This is Episode 2092, and we are talking about reviewing the properties that come back, the houses that come back from a mailer taking a look from an acquisition standpoint, and then purchasing the ones that fit your criteria.

Is it like we are going to talk about due diligence for houses?

Specifically next year 2025, because next year’s going to change. The real estate market is changing very rapidly. There’s a lot more property on the market. It’s not selling the way that it used to. Mortgage rates are pretty horrifically high and so you are going to get a lot of properties back that you would not have gotten back a few years ago, and we’ll talk about it. Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular request.

How Many Mailers Does It Take To Buy Rural Vacant Land?

Sylvia wrote, “What is everyone’s take on how much mail is being sent to landowners and how many mailers it takes to buy a good parcel? Even the other day, yesterday, or the day before, I can’t remember what it was. One other person said, “There are 1 or 2 and 10”

What do you mean?

Though that was probably when he got some, now he’s scrubbing down his ten from the people who call back. I’m going to say, to buy a good parcel.

I don’t think this is what she meant.

How many mailers does it take to buy a good parcel? How many offers do you need to send?

How much mail is being sent to landowners and how many mailers does it take to buy a good property? What I read in this is there’s a lot of mail being sent out.

A lot of people are doing it wrong, and a lot of people are gunking it up. That’s where you have to be good and be on your game. There are little things you can do. Like answering the phone. No, people mess it up. If you answer the phone and you are pleasant, you are real, and following through and doing everything, they are going to forget about those other people. This is not new to 2024, everyone. This has been going on.

If you answer the phone at all, you are in the 80th or 90th percentile. If you answer the phone well, you are in the 95th to 98th percentile.

This is partially our fault. When I say our fault, your fault.

Why? What did I do? This is classic relationship stuff. I’m sitting here happily answering questions.

Do you know why? Let me tell you why. It’s because several years ago, I know you were doing this and maybe one other person didn’t learn from you, and had you both kept your mouth quiet, you would still be the only two doing this but no. It’s a good idea to share this with the planet.

It turns out you are right.

Why Steven and Jill Decided to Share Their Real Estate Secrets

Thank you. It is a good thing that we share with the planet because you know why. We talked about this even as we decided to get into the education space and share our secrets, if you will, how we built this business and everything to where we are. We talked about it like, are we shooting ourselves in the foot? Are we going to create too much competition?

Do you think we shot ourselves in the foot?

No, I don’t.

Neither do I. We make more money now than we ever have.

We had to talk. We wouldn’t have done this if we didn’t believe that. How do I know this? Now and then, we have the same conversation at least once a year, and I talk to someone about this. I did one-on-one coaching with a woman in a very affluent part of Texas, and I said, “You do know, with your experience and what you are doing right now, you could hang your hat for the rest of your career in this county alone. You would never need to go outside this county,” because she’s doing all kinds of properties. She’s doing land, houses, both, and hopefully mobiles too. We talked about all of them. Back to the question. For me a couple thousand. I don’t need that much. I could do it with a couple hundred, but go ahead.

I’m going to answer this question with facts because it’s on everybody’s mind. This is why I chose this question. There’s a bunch of mail being sent out. How many mailers does it take to get a good property?

How many licks does it take to get to the center licks of a Tootsie Roll pop?

Relationship status: licks.

How many licks does it take? That’s awful. I’m sorry. I am sure the children in the backseat right now did not get that.

Let’s face the facts here. There’s a lot of mail being sent out, more than there ever has been, to buy land all over the country. The amount of mail that is required to get a good property has increased. These are all facts. Anybody who’s reading this, this is not new news. The real question is how to change your business. How you are responding and dealing with your business to address these issues. It’s a level playing field. Everybody’s dealing with it like Jill and I are right involved in that.

“What do you do? How much does it take?” I sent out properties when I started this, where I sent out offers for $500. I would buy 10, 15, or 20 properties a week. We couldn’t process it fast enough. We had to do paperwork processing. I had a deed-sending day, and it was 2 inches thick of deeds. Were those the good old days? No, they weren’t. They had presented a whole other challenge and a bunch of other stuff.

The truth is, these are the good old days for us, and they will be because it’s easier now. After all, it’s easier and there are two of us, not just one. “Does it take more mail to have a meaningful conversation?” No, what it takes is answering the phone differently. Everybody’s obsessed with this. They are obsessed with, “Is it too crowded? Is it over? Did I miss it? Did I miss the party?”

There’s always going to be challenges. That’s the whole thing, too. The challenges that we had several years ago are different from the challenges several years ago, and this is a challenge. Guess what, several years from now, we are going to have different challenges. You power through.”I got to send more mail.” Fine. “I got to come up with something else.” Fine.

Challenges will always evolve—what we faced 10 years ago is different from five years ago, and today brings its own hurdles. Power through, because new challenges will always come, and so will new opportunities. Share on X

I have to enlist a cold-calling service. Maybe there’s all kinds of stuff.

I do follow up. I had to replace the staff person with somebody that could answer the phone or would answer the phone.” I don’t know.

The Challenges Of Buying And Selling Real Estate

There’s something about this business and we’ll get onto the topic in a second here because we are going to run out of time. There’s something about buying and selling real estate that people believe the world believes that you do not need to have any patience or education, or it’s easy. It’s what the National Association of Realtors has led us all to believe that you are going to get your real estate license. You don’t have to be smart. You don’t even have to have graduated from the 10th grade.

You need to look good, know some people, and be slick and talk. Then you can do it part-time. You only have to work a couple hours a day, a couple hours a week. You are going to do a couple of deals and make a hundred grand a year. This is not how this is. The underlying question here is, “How much of a pain in the but is it for me? How hard do I have to work because I don’t want to work that hard?” I want you to tell me how many mailers I have to send out. Maybe I will answer the phone that day, maybe I won’t, and I expect to make some money. That is my take on what’s happening in this world.

That was heavy.

I didn’t ask the question. I answered. If you are offended by this, this is not the show for it.

Jack’s relationship status is reviewing and assessing my take on the world.

First relationship status pulling in a timeout.

How To Review And Price Houses From Mailers

It’s true. Day 4 in our 5-day series here on how to flip a house without renovations going into 2025, and we are talking about what Jack is going to share with us, reviewing and pricing the houses, your mailer for acquisition, and purchasing the ones that fit your criteria.

When a property comes back or the person calls Jill on the phone, and says, “I do accept your offer. I’m happy to sell it,” what’s the next step? Well, “Thanks, Mrs. Smith. We are going to take your address. We are going to schedule a time for our people, our boots on the ground but we don’t call it that to the seller to meet with you. Then we are going to have an inspector walk through the house and make sure that everything’s okay. The water heater works. Okay. Is that something good? Yes.

There are 1 of 2 things that happen at that point. In general, it all checks out. The inspection goes well, the seller doesn’t change their mind, and you buy the property. You make sure that the offer you sent out in the mailer that they signed off on still works. There’s a chance you mispriced it. There’s a chance the asset is a little bit messier than you thought, but in general, for us, that doesn’t happen.

Why You Need A Pipeline Of Deals When Buying Houses

What could happen and this is why you need to have a pipeline full of deals, this is the whole point of this topic is that they might change their mind. Their sister-in-law became a licensed real estate agent and talked them out of it. There’s a lot of stuff, and that’s where Jill comes in, where she has a relationship with them and says, “That’s great. You changed your mind. You won’t get paid until six months from now in this market instead of on Friday like you would with us.”

I have another secret weapon. I was thinking about this because I was writing something. We are interviewing for boots-on-the-ground people to help us with this in other areas right now. I was writing out the steps of the process. What you want to do is get a signed purchase agreement back, and open escrow like normal so lock it in. Now we are doing the inspection, and we are doing those things because you can still adjust if you need to while in escrow and you can still back out. A lot of people don’t know that. You can open escrow and change the price. Don’t be that guy. You don’t want to go into it doing that, but if there’s some big circumstantial thing, yes, you sure can. Number two, you can open escrow and change your mind, and it’s okay.

You can open escrow and change your mind, and it's okay. Share on X

When an inspection comes back and says there are 82 things wrong with the house, everybody including the seller has to understand that things are going to change based on that. The point I want to deliver here is valuing these houses. The mailer went out at a price where the actual retail value of the house if it’s $300,000 and you offered $250,000, that’s going to be checked out most of the time. To make triple sure, what we do and what you should do is when it comes back, you look at the price you offered.

It’s important to value these houses accurately, ensuring the mailer reflects a price that aligns with the actual retail value of the property. Share on X

You look at all the comps, the comparative values, right around the immediate vicinity. This is what makes buying houses so much easier statistically and data-wise than land. Make sure the houses adjacent to the house and the houses on the block that are comparable are cheaper. You are as much cheaper as you want to be.

If you have ten properties, if you send out 10,000 letters, about a hundred people are going to respond. About 10 to 20% of those, maybe 10% of those people that’s 10 are going to have a real serious interest in selling half of those deals are going to work. Other things start to happen. Maybe they’ve got a mortgage on it. You didn’t know that all kinds of stuff. Now you are looking at 5 properties and 5 sellers. You want to make sure that stuff works. You do not want to look at one property and try to make it work. You want to take those 5 and choose the best 1 or 2.

That was perfect. Thank you.

Next time we’ll talk about representing the asset once you purchase it on the internet to sell it for more. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.

We are Jack and Jill.

Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.