Land Academy Discord Walk Through Wednesday (HA 1740)
Land Academy Discord Walk Through Wednesday (HA 1740)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill K DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack 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 the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about… well, we’re going to do a Land Academy Discord walkthrough. If you dig it, we’re going to do it every Wednesday.
Jill K DeWit:
Well, I want to explain what Discord is. We started Land Academy… I’ll try to make this brief, not like once upon a time. There was Adam and there was Eve. I’m not going to go there. So once upon a time, we started Land Academy. And then from the first month we launched, our people said, our community said, “We need to talk. We want to communicate with you, with each other. How can we ask questions and just get stuff?” So we said, “Oh, okay. We’re going to make this an online community.” And we did. When I say we, I mean, Steven, so Jack. So Jack did. Bless his heart, and it’s been phenomenal for years. It’s landinvestors.com.
Jill K DeWit:
Then we got the bright idea too. And we have a public facing view where anybody can join up and sign up and please do and use it. And then we have a hidden view, which is for members where there’s more in depth than we talk about deals and really get personal and share stuff that we don’t want the planet to see, APNs, phone numbers, numbers, all that stuff. So then we took it a step further. We wanted a little more robust, exciting, fast, quick, easy on our phone, on the fly 24/7 environment. And somebody in our staff, gamers obviously… This is a gaming community. It’s called Discord. So we said, “Well, we could use Discord too. It’s pretty darn cool.” So we use Discord now in addition to our regular environment, but so much is happening on Discord. And it’s closed that you can’t see it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s exploded.
Jill K DeWit:
And so we want to show you a little bit now what it is. So it’s cool. Yeah, so if you haven’t heard a Discord, don’t worry. If you’re not playing Call of Duty, you might not know Discord.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, you should leave the gaming out of it. But if you’re young and you know about Discord as a gaming… What this is it’s a channel for people to talk about whatever they’re into. And it was designed for gamers, but we’re obviously into buying and selling land. And it turns out, it works great for that.
Jill K DeWit:
We love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
It’s very quick. It’s very online.
Jill K DeWit:
There’s not a learning curve by the way, just so you’re like, “Oh, I can’t figure that out.”
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, it’s designed to do this and you’ll see this in a second. I join Land Academy. I’m going through Land Academy 3.0, which we just launched. And I got a question about chapter three, or about this exact one specific thing. And I need some advice from other members. I’m going to stop what I’m doing, go onto Discord, keyword search it, find out what’s going on in all these strings as I’ll show you in a second, and I get my answer. And I don’t get it from anybody like a customer service person that Jill and I hired or us ourselves. Although, I do answer a ton of questions in there. I get it from somebody who’s my peer, who’s just went through it six months ago and had the same question and they answered it for themselves or found another member to answer it. So stick a question real quick, and then I’ll dive right in. Jill’s excited. I can tell because-
Jill K DeWit:
I am.
Steven Jack Butala:
Because she went off the teleprompter here.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. So Luke wrote, “So what’s the general consensus on discounting a property value based on easements for access instead of road frontage? So I have 44 acres of prime hunting land/ag land, but the only access is via two easements by the neighbors to the north and the Southeast. Edit, I’ll discount my offer price for this seller.” That’s what he’s kind of asking.
Steven Jack Butala:
What he’s asking is this bad or good? He’s asking, this is the issue of access. So he’s got 44 acres that he likes. I’m going to assume the price is good, the purchase price. Somebody responded well to his offer, but it doesn’t have actual, physical access that you can see. You can’t just drive up and look at it. However, during his due diligence period, found out that it does have legal access. There’s two easements, two are better than one, to access the property. My opinion about this is it should be celebrated. And that was everybody else’s opinion when he asked this question in Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Isn’t that funny? Some people see… I see all these things as right. Like you say, an attribute, “Yippie ki yay,” instead of, “Oh, this might be a problem.” No it’s not. Don’t go at it like that.
Steven Jack Butala:
So I don’t think that Luke or anybody else is saying, “Is this a problem,” Or being negative. I think they’re just concerned that they’re going to miss something.
Jill K DeWit:
Oh, okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s all.
Jill K DeWit:
But some people do that. I’m like, “No, hang on a moment. This is great.” Good.
Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at Discord.
Jill K DeWit:
Okay.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s a real introduction. So up here, this is for advanced members who do deals with each other. It’s called Land Tank. These are for career path people and all kinds of things happen with career path people in our discussions. And you can see this. Here’s me talking to… I don’t want to go through too much of this, but these are current or former career path people. And you can see them over here asking questions for clarification about the stuff we talked about in career path, would you do this deal, resources that we’re sharing, career path alumni from other people that have been there in the past in the chat room.
Steven Jack Butala:
And then we move on to the general Land Academy member area here. This is for new people who have questions. I’m going to look at specific examples here in a second, but you can see how active this is. Today is April 7th. And you can see that-
Jill K DeWit:
11:30, 11:33, some from yesterday, already responses.
Steven Jack Butala:
This is today.
Jill K DeWit:
It’s just nutty how fast… There’s a lot going on here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Four o’clock in the morning, someone on the east coast is asking questions about closing a property today. New member introductions.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Some funny stuff. I thought this was hilarious. One of our moderators posted this only in Wyoming, where it says open range and here’s an old open range.
Jill K DeWit:
On an oven. That’s awesome. I love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Partnerships
Jill K DeWit:
What did that person write too? Montana is like, “Hold my beer.”
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s not just all business.
Jill K DeWit:
This is so good. Yeah, we have fun. Look at these deals. Would you do this deal?
Steven Jack Butala:
This is a deal that this person’s looking forward to get funding on. And then, so Jessica wants to do it. She PMed him.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. There you go.
Steven Jack Butala:
Private message him. Would you do this deal? It’s not necessarily they want partners. It’s like, “Hey, what’d you do this deal?
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. What do you guys think?
Steven Jack Butala:
Content suggested topics. This is hugely helpful for me because I need to know what people want to hear about.
Jill K DeWit:
What’s on your mind?
Steven Jack Butala:
Or what podcast topics do you want to hear about? So this largely comes from that. Garage sales, where Jill and I sell properties. So we have all properties that are left over. Here’s property in Arkansas that we purchased and people bid on it. People bid. There’s a Cochise property that we sold, where somebody bought this for $50.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
So it’s just stuff we’re trying to get out of our lives for a bunch of reason, success stories.
Jill K DeWit:
And our loss is your gain.
Steven Jack Butala:
Somebody bought a Trans Am with some money that they made from buying and selling land. And so this just all kinds of success stories about why we’re here. Just bought 40 acres for 82,000 bucks with closing costs, listed it for sale for a 189,000 two weeks later.
Jill K DeWit:
Love it.
Steven Jack Butala:
And sold it.
Jill K DeWit:
And I don’t want to sell it. That’s great. So you just sell that one and I want to keep it.
Steven Jack Butala:
Here’s regular resource sharing. Sometimes, people come up with real good ideas about, “Stop using this web developer to do your website.” This person is sharing something I haven’t looked into yet about flood zones. And everybody’s helping each other. A title company to avoid in Texas. Maybe I should put this the rant section. Speaking of the rant section, here’s the rant section. I’m active in this.
Jill K DeWit:
Aw.
Steven Jack Butala:
We had some issues. See what I’m wearing here?
Jill K DeWit:
There. Look at them and our bags. They want our bags.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s already in the process of ordering these shirts.
Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to get some more.
Steven Jack Butala:
These pullovers because everybody loves it. So they’re asking for it there. I don’t know how that get into the rant, but that’s funny.
Jill K DeWit:
That’s cute.
Steven Jack Butala:
So we’ll make a bunch of those available. And then we’re always developing new groups as people are asking for it. We’re bringing back the accountability group so that people in Discord here can… I’m sorry. I’m sharing the screen again. Rant section, research sharing. I’ll go back here for a second. With these pullovers. House Academy group, we’re bringing that back a little bit. Atlantic, the accountability alumni. We an alumni group in here for a long time and we’ll bring it back. Current students and LA ladies.
Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Miss Jill has an LA ladies group that she, sometimes, fires up and, sometimes, not based on participation.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep. We’re going to turn it back on here soon.
Steven Jack Butala:
So specifically, I wanted to share this with you in content suggestions and not necessarily because of this one specific area, but Anthony Taft went in here like last month and started doing this thing. And it became a thing. And he thinks that he wants it to become a thing. And so here’s what he is… I’m paraphrasing here. He’s sharing this with people, our new Land Academy members, about where your mindset and your process should be about sending mail out, just regular do due diligence, our regular Land Academy. Get the mail out. Don’t make mistakes, what to focus on and what not to focus on. And I love this stuff.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sending out mail without having people and systems in place. He’s saying this is his problem. He lists these four or five things that are issues for him, that he’s learned since he’s become a Land Academy member. Anthony’s very active here and he’s really active in buying and selling land.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I recently lost several profitable deals because I took too much time to close him in escrow. The problem was that I didn’t have the people in place with me to do it.” Geez, we’ve been there or to complete the due diligence needed to get to respond to the actual mailer, the seller. Jill’s an expert at this. “I was overwhelmed and it took too long. Time kills deals.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
“I lost about $40,000 versus a few thousand dollars. I would’ve saved to put some people in place. Costly mistake.”
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
By side due diligence, not checking on liens or with a recorder. I agree.
Jill K DeWit:
This is all stuff that we teach, but this is somebody else’s perspective and just like reminders. That’s what this is and it’s really great.
Steven Jack Butala:
Checking for HOAs. He didn’t check for HOAs and got burned on one on the south side. Not using title when a simple… Oh using title when a simple escrow or private party sale would do. Not everybody needs title insurance. So you have to make a decision. Jill and I talk about this in the program a lot. You can close by yourself or you can use title to close. We choose to use title right now because we’re using much larger deals.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not using neighbor letters before listing the property. Jill and I have a product that’s very popular, I actually just reviewed this before we sat down, called neighbor letters within offers to owners, which is our printing company to send. And one of the components is to send neighboring people around a parcel that we’re buying just a letter that says, “Hey, before I mass market this, the property’s right next to you. You want to buy it? Give me a call.” Works a very high percentage of the time.
Jill K DeWit:
Yep.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not putting signs up right away. Jill and I have long said, “Soon as you buy a piece of property, put a Home Depot sign in there that says land for sale. Call this number.
Jill K DeWit:
Get your photographer doing that. When your photographer’s out there, they can carry a sign with them.
Steven Jack Butala:
That was one of the middle entries that got so popular that he did it again. And there was a few more mistakes that I made. Hope this helps. And I don’t mean to harp on Anthony. Believe me, on the left side of your screen here, these are packed full of real time information from all kinds of people. But Anthony did a good, concise job here.
Jill K DeWit:
He did.
Steven Jack Butala:
Not sending enough mail and not doing it consistently enough. Boy, I can’t say that better myself. If you send a lot of mail out, you’re going to make a lot of money. Not recording the land contract on terms deals. So if you’re selling on terms, which Jill and I don’t do, but a lot of people in our group do, record it. In a lot of cases, it works for him. In some cases, it doesn’t. Chasing shiny objects, pursuing deals that are outside of the preset criteria.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m paraphrasing in Pennywise #foolish. Worrying about the cost of mail and trying to increase mailer efficiency. Boy, if I have a peeve… And I said this in our last career path probably 20 times. If you’re going to buy and sell land with than the Land Academy group, this is not the place to try to save time and save money. This is the place to tell yourself I’m going to do this. I’m doing it. I’m going to get the mail out. I’m going to spend the time that I need to do to be successful. And I’m going to spend the money on the resources like people answering the phone or whatever. And it does and will work. You can see that through and through and through all over Discord.
Steven Jack Butala:
So that’s kind of like all the amount of time that we have but I have to tell you, you know why I did this today and why I bring it up on every show? Because I’m really proud of this. I’m in there all the time, all day. Jill knows this, putting my finger on the pulse of our group and I can see who’s interacting and the topics that are popular. And it makes me a better instructor. It makes Jill and I better at leading the Land Academy group because I can, in real time, see what people are interested in right at that point. Or if I start to get a lot of questions about, let’s say chapter four in Land Academy 3.0, I can go back and change it or really set the record straight. So it’s something I’m really, really proud of.
Jill K DeWit:
I know. It’s amazing. I’m glad that we showed that today. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. We’ll catch this up here.
Steven Jack Butala:
Sorry.
Jill K DeWit:
You are so good. Keep going a little bit. Happy you joined us today and five days a week, you can find us here on the Land Academy Show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow’s Jack Thursday, as if this wasn’t just Jack Thursday.
Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
I’m going to talk about beating the odds at getting rich. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill K DeWit:
Yes. Thank you for sharing that. That was really, really awesome. And I’m sure people got a lot out of that. I know you’re working on other ways to share this too with the planet. By the way, thanks for tuning in. We would love to connect with you on Clubhouse. So join Jack and I on the first and third Thursday of every month at 12 o’clock Pacific time in the land investing club. So just go on Discord. Find the land investing club. Join that. Follow us. And you’ll be alerted of our upcoming broadcast. We’re Jack in Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We’re Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration-
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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