Jill’s Confused about Our Accountants Email (LA 1560)
Jill’s Confused about Our Accountants Email (LA 1560)
Transcript:
Steven J Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hi.
Steven J Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
I’m the patient one sitting next to the impatient one. My name is Jill Dewit and we’re broadcasting from awesome Arizona.
Steven J Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about why is Jill confused about our accountant’s email?
Jill DeWit:
Good. Don’t say anything. I’m going to read you what we wrote in a few minutes, and then I’m going to read you what his response was. I went, “What the heck is this all about? It’s interesting. We’ll talk all about it.
Steven J 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. If you’re already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord.
Jill DeWit:
John wrote, I’m curious how others may approach pricing this situation, small county with only two zip codes. Good, not great market. Has a lake, but the lake doesn’t appear to influence home values. Only doing less than one acre lots. Here’s what I’m trying to square up. Medium home values are between 200,000 and 250,000 and Zillow searches reinforced that pricing.
Jill DeWit:
The Kelly treats most of the lots, like they’re worth a couple of beers and not much more, except for a handful of properties that they think are worth between 60 and $70,000. Nothing vacant is currently for sale. Taxes seemed to have no relation to valuation of properties. One lot sold in the past year for $10,000. Would you price off of the homes and risk over pricing? Price off of the county and offer people wide range of prices and negotiate your way to deals or price off that one sold comp and then negotiate each deal?
Steven J Butala:
This is a brilliant question. How should I price something when I have no real data? How can I make a business decision without any real data? Not just for land, but anything, because all decisions should be made on …
Jill DeWit:
Real information.
Steven J Butala:
Empirical data and not emotion. That’s exactly what John is doing here. By the way, there’s lots of Johns in our group. This one really knows what he’s doing. You know who you are. I love testing new markets like this. If nothing’s been purchased or sold or recorded, nobody’s there doing anything.
Steven J Butala:
This is what I want you to do, I want you to go in there and just crush the price so low it’s silly. There’s going to be a bunch of low hanging fruit. Just get it all on that first run. There’s a chance that you price it way too low and it’ll bust. I haven’t experienced that, neither has Jill, and most people … I’d bet John, you haven’t either. I don’t think anyone has had it just completely failed.
Jill DeWit:
I argue.
Steven J Butala:
Mailer.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to argue off failed mailers. It’s usually not the mailer, it’s something wrong with an area or something.
Steven J Butala:
You got $200,000 houses on smaller lots, less than an acre. I would go in and just start offering five to $8,000 just across the board for both zip codes and see what happens. It probably bites. This is what usually happens when I do this, we buy two or three, four properties, maybe. Hopefully the data set’s big. If it’s a thousand unit dataset, now, that’s a little scary. But, if you’ve got eight or 8,000, let’s say, vacant properties, I’d go in across the board. Forget about the lake. Go in across the board, in at $10,000, maybe 8,000, maybe seven or whatever pricing scheme you come up with. You’re going to buy a few most likely, hopefully a few more. Then, you’re going to find out where that magic … by the way, you’re operating all by yourself here. Nobody’s doing anything else.
Steven J Butala:
You’re going to find out where that threshold is. There’s a threshold in every single market. I think it’d make a lot of sense, then, to send out a second mailer, add some money to the price and see what happens. That’s the best case scenario. Again, you’re running by yourself. You’re probably going to do a ton of deals here. There’s a small chance that there’s some unknown that we don’t know about. This just happened in West Virginia for Jill and I, that all the properties there are owned by …
Jill DeWit:
It’s an undivided interest.
Steven J Butala:
Undivided interest issue, and so there’s a chance of that, but there’s always a chance that you’ll miss something. Every mailer, there’s a chance, which almost never happens.
Jill DeWit:
It’s okay.
Jill DeWit:
I love these markets too, where I don’t have a lot of competition. I do look at no comps as not a bad thing because, if there’s no comps, no one really knows what to even ask for selling their property. But they all know if the guy down the street sold one acre for half a million dollars, they all know about that one. Nevermind it was on a corner and it had a pad …
Steven J Butala:
You could see Alaska.
Jill DeWit:
And it’s commercial and it already had a well, whatever it was. It’s paved with a beautiful driveway, something like that. They all know the numbers. They don’t think about what was there. It’s kind of funny. It as a Starbucks next door, you know what I mean?
Steven J Butala:
Starbucks, that would lower the price.
Jill DeWit:
Well, you know,
Steven J Butala:
Here’s what I don’t want you to do, nothing. You’ve come down the path this far, you’ve asked this question and chances are by the time were reading this and when this airs …
Jill DeWit:
The mail already went out.
Steven J Butala:
You’re already doing deals there.
Jill DeWit:
Keep us posted.
Steven J Butala:
This is more for everybody else than you.
Jill DeWit:
It’s good.
Steven J Butala:
Today’s topic, Jill’s confused about our accountant’s email. This is why you’re listening.
Jill DeWit:
Okay, this is what happened. Steven sent this email yesterday. I’m going to read you the email, then I’m going to read you the response that came back to us this morning. I opened up my email. I read this and I went, “What?”
Steven J Butala:
This guy’s been my accountant since the early nineties. [inaudible 00:05:54] I love this guy. He’s a great accountant for what we do.
Jill DeWit:
It was like, “Hi, Bob. I own a company called Land Academy where we teach other people what we do with land. They’re asking a ton of questions about taxes and LLCs and corporate setup. Do you have any interest in fielding questions from them on one of our webinars and most likely picking up a bunch of new, potentially out-of-state, tax clients? Thanks, Steven.” His response this morning, “Thank you for thinking of me, but I’m winding down and not taking on any new clients.” He’s 15 years younger than us. What the heck? Are we overpaying him? I don’t think so. Who says that?
Steven J Butala:
Jill just fell out of her chair.
Jill DeWit:
He’s in his … Bob, we’ll go with, he’s in his forties, right?
Steven J Butala:
I think he is 40.
Jill DeWit:
Barely, that’s right. They have little kids, probably had a baby a year ago. I’m like, “What the heck? What?” It prompted this discussion as we started to have this on the couch today … We actually have a couch in our bedroom. We’re sitting on a couch in the bedroom and talking and I just went into, “What’s the mindset behind this?” Like who says, “No, I’m good. We’re done.” Because, it’s not us. It’s not most of Land Academy, I think. Maybe the people that I hang out with. I’m really confused by this mindset. Can you please enlighten me?
Steven J Butala:
Well, here’s what Jill’s really saying. She doesn’t stop and neither do I. We’re not going to stop. We’re going to launch multiple new products this year. It’s what? July, almost August? We have two, maybe three new products ready to launch this year. We’ve already launched probably three and it’s just not going to stop. We’re not going to stop. I don’t know what the top … Here’s what I really think is going on with him, because I’ve known him for … I was his first client, his very first client.
Jill DeWit:
And we’re going to be his last client, it sounds like.
Steven J Butala:
For some reason, he’s, I’m sure from a number standpoint, figured it out where I’m sure his house is paid off. His kids’ education is funded. He’s got several people, I know, because I speak with them every year, under him that are very capable tax accountants. I think he’s probably hit some number in his head where he’s making a certain amount of money a month and he’s done. That’s it. Maybe his priorities, now, are, “I’m collecting all this money. Other people are doing these tax returns. There’s 10, 15, 20 clients that I really take care of, us included fortunately and that’s it. I’m going to let the people under me do the real work.”
Jill DeWit:
I would think that they would grow the business … That they would, then, take over and grow the business, which is really kind of interesting.
Steven J Butala:
I would set up one or two special people, Land Academy people like Philippines have done for us and like [PATLive 00:08:59] has done for us, without us even asking and see this as a real … not a lot of work and …
Jill DeWit:
A revenue stream.
Steven J Butala:
Taking on a highly educated group of people, which is what Land Academy is, educated about what they want, what they expect, and they’re good customers. I mean, we create very good customers for all these vendors. He just said, no, Nope.
Jill DeWit:
It’s the funniest thing. I’m like, “Are you seriously turning down money?” I’m so confused.
Steven J Butala:
I’m going to quote my high school football coach, again.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, good.
Steven J Butala:
You can either get better tomorrow than you are today or you can get worse, but you can’t stay the same. I think that’s a weight Watchers quote too. You either had a negative calorie day today or a positive calorie one, but it’s not zero.
Jill DeWit:
That is not a Weight Watchers quote.
Steven J Butala:
It’s my Weight Watchers quote.
Jill DeWit:
I said, I’d go back to Weight Watchers.
Steven J Butala:
I went out to lunch. Jill and I went out to lunch with this guy we’ve known for … I’ve known him for 30 years, probably.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve known him for a decade.
Steven J Butala:
He’s our parents’ age and he’s a total foodie and I’m not, especially at lunch. I’m not going to choose a wine at lunch. I’m not going to drink anything at lunch. I have a bunch of work to do. He takes us to these places once in a while, because we’re back here in Phoenix and it’s a culinary event.
Jill DeWit:
I’m very happy that I get to do this now when I’m with him.
Steven J Butala:
Every single time I sit down, I’m like, “Yeah, this is not going to be a negative calorie day.” I accept it and I’m probably just going to go into this and get a cannoli at the end of it, which is what happened last time.
Jill DeWit:
Which we did.
Steven J Butala:
Nobody has a negative calorie day with cannoli. That’s what this … I fear that he’s not … Hopefully he’s growing, somehow, through his staff and he’s not just saying, “Nah, I’m good.”
Jill DeWit:
I wouldn’t understand turning down new clients. Here’s the bottom line for me, I know there’s people out there that just set out to do … I just want to do X, pay off my mortgage. Like you said, pay for my kids’ college. Get my little dream property. That’s really kind of all I wanted to do. The mindset … because I’m working with so many people that are like me now, I kind of forgot that that exists. How’s that? There’s a lot of people out there that are really like that and that’s great. I’m not wired that way and I’m so confused by it.
Steven J Butala:
Me either, man. I’m not wired that way either. The light switch is on or off for me and it’s on for both of us, right now, for the next few years. Next several years.
Jill DeWit:
It’s always been on for me.
Steven J Butala:
Me too.
Jill DeWit:
Man, when I was stuck in a W2 job, all I could think about is trying to find opportunities. How could I do this? How could I make more money? How can I … whatever it is and get bigger and better. It’s funny.
Steven J Butala:
Right on the same page about that.
Jill DeWit:
Thank you.
Steven J Butala:
This won’t end because I will now get to the bottom of what the hell is going on.
Jill DeWit:
It’s funny, we know plenty of other people that use the R word. We will never … the R word, meaning retirement. We’re not those people. I will be doing something different. I will be working on different projects. I will maybe find better ways to get more travel time or something, but I’m still going to be moving forward. It’s too rewarding, too many people to help, too many more deals out there, forever. I live off the adrenaline. If you shut this down for both of us, I hate to think what would happen. If we stopped working right now, what would our life expectancy go to? You know what I mean?
Steven J Butala:
We’d probably just yell about everything and just be miserable. I don’t look at this as work.
Jill DeWit:
Nope.
Steven J Butala:
There’s a component of this …
Jill DeWit:
This is our life.
Steven J Butala:
When we started all this, both the land companies and now the education companies, there’s a lot of stuff that I did not want to do, a lot of work. Now, we’ve hired people to do all of that with very few exceptions.
Jill DeWit:
The stuff we don’t like.
Steven J Butala:
What’s left over, content and fun stuff.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:13:11] on the same page, by the way.
Jill DeWit:
We are really … this is a little bit of showing up for life right now, the new show that’s coming this fall on a channel near you. On a podcast station near you. We are very lucky. What if you said, “Oh no, we hit our limit. I’m done.” Or I did that. I’m like, “No, I’m good. Let’s just …”
Steven J Butala:
Let’s close it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah, let’s just stop and hang out and spend some time and …
Steven J Butala:
Let’s read some books.
Jill DeWit:
Let’s read, exactly. I think I’m going to take up a hobby? I’m going to paint.
Steven J Butala:
I’m going to take up gardening.
Jill DeWit:
There we go.
Steven J Butala:
There’s nothing wrong with those things, but how about we do it after we’re done …
Jill DeWit:
It’s just not us.
Steven J Butala:
Making a massive impact on the world.
Jill DeWit:
That’s true.
Steven J Butala:
Painting is for you.
Jill DeWit:
We’ll do it on the side. There are a few things like that, don’t get me wrong, that I really would like to do. I would love to be a good photographer. I’d love to do … get current and do some more flying. There’s all kinds of cool things, but it’s obviously not that important to me right now because I could make the time. I’m just not doing it. Happy you could join us today, five days a week, you can find us right here on the Land Academy show.
Steven J Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called, “How Career Path Members are Aligning Themselves with Each Other.” You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Steven J Butala:
It is amazing to me, even at this age, when you put a bunch of people in a room or a virtual room that are really motivated to do the same thing, what they come up with together behind the curtain, behind what even Jill and I see. There’s a five or 10 minute, turn on zoom, and Jill and I are not there and the deals that go on. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.
Jill DeWit:
If you’re interested in learning more about us or what we do, please check out landacademy.com or houseacademy.com. We provide the education tools and support you need to be flipping property like the pros.
Steven J Butala:
We are Steve and Jill. Information …
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration …
Steven J Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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