How to Find Real Estate Deals 2021 | Direct Mail (LA 1511)
How to Find Real Estate Deals 2021 | Direct Mail (LA 1511)
Transcript:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Howdy.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny Paradise Valley, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about how to find real estate deals in 2021. So is it any different than 2020? Is it any different than 1960?
Jill K DeWit:
No. Well, probably. 1960 was probably a lot of knocking on doors back then, but it could have been done the same way.
Steven Butala:
Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It’s free. And if you’re already a member, please join us on Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
I’d like to talk about that here in a minute.
Steven Butala:
I will. I’ll ask you questions.
Jill K DeWit:
All right. Jordan wrote, “When you guys are looking at Land Watch and Land and Farm, do you pay attention to the listings from other sources? It seems like a lot of the properties on listings from other sources are always a lot cheaper and more reasonably priced.” Is that like on Zillow, where it’s like FSBO versus agent listings? I’m not even sure what that is.
Steven Butala:
Jordan, this is a brilliant question. There are alternative sources, which I love, alternative sources to look at real estate that’s for sale that’s posted because people like us and people like Land Academy members understand it. You don’t have to necessarily go through the MLS. So on Zillow, there’s a category called other, and you should study that. On Land Watch and Land and Farm, those two sites specifically encourage independent postings for property.
Jill K DeWit:
I thought the whole thing is that way.
Steven Butala:
The whole thing is not that way anymore. They have what’s called an IDX feed for each area, so-
Jill K DeWit:
They’re pulling it in from MLS. That’s taking away what it used to be.
Steven Butala:
Exactly. Exactly. It’s just those sites, not so much Zillow, although it’s true are all run by tech people in San Francisco and so they don’t really, truly understand-
Jill K DeWit:
They’re not investors. We happened to know that. We had a run in with them several years ago and they’re like, “We don’t really care who you are, what you do, or how much money you pay us every month. This is just the way it is.” I was like, “Okay, noted,” and then we’ve made our own site called LandPin.
Steven Butala:
Exactly.
Jill K DeWit:
So we don’t need you guys then fine.
Steven Butala:
But Jordan’s question is, is it pertinent to running data from a red, green, yellow test than from a.. Yeah. It’s pertinent. I would absolutely look at it. Would I throw it into your pool of data and then take averages out and price it that way? No, not at all, but I really would use it to see what kind of activities there are and all that. This is a very good question. Today’s topic, how to find deals in 2021. This is the meat of the show.
Jill K DeWit:
So I would like to talk about… I’m trying to think. So in 1960, I bet that was like the height in up and coming thing, was probably very classy and maybe they had the gold jackets back then. I don’t know. Was it century 21 when they had the gold jackets I think?
Steven Butala:
I can tell you from experience. I bought a house in the late eighties personally, or maybe it was very early nineties and when I sat down with a real estate agent and I…
Jill K DeWit:
There’s a book.
Steven Butala:
I put a yellow piece of paper, shoved a yellow pad and I said, “I drove the whole area where I want to buy a house, and these are all the addresses that have listings and here’s the listing.” I was creating my own MLS. I didn’t know anything about this stuff. I was a kid. And she looked at me and said, “Whatever you choose to do, be for your living for the rest of your life, you’re going to do great at it because no one does stuff like this.” And then she pulled out her big-
Jill K DeWit:
Book.
Steven Butala:
Her local phone book sized two inch MLS book for that month or that quarter and we proceeded to look up each of the listings that I had on my list and she showed me how much they were and, and all that. And I ultimately picked one and did the deal. And it took four months or whatever and a lot of phone work. There’s no such thing as computers at all, certainly not the internet, let alone computers that were usable for anything like this. Rewind to the seventies, it wasn’t even that. What it was, if somebody in the community who just… and this is before the seventies and before that, there’s no licensing back then and you just got to know everybody in the community because you’re busy body and you talk to people at bars and social events and said, “I know Sally Jones over here wants to sell a house and I know John Smith over here wants to buy one, so let’s get together at my kitchen table and maybe we’ll put the deal together. And what do you say I charge you a fee?” That’s how this whole thing started. And it was very useful back then, extremely useful. It’s hard for people to connect. They’re busy. They’re out farming and stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
I miss that. If it had continued that way where everybody was doing it for the right reasons, I would be in, like you’re hooking up people, you’re making sure this person gets the price they want, this person’s happy with the purchase price. They’re walking away with a home that they want. They needed the four bedrooms now and not the two bedrooms, whatever it was. That makes a lot of sense, instead of what I feel like and I feel bad. I don’t mean to bash. If you’re a real estate agent, I apologize, but you know who I’m talking about if it’s not you. It’s those people that all they do is care about getting a listing and move on and they don’t even really care. They just need to get that listing because now no matter what happens, they’re going to get that commission and they have show up. I know a few that are good. They actually do show up. They stage it. They do things. They make sure they try to sell the house, but I know a lot of them that don’t do that. They just like, “Man, move on.”
Steven Butala:
The vast majority just list the property and let it sell itself.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Butala:
I mean, I don’t know the numbers, but-
Jill K DeWit:
They aren’t even there to help show it or anything like that. It’s just a lockbox, go. They get out. They trust the other person. Their agent’s going to take care of it. And that’s it. They just wait for the phone call to say, “We have an offer. Great. Okay. I’m ready now. I’m all yours.”
Steven Butala:
And what’s changed about that in the last few years in my experience has been is they have this sense of entitlement that that’s their money. Even five or eight years ago, it wasn’t so much that. Five or eight years ago, you could say you’re a real estate agent and you kind of suck and they would say, “Yeah, I know. Most real estate agents suck.” Now it’s like, “Are you kidding me? I’m providing a service to you that is…”
Jill K DeWit:
Big heads now. They’re telling you how it’s going to go. What?
Steven Butala:
I’ll tell you why because they’re getting the National Association of Realtors, their whole business model is to collect to dues from other local associations, like the Scottsdale of Real Estate Association or Arizona Association of Realtors or whatever it ends up being. So it’s a trickle down, trickle up theory and make millions and millions and tens of millions of dollars in dues a month and they spend that money on changing people’s opinions, like consumers’ opinions on why realtors are needed and also changing the perception of the actual realtors themselves. And they do that in the form of continuing education. It’s total brainwashing.
Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Let’s fast forward to the topic today.
Steven Butala:
Well, you didn’t need a real estate agent back then to find a deal at all. That’s my point. That was my starting point.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay. So what’s interesting about finding real estate deals now in 2021, which I love, there are a lot of other things that are available. Now we have finding deals. Are they in social media? Yep. Because that’s where you post them for sale by the way. Can you do postcards to send out and find deals? You could. That’s going to be a lot of work. I’ll explain it here in a minute. Well, let’s talk about each one because this topic came with a list of things that our team wants to address and I’m happy to do that. So-
Steven Butala:
None of which have been addressed yet. You can tell by Jill’s tone.
Jill K DeWit:
No. They have. Okay. So where can you find deals? I need to find deals. I want to get into land investing. What do I do? Do I just put it on the social media and just put it out there? Hey, I want to buy your land. You could. Number one, but here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get everybody calling you back wanting retail. They’re not warmed up yet. They don’t know who you are. You don’t even know anything about the property. It’s going to be all over the place, maybe all over the country, all those people that’s going to call you. That’s going to be a nightmare. Two, postcards. Let’s say you take it to the next level. All right. I don’t want to do that because I don’t want to get everybody from all over anywhere. I mean, I know what I want to buy, so I’m just going to send out postcards to the people that own what I want to buy and just say, “Call me.”
Jill K DeWit:
Well, that’s great too. At least you’re going to have the focus group in the area that you send the postcards to, but they’re going to call you and it’s going to be a long discussion and negotiation. Trust me. They’re going to want retail. It’s going to take so much time and energy to maybe get a deal out of it. And even then it’s not going to be as good as what it could be. And then think about cold calling because I know people that still do this, especially because driving for dollars right now, I have asked this I’ve been in groups in other people’s conversations and I’ve said… and no one answered the question. No one had an answer. I’m like, “What are you guys doing when you used to drive for dollars and knock on doors?” You can’t do that because of COVID. Maybe it’s getting better now, but six months ago you don’t knock on anybody’s door let alone, even a pizza delivery. You drop the pizza and go, kind of thing. So you can’t do that. So I imagine there was a lot of cold calling. It’s the same thing as a postcard. Do you want to sell? Do you really want to do that? And I know people that do that. They have full companies and automated phone systems that they sit and call over and over and you can interrupt me and say something.
Steven Butala:
I will when you’re done. You’re on a roll. I’m not writing a note to you. I’m writing it to myself.
Jill K DeWit:
Cold calling, again what you’re opening up is the possibility of a long conversation with a lot of people that aren’t really going to sell and especially not at your prices. So what’s left huh? Who knew direct mail is still a great, the best… Trust me. Again, we’ve tested this stuff. Or I know people that have done them unsuccessfully, then I’m like, “Not going there,” ways to find deals. And here’s why direct mail is still the number one and the best way to find a deal because you’re getting your deal. Number one, it’s professional by the way. You’re not scaring anyone answering the phone and conveniencing them, knocking on their door, sending a postcard that’s going to get thrown away like a pizza coupon. It’s a professional letter to the specific seller that’s personalized, letting them know who you are, what you want to buy, and how much you want to spend. And now you have just the right people that open your letter, look you up, think about your offer, calling you back. Go.
Steven Butala:
Here’s what I think this topic’s about. And here’s what I think our staff is trying to address. Our staff gives us these topics so that they don’t have to answer the same question 62 times a day. And here’s what I think is really happening. I don’t remember where I was. It doesn’t matter. And somebody asked me what I did for a living, somebody who was way younger than me. And I said, “We buy land and then we resell it for more.” And so like many young men, he’s got this smart ass like, “Haha. That’s really funny. What do you really do?” And I said, “That’s what we do.” And he’s like, “Well, how do you do that? How do you find property that’s cheap enough to resell,” and it’s not their fault.
Steven Butala:
They just don’t know what’s out there. They’re young and so they’re very in tune the apps to do things and the up to date technology because that’s what kids are. When we were kids, we had the latest stuff, latest record players and the latest whatever. So to which I said, “Oh yeah, we send a ton of offers out in the mail.” And again with the smirk, “Haha that’s great grandpa, but that’s not how you… your time’s coming.” To which I said, “What’s a better way? Talk to me like your grandfather. That’s what they say.” Email, you can’t do it because you can’t associate an email-
Jill K DeWit:
Text message. Try again.
Steven Butala:
You can’t associate an email address with a geographic location. If you can, please email me immediately. I would like to know about it.
Jill K DeWit:
And my geographic location.
Steven Butala:
Number two, text messaging. You can associate text messages. There are data companies out there, which Jill and I own a company called Neighbor Scoop and you can get people’s phone numbers based on their mailing address or the where their tax bill goes. You cannot without consent text somebody anything. You can’t text “I love you” to somebody without consent.
Jill K DeWit:
I accept those messages from you all the time and I love them.
Steven Butala:
We’re consensual.
Jill K DeWit:
Thank you. Those are good text messages I get too, by the way.
Steven Butala:
So we can go through this and on and on and on. So we can post an ad in Craigslist. Yep. That’s legal because whoever responds to it, that’s their problem. And now these things are coming out, like Offer Pad. So if you watch television, which no one in that generation does-
Jill K DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven Butala:
Whoever watches TV are people that are older like us or older than us actually. And so you get an ad on TV that says, “If you want to sell your house, go onto something called Offer Pad, type in your stuff and we’ll give you an offer.” And so what ends up happening with that business model is exactly the same thing that happens with sending out postcards, I type in, “Yeah, I do want to sell my house for $1.8 million,” and you and I both know it’s worth 180. So that leaves direct mail. And because of the way… this is my opinion now, the way the government is and the US post office and how there’s the legal things that have to happen to protect people who can’t afford things, you have to send out a water bill. Those laws are not going to change. Legislators do not make laws that are not in favor of people who can’t afford stuff.
Jill K DeWit:
True. Like a computer and email or a cell phone.
Steven Butala:
And legislators love anti-spam laws. Now this kid’s jaws on the ground while I’m giving him a lecture. It turns out old people aren’t as stupid as everybody thinks.
Jill K DeWit:
You’re not old.
Steven Butala:
When you’re younger-
Jill K DeWit:
When you’re 23-
Steven Butala:
If you ask somebody who’s 19 how old I am, they would probably say like, “You’re like 78.”
Jill K DeWit:
I don’t ask anybody that question, especially people younger than me.
Steven Butala:
So how do you find real estate deals in 2021? And then in parentheses, we couldn’t put it in the title that you can actually buy and resell for more, direct mail. And there’s a certain way to do it that really works and that’s not going away. Won’t go away in our lifetime. That’s my opinion.
Jill K DeWit:
Happy you could join us today. Five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy Show, well, it’s Jack Thursday, DataTree versus Real Quest versus TitlePro. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. They give me the non-fun topics.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, you’re the guy. That’s what you like.
Steven Butala:
There’s three types of data, three huge companies that provide data. They’re the ones I just listed and I’ll talk about the differences of them.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. You like that stuff. By the way, if you need access to any sort of ownership or property details, including owner phone numbers, yes, I did say phone numbers and FEMA flood map overlays, we’ve been watching the news and that’s important too, check out neighborscoop.com, created by investors, that’s us for investors like you.
Steven Butala:
We’re Steve and Jill.
Jill K DeWit:
We’re Steve and Jill.
Steven Butala:
Not interesting-
Jill K DeWit:
And understanding to buy undervalued property.
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