Investors Newsletter – Volume 16
Thank you for FIVE YEARS of Land Academy!
WOW! This month (July 31st, to be exact) marks five years since Land Academy was released. That’s huge, and we couldn’t be more grateful for every second of it. We’ve learned so much, and could have never imagined that this community would have grown to be what it is today. We love working alongside you, doing joint deals, and just watching everything you all accomplish.
Our group truly embodies what we all know to be true – we’re better together. Here’s to the next five years!
Don’t forget to catch us LIVE on our Facebook next Wednesday, July 23rd, at 3 pm PT. We’ll be celebrating our fifth anniversary, giving away a free Land Academy program (more on that below), and more! We have all kind of special surprises and announcements – and more importantly – a ton of investment information to share with you.
Check out our Facebook Groups (LAND) (HOUSES) to connect with like-minded investors, ask questions, create partnerships, and more!
There is a very specific tool set and data scrubbing process required to make this work effectively and consistently.
Here is what has worked for us after refinement since 1999:
1) DATA: Get the data from Real Quest Pro. Its the most comprehensive data-set available and costs about 8 cents per downloaded record. Every county is in the same format so you only need to learn once.
2) OFFERS: Complete a Mail Merge and mail an offer with a specific price and time to respond. Sign the offer and ask that the owner sign and return the offer.
3) PRICING: Scrub the data for property type and remove any and all properties with liens including mortgages (at any LTV). For land, use assessed value and APN scheme to create an equation to price each property individually. For SFRs, use an APN scheme based price per square foot.
This stuff helps also:
4) ORGANIZATION: Get organized before you send out your first campaign. It is imperative to have a functioning website with professionally shot pictures of yourself on the front page to make yourself “human”. Hire an established, U.S. based service to answer the phone, live 24/7, with a script. Return every call personally. Sellers research you before they pick up the phone.
5) CASH BUYER: Make it clear in the offer that you are a cash buyer and will close within 30 days and will waive all contingencies. Leave yourself “an out” in the agreement. Send the message that seller gets a check for X in Y days, with no funny business and make good on the promise if the asset fits your criteria. If it does not, be respectful of the seller and let them know very quickly. Loans, agents, inspectors, contingencies, access, lawyers, and disrespect for a sellers, all kill deals. It should be you (buyer), title agent/notary, and seller closing the deal; three parties total who are on the same page.
6) YOUR BUYER: Know who will buy the asset from you before you purchase. For houses, find a reputable flipper. For land, find a retailer. For commercial, find an Acquisition VP for a REIT or equity group. All three of these groups live and die by the pricing of their acquisitions and desperately want to hear from you. Make them say some version of this sentence; “If I had 4 houses in 85258 for less than $80 per square foot before renovation, I could clear $100K.” Then send well planned, well executed offers $10K below that flipper’s $80/foot price.
7) MARGIN: Always make way less than your buyer and fully disclose how much you are making. On SFRs cap your take at $10K. On land, double your money, no more.
Commercial is less consistent. You will have buyers for life after the first set of deals.
8) DON’T BE an IDIOT: Be an intelligent, fun, and consistent person to work with. When your sellers/buyers hear your name or know you are calling them, make them want to speak with you.
THE FOLLOWING KILLS MAILER YIELD:
Postcards, yellow letters, letters of interest, hand written letters, mailing without using a bulk mail service, sending less than 1,500 units at a time, sending mail to specific groups of owners; absentee owners, back tax properties, foreclosure properties, probate properties, and general lack of respect for a seller like “this is your final warning, we will foreclose.”
All these antics generate exactly what senders are looking for: problematic sellers with problematic real estate and tire kickers. Get signed offers back in the mail instead.
Forget the property itself, you are looking for a situation. A perfectly good slice of real property where the seller, for one of many reasons, wants to sell that day.
Every morning, let them come to you, don’t go out looking for them. It’s inefficient and after two weeks, really good “would-be” real estate investors get discouraged.
A Message From the Offers2Owners Team
Last Month Numbers:
Offers Mailed: 360,190
Properties Purchased: 883+
Data Pulled: 293,684
Ready to send your next mailer?
Smart Pricing Service is now available with your Land or House Academy Membership! Send us your SFR lists and get them priced for $0.10 per line of data!
Last Month’s Numbers –
Offers Mailed: 360,190
Properties Purchased: 883+
Data Pulled: 293,684
Having trouble with the new Document Dashboard? Take a look at our Resources to find the new O2O How To Videos!
These will bring you information on the most common mistakes some of our members have and how to have your documents ready for merging and or printing.
Want to win a free Land Academy program?!
As part of our month of celebration of five years of Land Academy, we decided to hold a contest to give away a free Land Academy program and your first month of membership for $1!*
Here are the details –
This contest is open to all, and runs between now and July 21st at 5 pm PT. Winner will be chosen in a random drawing.
To win, you need to complete each of the following four steps.
- Leave a comment on this video telling us why you want to join Land Academy. (CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO) NOTE: All steps take place on the same video.
- Like this video.
- Share this video on Facebook.
- Send an email to support@landacademy.com with your full name letting us know that you completed all steps when you’re finished!
See you on Wednesday July 22nd to announce the winner LIVE (+ a ton of other surprises!)
*(Following months will be billed at the normal amount)
Podcast Corner
This week, we’re doing podcasts that highlight our last five years. Make sure you check in daily to hear what we’re talking about next!
| Editing Photos and Videos for Your Land Listing |
| Many people searching on the internet for products to buy will either make their decision based on reviews or visuals. The one factor that we can control is the visual portion of our land listings. When buyers are looking at photos of land, most of the time they are envisioning themselves either living on the land, doing an activity on the land or etc. These buyers will gravitate to images that catch their eyes. Not only do you want photos and videos to be taken, but you should also want the photos and videos to be edited. When editing you can ultimately make your content stand out, by making colors pop or removing imperfections. |
| Here are some tools that you can use to edit photos: Adobe Photoshop Adobe Lightroom Pixlr Canva Here are some tools that you can use to edit videos: Adobe Premiere Pro Nero Video Apple iMovie Apple Final Cut Pro |
Member Updates
As a Land Academy member, you get a great discount on MLS listings through Congressrealty.com! On any West Coast listing, if you mention Land Academy, your listing will automatically get upgraded for free. That’s a $150 saving.
The upgrades for LA members are:
- Additional photos at no cost.
- Phone Forwarding at no cost.
- Adding Zillow Enhancements at no cost and publishing the seller phone # on Zillow
- 2-year listing period instead of 6 months.
- The seller can cancel at any point with no penalty.
- Any state-approved land purchase agreements, disclosures, etc.. are included.
If you are working on the East Coast, an MLS flat fee lister Jill recommends is brokerdirectmls.com.
Get Your Questions Answered!
Schedule 30 min consulting calls with our very own Moderator Kevin Farrell! Members can schedule a 30 min call with Kevin by going to LandAcademy under tools or looking on the right-hand side of LandInvestors.
For just a $100 you can pick Kevin’s brain, from deal reviews to where to start with your land business.
Just click the link below and schedule your call today!
Have Suggestions for Membership?
- Is there a site or tool you use that you think we should add?
- Want us to develop a certain type of tool?
- Is there something missing from our current sites that you want added?
- Have specific content ideas?
We’re all ears! We’re always adding to membership and improving on what we always have, and we know that you have great ideas!
You can always email us at support@landacademy.com with any suggestions or ideas.
Marketing Tips
What Statistics You Can See with Google Analytics?
Google Analytics allows you to view multiple statistics about your website visitors. Many of these statistics should be used to adjust your marketing plan and branding. For example, if you recently purchased a property in Arizona and have marketed it to only people in Arizona, but Google Analytics shows that a large amount of visitors are in New Mexico, you may also want to take into account those visitors in New Mexico and target them. Here is a list of statistics you can see by adding Google Analytics pixel to your website.
- Traffic sources (You can see if traffic is coming from Facebook, a direct Google search, and any other website)
- Amount of traffic (You can see how much traffic you are getting per day)
- Demographics (You can see the different statistics on your visitors’ age and gender)
- Devices differences (You can see the number of users using computers, tablets and cellphones when visiting your site)
- Popular pages (You can see what pages are most popular to website visitors)
- Bounce rate (You can see the percentage and length of time of how long people stay/leave your website)
- New Users vs Old Users (You can see how many new users visit your site per day and how many old users keep coming back to your site)
- Real time (You can see all the items listed above in real time)
– Marketing Team
Land Academy: Real Estate Investing (Land Academy)
House Academy: Real Estate Investing (House Academy)
Offer2Owners: Offers2Owners Group
This month’s question came from Joe over on LandInvestors.
Hello, my name is Joe. I’m 28 years old, married and no kids. New to this site and learning about land investing. I’m very interested. This is definitely something I want to do. However, I don’t know really the best path to take at this point in my life. I have a decent paying job, but I hate it. I’m just not getting to where I can make a change. I either want to go to college or go back into the military. Now that I have found this, I’m not sure if I should focus on getting a better career first and then working toward investing in land, or just use the job I have now to save and get started.
Check out Steven and Jill’s answer HERE.
Check out Joe’s question HERE. Make sure you read the answers from our community – we love to hear their valuable input!
| Our Member Spotlight this month is Laurie Phillips! Laurie will complete her first year as an investor and Land Academy member this coming this October. Despite being a “newer” member, Laurie has completely blown us away with how she has applied the Land Academy program and truly made it her own. You can find her actively helping people on Landinvestors.com. Her best advice is to educate yourself, call the counties and escrow companies. Check out her podcast to hear her talk with Steven and Jill about how she went full force in the land business and has grown her business dramatically. Listen to her interview with Steven and Jil HERE. |
If you aren’t a member yet – why not? We would love to have you “in our corner.” Visit LandAcademy.com for more information on joining or to schedule a call with our team.
If you want an opportunity to attend one of the weekly closed member calls to get a taste of what we’re about, send an email to support@landacademy.com
