A Day in the Life of a Land Investor (LA 1773)
A Day in the Life of a Land Investor (LA 1773)
Transcript:
Steven Jack Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Jack Butala:
Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
I’m over here choking.
Steven Jack Butala:
Jill’s having a little episode.
Jill DeWit:
Sorry. I took a big swig of coffee as we started, and that was a little too big. Anyway, I’m Jill DeWit, and we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun.
Steven Jack Butala:
Today Jill and I talk about a day in the life of a successful land investor.
Jill DeWit:
It doesn’t say, “successful.” It says, “land investor,” I thought we were going to go both ways.
Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, all right. Yeah. Let’s go both ways.
Jill DeWit:
Come on. Let’s not just assume it’s all peaches and cream.
Steven Jack Butala:
This show, this episode is a long time coming. People have said to me, my whole career, long before even Land Academy, “Hey, could I shadow you? What do you do all day?” I’ll tell you, it would be the most boring day of your life.
Jill DeWit:
Great.
Steven Jack 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 I hope you know by now, that Jill and I personally instruct a handful of new and existing Land Academy members in a live class, live over the Zoom. Anyway, called Career Path. If buying and selling land is your career, or you want it to be, give us a call. Or, better yet, contact us at support@landacademy.com to find out if this is for you.
Jill DeWit:
I’m going to tell you right now, the next one starts in October.
Steven Jack Butala:
Okay, good.
Jill DeWit:
It’s a 10 week program, starts in October. Just so you can plan for that, and we are about to open up enrollment for it soon. Kevin wrote, “I had a great call with a Fran and Martha yesterday. At the end of the call, they asked if I had the day off next Monday, and they could schedule another call with me. On Memorial Day, which is today as [inaudible 00:01:49]. I laughed and said, “Yeah. Heck, I have every day off,” so if you’re looking for someone to talk to about your land business, you can sign up at the link below. We’ll have a great time, and it will help you with your land business. How cute is that? That’s on our website, on Land Academy. You can schedule a call with one of our moderators, Kevin Ferrell.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Kevin’s been with us for a long time.
Jill DeWit:
Everybody loves talking to him.
Steven Jack Butala:
He does a consulting call for any Land Academy member who wants it, and I’ve never heard anyone say anything negative about it.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
If you’ve gone through the program, you’re active in discord, but you really want the icing on the cake, Kevin will really, really help you. Today’s happy, a day in the life of a land investor. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit:
Here’s what I would like to say about being a land investor. Of all of the jobs that I do, from not just here at Land Academy and being a mom, and a partner.
Steven Jack Butala:
Uh-oh.
Jill DeWit:
I’m totally kidding. I mean I’m totally being serious here. I’ve got to tell you. No offense.
Steven Jack Butala:
None taken.
Jill DeWit:
But, being a land investor is the easiest, and the most fun for me.
Steven Jack Butala:
I agree with that.
Jill DeWit:
I’ve got to tell you. Of every single thing I do in my life. From home renovations. You name it. This is the easiest for me, and it’s fun for me. I love it. Even if I’m doing it all by myself, 100% by myself, and a lot of people who start out are. I get that. You’re like, “I’ve got to get some money coming in. I’ve got to figure this out. I’m going to learn all the jobs, and I’ll go from there.” Yeah. That’s how you should do it.
Even if I was a one-man show, because I was. There was a time. Especially when you were writing and doing Land Academy, back in the day, 2014, 2015. You were doing most of the recording. You were doing, and that. You did all the editing, and all of that. I was quietly running around running my own land business. I was running it by myself.
Steven Jack Butala:
Just keeping food on the table.
Jill DeWit:
Exactly, and keeping it going. It was not even the best of times back then. It’s not like now, with land, and how easy it is. How we can find these properties too. It was a lot harder back then.
Steven Jack Butala:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jill DeWit:
But, it was still, I could do it by myself, and be very happy. We could stop our work day whenever we wanted, and travel where we wanted. There was times too, I’d be doing our land business from a hotel room. Now, it’s in an RV. Who knows where we are. Steven taught me that a long time ago. I always wanted something I could do from the back of the boat, and that’s why we’re here. I’m like, “Yeah, you’re right. That makes sense. That’s really good.”
When you’re even, as a one-man show, it’s not hard. Once you figure it out. You’ve got to put your head down and dive in and learn it, and get to that point. But once you do, it’s not hard, and I’ll tell you more. We have a good helper, by the way. A day in the life of a land investor is even easier when you have, even just one good person.
Steven Jack Butala:
One person.
Jill DeWit:
All their job is doing is pushing things through the system. You’re the one out front, buying the property, telling what you’re going to sell it for. Make this decision, that decision. All that stuff, but then they’re the people sitting behind a desk, implementing all your decisions. That’s the best.
What you need to think about to be a land investor, I think if there’s one task that you really have to schedule and be consistent monthly, and that’s getting the mail out. If you do that monthly, and schedule out for the whole month at a time, you can even do quarterly. If you really want to go crazy. But, I think monthly is good, because sometimes you adjust and tweak what you’re working on. But I think monthly is great.
Then, for all your other jobs, they’re daily, and/or weekly, and the things that you’re going to do as a land investor, daily and weekly is answer the phone, and you’re going to take calls. You’re going to make calls. You’re going to do your due diligence on the properties. Do I want to buy them? Make those decisions.
I’m talking to you like you’re your own one-man show right now. You don’t have anybody else, so you’ve got to plan out escrow on the buy side, and the sell side. Again, it’s not hard. One person could probably handle 50 properties moving through the system. I really think so, at a time. Maybe not right away.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. 30 to 50 is a good number.
Jill DeWit:
I think 50, moving through your system at all times, one person can handle doing it all. Then, it’s fun too, by the way. When you’ve got 50 in play, you’re not so hung up about it because if this one takes a little bit longer-
Steven Jack Butala:
A couple don’t close for whatever reason.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah. Shoot. That agent sucked and I’ve got to find a new agent over here. Who cares? I’ve got 38 other properties I’m just bringing in right now. I’m not worried. It’s going to be fine. Then, posting the property. That’s a thing too, as a land investor, you’ve got to decide how you want to do this. My favorite is what we really do now, is I’m not really posting the property for sale any more. I’m letting the brokers do that. Think about that one. Yeah, I’m paying them a commission, but isn’t that the greatest thing?
I’m an hourly employee sitting there, managing it. Worrying about the photos and the drone shots, and is this description good enough, Jill? That kind of a thing. I’m not doing it. I’m paying someone to do it. Those are the things you need to think about, and that’s really what consists of your day. If you’re saying to yourself, “Well, heck. You could probably get that done by 11 AM every morning.” Yeah, you can. You really can. You could have a four hour work week being a land investor.
Steven Jack Butala:
Easy.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala:
There’s 10 steps to doing a deal. I put them in two categories if you’re a Land Academy member already, and you’ve studied the equity planner that comes with the program. You already know this, but for everybody else, there’s two categories of these 10 steps. Stuff you do yourself, that I don’t think you should ever really sub out, and stuff you have either virtual assistance to, or potentially a full time employee or a part time employee.
Here’s the steps in order: identifying target markets. We talked a lot about this during career path and finding out where to send mail. Does it figure acquisition criteria? I want to buy for 30 and sell for 90. If that’s what I want, then Costilla County is not going to work for me. It’s more like buy for 1,000, and sell for 2,000 there. If that’s your acquisition criteria, and you follow the methodology about trolling, how we talk about trolling through Zillow and realtor.com. Then, those markets will show themselves to you.
Basing your parameters and then you test them. That’s identifying target markets. That should take between one and three hours a week if you’re not obsessed on it, like I am. It’s my hobby, so I spend a lot more time on that. If you disagree with these times, please let me know because it’s just my opinion.
Jill DeWit:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Steven Jack Butala:
Then you’ve got to get the mail out and price it. That’s maybe one to three hours a week, once you get it all rolling. If you choose to sub it out, and use a Concierge Data, then you don’t have to do it at all. You are it.
Jill DeWit:
I would say do it, well, what do you think about this real quick too? I’m a fan of doing that monthly.
Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah. Just right.
Jill DeWit:
I think you could easily sit down and spend one weekend. Do your trolling, download the data. If you’re doing it yourself, and get it all ready to go, and then you just say, call offers to owners, and say, “Hi. Here’s 20,000 records. I want 5,000 a week going out. Then you have to do it every week.
Steven Jack Butala:
I had this all set up on a work week. When I say one to three hours a week, I don’t mean that the mail is done in one to three hours.
Jill DeWit:
Right.
Steven Jack Butala:
I mean, four weeks in a month. You spend one to three hours on it if you’re brand new, putting it all together.
Jill DeWit:
There you go. That’s what I think. Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
One to three hours is a real stretch. Takes me 30 minutes to do a mailer.
Jill DeWit:
But, if I’m new.
Steven Jack Butala:
No, if you’re new, it’s one to three hours a week.
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, what I do now is I just pick up the email and send it to Concierge Data. That takes us through step four. One is identifying the markets. Two is ordering the mailers through Concierge Data. Concierge Data executes it, and then it comes back to you, and you have to approve and price it. You should spend some time on that. The way that they send the files now, it’s amazing.
Number five, is you mail the mailers out, and then you sit there and twiddle your thumbs for a couple weeks. The mail is out. Somebody’s got to answer the phones. We use PatLive, soon to be Jill live. There’s no real work there. You just have to, in step six, review what PatLive comes up with, and make some phone calls. Just do the acquisitions. Decide whether you’re going to do the deals or not.
Then you’ve got to buy the property. Well, escrow does that for you now. If you have a transaction coordinator, like Jill referred to, even better. Your transaction coordinator deals with escrow. You take that out of your life. That’s number seven. Number eight is find a real estate agent to list it, if you’re into that. Again, transaction coordinator.
Jill DeWit:
If you’re into that. You mean, by selling it?
Steven Jack Butala:
Some people sell the properties themselves.
Jill DeWit:
Oh, my God. What am I going to do? If you’re into making money, then do this. What?
Steven Jack Butala:
If you have a good transaction coordinator, like Jill, she does all that stuff for her. For Jill. That’s number eight. Let’s say with the real estate agent. Number nine is sign the listing. That doesn’t take long. Review, and sign it. Then number 10 is manage the sale of the property. All of that’s associated with that, and signing. You can see how this is really, really three or four hours a week. If you’re doing 30 deals, and you’ve got one person, good person, working with you, I can’t imagine even spending four hours a week.
Jill DeWit:
No. You can’t. That’s what I said, you’re four hour work week, you could do that. It’s pretty darn cool.
Steven Jack Butala:
That’s why I put Kevin’s question, really it was just a statement, because Kevin’s been with us for a really long time. I’ll tell you, this is the truth of it. Truth time. Jill and I spend 98% of our time on Land Academy.
Jill DeWit:
Yep. That’s very true. We mean it when we say, “Some of our members are making more than us.” Yeah, that’s true. That’s a good thing. Happy to be doing this today, five days a week you can find us here, on the Land Academy show.
Steven Jack Butala:
Tomorrow, the episode on the Land Academy show is called The One Percent Difference Rule, and how it is associated with compound interest, and how it applies to your land business. You are not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit:
Well, that is a very exciting topic.
Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t make these topics up. People ask me for stuff.
Jill DeWit:
That’s a good one. Okay, hey, I’ve got to stop and say something, because it’s Memorial Day, and today’s the last day for the special we have going on right now. Land Academy recap it, because of the attention and the support we want to give to our members. That’s a fact. We close it now and then, and then we reopen it when we can handle more. It is open right now, and I have a special that is ending today, Memorial Day. Actually, it’s ending on the 31st. Is it today? I don’t know what today’s date is. Anyway, it’s ending really quick. Check out landacademy.com, because there’s something great going on there right now. We are Jack and Jill.
Steven Jack Butala:
We are Jack and Jill. Information.
Jill DeWit:
And inspiration.
Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.
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