and everything. And it occurred to me, and I didn’t even realize that I was doing this but … One of the courses that I’m taking said that if you get on your bike … It looks like there’s nothing going on when you watch somebody ride a motorcycle. But for me, what’s happening, especially in the dirt is every single turn that I’m taking, I … The next one I try to make it better somehow. I try to lose … Choose my line better, implement the gleaning techniques, and all that stuff so there’s a lot of mental things that are going on that I don’t think are apparent when you watch somebody else do it.
That’s continuing education, and I’ve been doing that since I started riding. Just try to become a better rider, trying to improve track time or dirt time, or get out there more, and all of that. You learn all about yourself, and what you’re capable of, and where your limits are. And this is no different. I’ve been watching CNBC for hours now because of this 40 … Because I’m just fascinated at the reactions of people and this 40,000-point milestone.

Jill DeWit:
Have we ever hit this before?

Steven Jack Butala:
Never.

Jill DeWit:
Oh.

Steven Jack Butala:
It is the first time ever.

Jill DeWit:
That’s it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Ever. And I don’t think it’s something to celebrate about, price-to-earnings.

Jill DeWit:
What do they to tie it to?

Steven Jack Butala:
So they spend a lot of time talking about that. And price-to-earnings ratios have never been higher also. So price-to-earnings means the price of the stock divided by the actual earnings for the same period or the period, however they defines it.

Jill DeWit:
Meaning the profit the person made, the profits.

Steven Jack Butala:
The profit that the company’s making. So Microsoft has a PE ratio and the price of the stock should be within a reasonable gap, within an acceptable earnings place. Theoretically can’t just have an amazingly high stock price with absolutely no income or no earnings, especially if it’s in a … In the point in its lifecycle. A company’s in its lifecycle where it should be throwing off some earnings like Apple or Microsoft or Ford or any of those companies. When you have a higher and higher and higher price-to-earnings ratio, it’s way more dangerous in my point … In my opinion, then having just a high stock price. It becomes a perception. The value of a stock becomes perceptional or with … More than it does reflecting the reality of the value of the stock. And that’s been going on for as long as I can remember. I remember when it hit 10,000 and everybody thought the world was going to end. People were talking about watching it hit 1,000 in the 80s … I think in the 70s when we were really young kids-

Jill DeWit:
Wow.

Steven Jack Butala:
And they thought then the world … And all kinds of stuff happened after that. We went off the gold standard, all kinds of crazy stuff. I don’t think this is a good thing but everybody seems to be really happy about it. I don’t know if it’s just clickbait or what. Probably some of that.

Jill DeWit:
You’ve been watching Jack and Jill on Money Matters. I’m just kidding.

Steven Jack Butala:
My big point, picture point is here … If you have control over how much money you buy a piece of real estate for, buy a piece of dirt and it’s way less than you’re going to turn around and sell it for two weeks later, where’s the risk in that?

Jill DeWit:
I know. This is why I hate the stock market, I have no control. I hate it. This is why I hate … I’m trying to think of so many other things. Well, I won’t do a terms … What am I trying to say? A wholesale deal. Those of you who know know what I’m talking about. I’m not going to take it into contract, try to go sell it, trust my buyer’s still going to … Or my seller’s still going to be there. Trust it’s all going to go okay. Trust the state will let me post the property for sale because I don’t own it, I just have an equitable title. I’m not going to mess around with that I’m going to buy the dumb thing.

Steven Jack Butala:
We’re here to reduce risk and reduce variables just like in a motorcycle seat. You don’t want to go into a turn all risky and with a ton of variables where you’re doing all kinds of stuff instead of just trusting your soul and utilizing the years and decades of experience that you have. That’s what you want.

Jill DeWit:
Totally.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t not know of any way to improve guessing at what stocks and what indexes to buy the way that we do now, the way that we do here.

Jill DeWit:
That’s good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode, you’re not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill. Information-

Jill DeWit:
And inspiration-

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.