Tune in to Land Academy episode 1968 with Steven Jack Butala and Jill DeWit for expert guidance on land investing. Jack and Jill dive into two crucial topics for aspiring land investors: securing your first deal within 30 days and analyzing competition numbers in the land industry. Don’t miss out on these actionable tips and essential information to jumpstart your land investing journey.

Join the vibrant Land Academy member discord at https://landacademy.com/discord/ for more engaging discussions and resources. Have questions? Text at 480-530-7383.

Thanks for listening, and finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts.

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Land Investor’s Guide: First Deal In 30 Days & Analyzing Competition Numbers (LA 1968)

Introduction

This is episode number 1,969, and we’re talking about how to get your first land deal done in the first month as a land investor. A little bit later in the show, I’ll talk about the land business competition by the numbers. It’s a popular topic, everybody thinks or assumes that there are a lot of people in the land business, and they think, “Jesus, it’s too late for me to start.” I’m going to go through the numbers, try to dispel them, and compare them pretty directly and seriously to other industries, the real estate industry in particular, and property management.

Do you know what’s funny? I have not been getting that question. Was it on social media that you’re reading it?

There’s a din everywhere about competition.

I know it’s an underlying theme now and then. Do you know what’s funny? It’s everywhere. We are sitting in Ketchum. As we are recording, we’re sitting in Ketchum, Idaho, which is awesome, Sun Valley. We met this cute couple from New York. He’s originally from Texas. She’s from Virginia, but they live in New York and come here four times a year. We met up one night and just hit it off. Then two nights later, we ran into each other again at this park outdoor thing.

They said, “Come on over to the place that we have here, check it out, and just hang out with us.” They are cool people. This was last night. One of the things the wife said was, “But we’re five years too late, about acting on getting a place.” I said, “But you’re also 10 years early.” She said, “You’re right.” Depending on how you look at things. I thought that was interesting. Even in people’s minds that aren’t necessarily in our industry, they think that a lot of places are too late. I’m glad you’re going to do this.

It’s a great point on this anecdote. We, as a land academy group, are not in the habit of paying attention to or living by averages. When’s the last time you’ve ever seen a real estate market where the average sale price is $400,000? We don’t go in and spend the average. You send out mailers and spend 20% to 40% of whatever that average is. It’s made that way by design. Even if the market did go down, and I can’t think of any markets that have gone down in any type of permanent way except for Rust Belt markets in Detroit, you just don’t miss it. It goes up. It’s just a variance of how much it goes up, and statistically, why does it go up?

Data will tell it and give you all the answers. Each week on the show, we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and take a deep dive into two land-related topics by popular request. If you want a sneak peek of our discord forum, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.

By the way, if you want us to answer your questions here, or you just need some help getting involved in our community, no problem. It’s very easy. Just simply text us at (480) 530-7383. Our team reads all the texts, and your question just might pop up here.

Direct Mail Campaign For Land Investing

Let’s take a question from one of our members on the Land Academy Discord forum.

Christopher wrote, “I wanted to share my mailing results for the last 30 days and see how poor or good these results are. I know my sample size is small, and I hope to have it doubled in the next 30 days. I just want to see what and where I may need to tweak. Thank you in advance for taking the time to provide some input.” Here’s what Christopher did. He sent out 4,000 units. What did he say in the last 30 days? Let me preface this by saying that he’s just getting started.

If he did this in the last 30 days, he’s probably got two weeks’ worth of feedback here. He’s going to get two more months and maybe two years more of feedback to add to this. I want to preface this. This is just exactly what a mailer does and we call it done. Four thousand units went out. He got 23 responses. He got 13 uninterested of those responses. 13 were, “Take me off your list.” “I don’t care or can’t do it.” for title problems. Three wanted to sell, but Christopher saw it as unusable land. I’m not sure why.

Exactly. Not sure why.

Is there any unusable land?

No.

Thank you. Seven serious sellers. Two things he mispriced, and it would not adjust to the price that I needed, which means they were in the group of 13 and above like something was going on with them. Three are currently moving forward. He’s got them in the due diligence stage of his process here. One of them, the husband wants to move forward, but the wife does not. I know how that goes, and one of them is under contract but needs to get an easement. Do these numbers look typical to the rest of you? This is hilarious. What’s so funny?

We’re going to answer all this in a second.       

This is hilarious. If you’re not watching this, you should see this because it’s comical. We are rocking and rolling a little bit here. It does look like we’re in about a 7.0 earthquake.

Four thousand units went out, and 23 people responded. That’s 0.6. It’s six-tenths of 1%. Thirteen are uninterested. Three, he believes, are trying to sell property that’s not usable. Seven serious sellers. Two of which he believes are mispriced, and they wouldn’t adjust the price. I wonder what Jill has to say about that. Three are currently in due diligence follow-up status. The husband wants to move forward, but the wife doesn’t. I can solve that. One is under contract, but I have to get an easement. Do these numbers look typical? Totally. This is exactly what’s supposed to happen in my opinion, and everybody else on Discord, other Land Academy members, agreed.

I have a couple of points to make, and I’m sure Jill’s going to jump in here. You sent out 4,000 units, good job. You priced it reasonably well based on this response. Somebody, hopefully, you, is answering the phone, and you’re doing everything that you’re supposed to be doing. You’re going to end up buying a piece of property, probably. Maybe two. What Jill said earlier is exactly right.

I see a couple of them.

Me too. This is just the first round. Several people of the 4,000 here didn’t respond, but they stuck it on their refrigerator and said, “Yes, I’m going to think about this because maybe I do want to sell.” We get calls from 2002 to 2004 every single month on mailers that I did way, way back in the day. Think about this, you’re going to buy a couple of properties. That mailer cost you about $2,000, and you’re probably going to buy, let’s say, one property and make $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 on it.

I’m good with those numbers.

What if you send out 8,000? What if you send out 16,000? This is what the people in Career Path do, and this is the stuff that we talk about. Jill and I teach a class called Career Path twice a year. I think it’s coming up soon here in September. You’re a very logical candidate for this because I think you got it. Totally. You nailed it.

I think that just by the way you structured this question and the fact that you’re sharing the results with everybody and you’re very mechanical about it, I think you’re on your way to having an amazing land career. Certain people are going to read this and they’re going to say, “What are you talking about? $2,000? You spent $2,000 just to see if you can do a land deal.” Absolutely. He’s going to do a land deal.

I’ll spend $20,000 because if I’m going to make $100,000. Think about it. Maybe do two deals and make $100,000 each. I think that’s money well spent.

I look at this with a massive degree of success. This was successful, and the reason I’m bringing all this up is because I don’t want you to look at this as not successful, whoever you are. I’m not talking to Christopher here. Thirteen uninterested people out of 23 responses means you priced it right and you did everything you’re supposed to do. What you’re looking for is two or three people out of these 4,000 that you mailed it to who said, “Yes.” You hit them at the right time. In whatever life circumstance they’re experiencing, maybe they inherited the property or who knows what? They’re ready to do a deal with you. This easement situation, one under contract, but you have to get an easement. We do that all the time.

Get with the neighbors.

First Deal In 30 Days

Good job. Today’s first topic is called How To Get Your First Land Deal Done In The First Month As A Land Investor. This was a by-request topic, our customer service people and sales team asked us to cover this. I asked you, Jill, how do you get your first deal done?

In the first month? That’s tricky. I’m going to be honest because I want to be realistic. I don’t want people to think if I don’t do it in a month, I’m a failure. I don’t want to give you an unreal expectation too. The fastest I would say to do a deal from start to finish for me is six weeks. I know we have blogs on our website that we have both done spelling out that whole timeline.

Let me give you the big picture. Step 1) You have to get an education. I want you to spend a couple of days on that. Understanding what we do, how it works, picking an area, thinking about all the steps all the way through. If we do week one, it’s getting educated and understanding what to do. Then week two, what’s great about this is, I’m giving you the timeline as if you already have a job right now because many people starting with this, as you should, still have a job that’s paying your bills and this is something you want to transition to.

That’s part of what you could speed up right there if you’re not this person or you’re just a crazy person and you’re like, “I don’t care when I’m not at work. I will live, eat, breathe, and sleep this stuff. I can do it faster.” That’s how you can speed it up too. Step 2) Learning what we’ve taught you, learning how Jack does it, the week two kind of thing or step two kind of thing, wherever your timeline is picking a county.

Trolling, understanding how it works, and looking. That’s the thing that we teach you too. We teach you everything. From how to pick a county to the end and get rich. Make it an empire. Step two then is going to be trolling, picking the area, and getting the data. Step three is going to be pricing the data. I break those up. Step two is finding out where you’re going to send mail, doing your red-yellow-green test, using data to make sure you’re hitting good areas, all of that good stuff.

Then step 3) Picking my area. I’ve got it all done, now I’m going to download the data, scrub the data, or use something else we have like the concierge service our company offers to owners. They’ll do that part for you, but somebody in step three’s got to download the data, scrub the data, get it ready for the mail, and get it out in the mail.

Step 4) Here come the calls. You’re going to answer the calls just like Christopher here. Take the calls, pick out the best ones, do your due diligence, all the stuff that we show you everything to do. Even along the way, remember if you’re worried about it, “I think this is a good deal, I’m not sure.” Great, ask us on a Thursday call. That’s why they’re there. If you need some motivation, get into our free accountability group, that’s there. All the stuff we have to help you.

That’s step four. They come in, you’re picking what you want to buy. Step 5) Buy it, you own it, you either push it out to a broker if it’s a bigger deal or you don’t want to do the marketing, that’s a thing, just throwing that out to you. Step 6) Sell it, you get your offers, you pick the best offer coming back from buyers, and then rinse and repeat. That’s loosely how you space it out. If you want to jam all that together.

I know people who do. I know people that get our program, they binge-watch, and then, starting on Friday night, by Monday, they’re hitting the button, sending off a mailer, which is amazing. This ties into the first-month thing. Then they could have ten days later be fielding calls and looking at deals. Nowadays too, post-COVID, my transaction coordinator can get deals done with escrow literally in 5 to 7 days. That speeds that all up. What are you talking about? You could list it.

I’ve had properties that I listed on a Friday and by Sunday I’ve got three offers, and that’s often when Jack’s mad at me saying, “You priced it too low.” On the sell side, he said, “What do you mean you sold it already?” I said, “I didn’t know it would go this fast.” That’s how you could speed this all up, and then you’re selling it. All the stars are in alignment. You could do it in 30 days. I just want to say realistically, give yourself a month or two, but then you’ll have it.

I’m on team Jill with this across the board. You don’t want to do a deal the first month. You’re going to push yourself and push yourself and have this crazy goal. You’re going to get frustrated and chances are you’ll just stop.

Maybe make a mistake.

The last thing you want to do is push yourself to the point where you’re disgusted with your own performance or buying and selling land in general. You want to space yourself out. You want to give yourself, I would think, six months to absorb all the content. Understand as much as you can from all the resources that we provide and everything else on the internet.

Talk to as many people on Discord as you possibly can and learn how to do this correctly. For you to get a deal done in the first month, you’re putting yourself in the top 5th or 10th percentile if you think of a bell curve. You have a hundred people who give their all, there’s going to be ten people who will smash it at the end of the bell curve, and at the other end of the bell curve, there’s going to be people who are at the bottom 10% who couldn’t do it at all.

They never sent anything out and they’re just sitting there watching everybody else get rich.

What I’ve done in the past, and I’m going to talk about this at the end of this episode too, is how to get to the top 90 percentile of anything. You have to look back on your past and say, “Wow, I was great at that. I was terrible at this. I was OK at this, but I did it.” Have some self-assessment about where you’ve done well in the past and try to emulate that experience with this.

You have to care and put the time in. In my opinion, remove a tremendous amount, if not all, of the emotion that you have about this at all and just mechanically go through it. We have somebody in Career Path and in Land Academy Pro who I bet she’s grossly succeeded in everything that she’s ever done.

She came to us from another program. She was frustrated with that program. It wasn’t big enough for her, and she killed it, though. She put 70 deals in passive income play in one year with that program. She’s doing it now with us, but she’s making a lot more money because that’s how we do it. Please learn and put a calendar together. It might be six months. It probably shouldn’t be 30 days.

I agree with you. When you put the calendar together, that’s the key for me. My one word was going to be discipline.

Exactly. Can you throw me that ukulele because I’m going to tell a story here?

Are you playing us a song?

No. This is a baritone ukulele. It’s probably the fourth one I’ve owned. I saw it in a shop that Jill and I walked by in Red Lodge, Montana. The price was right, and the brand was right and the whole thing, and I said, “You know what? I’m going to finally learn how to play this.” I’m not in my first month of learning how to play this. Not my first year. Not my first decade.

I’m on the steep end of my second decade of learning how to do a scale. Why is that? Because I’m not in the tenth percentile. I’m not in the 90th percentile. Could I be? Yes. Could I learn this thing in a month, play some songs, make Jill laugh, and have some beer? Which is all I want out of this thing.

I could. It hasn’t happened yet. I haven’t put the time in. I could blame Jill. By the way, Jill’s the biggest walking distraction there ever was because we just have too much fun constantly. If you take your land career the way I have been taking and handling my ukulele pursuit, you’re going to be two decades in, wondering when you’re going to do your first deal.

Starting and stopping. Starting and stopping and that happens. I’m glad you brought that up because that’s a real story.

Polk County Land Deal

Don’t get a ukulele. Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

“It’s Polk County, Wisconsin, would you do this deal? Purchase price $60,000. Comps are scarce, but I did receive a package of comps from a broker who I work with in the area, showing a sale price of between $6,300 to $6,500 an acre. How big is this?

Forty acres.

Which would give us a retail price range of $240,000 to $250,000. Would I aim to bring to this market around $220,000 to try to get a quicker sale? Here’s what he’s saying, buy for $60,000 sell for $220,000. Now, physical access is established. Legal access would be by a small easement across the northwest corner of the seller’s adjacent property. That’s a highway there, and I cannot have my driveway off the highway. That’s something that I’m figuring out.

You see the highway 85 thinking, “There you go.” You’re not necessarily allowed to just put an off-ramp in where you think you want one. Even though this guy did over here, maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. We’ll see. Seller says that she was fine establishing an easement, but wants to run it by her husband first. That’s funny. Everybody’s alive. Several streams and creeks go through there, and a jogging and biking trail along the tire bottom of it. That’s got our attention.

The city of Amory is seven miles east and Big Lake is 1.2 miles to the west. Continuing down the bike trail to the south at the end of the property is not wide enough for a car. It’s small. That is what would be needed. Please advise if you think it would be here. I stick with it. Honestly, I wouldn’t go through that much work to sell the property, I would have in writing that the owner would grant an easement on that northeast corner, for me.

I don’t know if this is the right property or not. Come on Starling, let’s see if you can handle this. I think this property has physical and legal access.

Right, and if we need a little something, he’ll say, “Sure, I’ll hook you up.”

For $60,000 with comps at $250,000, it’s a fantastic deal. Going through the A’s, Acreage? Yes, it’s 40 acres. That’s a fantastic parcel size. Access? We just said, physical and legal. I would confirm it. What do you think, Jill?

Yes, the owner says, sure.

That’s what I think too.

Do you know what this sounds like to me? I think this is a would-you-brag-about-this deal because here’s what Evan’s saying, “If I do it all wrong, I could buy it for $60,000 and sell it for $120,000.” I think I’m going to sell it for $220,000.

My question is, how rural is it? Is it too rural? Here’s Minneapolis and this is probably, I don’t know how many miles, but it passes the adjacent test. There’s all kinds of stuff happening. There’s agriculture happening here. There’s a little subdivision happening here. There are houses and utilities everywhere. That passes the adjacent test.

I think this is fantastic because they’re with us. Do you know what this tells me? The owner lives next door. They’ve had this probably for a while. How long they live next door kind of thing and now they’re selling it. I bet it’s fantastic. I would do this deal.”

Career Path

It’s fall and Jill is going to talk to us about career path. I’ll tell you what, if you want to be in the top 10 percentile or the 90th percentile of this, join the Career Path. We’re not selling anything. We just have had massive success. This is career path numbers 7 and 8. We were combining the two. Well, go ahead.

Here’s the deal. What is Career Path and why do we even do it? It is because everybody asked. One of the things about Land Academy and one of the things that we do well is, that we’ve done it ourselves, made this an empire where you don’t have to work that hard, doing bigger deals, doing fewer deals, having the right team, everybody working on the right stuff, knowing what you should be working on and what you shouldn’t be working on.

We had to figure that out for ourselves. A couple of years ago, people said, “Can you teach me?” “I want to get to that level.” “You guys taught me the Land Academy. You gave me all the tools I need to have this business. That’s great. I got all that but I need to be at your level.” “I want to be doing deals like you.” “I want to be doing deals with you and I know what’s possible.”

We created the Career Path. We sat down, put our heads together like all the other programs. You asked, we listened, we did it, and it’s been amazing. We are now doing this fall, it starts at the end of September, and we’re doing two sessions back to back, or side by side. One’s a Wednesday session, and one’s a Saturday session, because depending on your schedule, you may not be able to hit the Wednesdays or the Saturdays.

The other nice thing is depending on your schedule that week, you can flip-flop around between, “I can’t make Wednesday, I’m going to show up for Saturday, fill in the blank.” Do you want to obsess on this? I’m going to show up on Wednesday and Saturday. All right, knock yourselves out. That’s what we’re doing. This is the first time we’re doing it, and I’m excited.

This is your career or you want it to be, this is the answer.

It’s eight weeks with us and taught by us for about, I’m going to say four to five hours a day. Both the Wednesday and the Saturday groups are also going to get us four to five hours because we’re here. It’s Land Academy on steroids, taking it to the next level and helping you make this your career business. I want to add one more thing too. Only via Career Path because again, Career Path and it just started the very last sessions. The first time we did this now. We now share our team. You can hire my transaction coordinator.

You can hire my fill-in-the-blank because, at the end of your career path, you’re going to be doing great. Now, I know I need a couple of key employees to do it just like you guys. We’ll tell you how to hire them or you have access to ours and that’s Land Academy Pro, but it’s only at the end of the career path that that’s available. Just letting you know. It’s awesome. Check out LandAcademy.com and on the menu bar, you’ll find a career path thing with more information.

Probate Complications

Let’s take another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. Again, if you want a sneak peek at this, go to LandAcademy.com. It’s free.

Mike wrote, “I’m looking for some advice on this deal. The numbers are buying for $200,000. Sell for $275,000 to $300,000. $75,000 to $100,000 profit. The challenge is that the property needs to go through probate. I have an estate attorney, who is a friend of the family, that can handle this probate. The seller doesn’t have the money to pay for it, so I offer to do it.

I’m considering a couple of options to protect myself. I’m going to help this guy undo this probate, and then I want to buy the property. What if something goes weird in the middle here? This is what Mike’s thinking through. “One is I file a lien against the property, make sure I get paid back just in case she changes her mind once it’s all done. The other is I have her sign an option agreement.”

Both of those are good.

I don’t have the funds to purchase it outright and I don’t think there’s enough profit for an investor deal. I want to get this deal done and help out the widow. They had no will signed and her income is a fraction of what it was before her husband died. Properties in a great vacation subdivision, one that I’ve wanted to own for years. I know it will sell quickly unless I can figure out a way to buy it myself.” Thoughts? Suggestions?

One second before Jill answers, this is exactly what you’re looking for. Not exactly, exactly but it’s a version of a good positive version of solving a problem for the seller. It’s stopped anybody else from buying it in the past just because they didn’t want to deal with this. Filing a single asset probate depending on what state this is in can be incredibly simple.

My guess is it’s very simple. There’s enough meat financially on the bones here to do it, he’s going to make $100,000 on the deal. I disagree with you on one single point here there’s enough money involved for you to get a person to front you the money. There’s $100,000 of profit 50 grand each or whatever you decide from a percentage standpoint. That’s a lot.

Especially if that’s not a retail number that’s a sell it fast.

You know the area you’ve wanted to buy and own property there already so you get it and you have a pretty good idea about how fast it’s going to sell it for how much money. When Jill and I always say, You’re looking for a situation. It passes the test. That piece of property is great but attached to that piece of property usually is some type of personal scenario that the seller’s going through a life event and this fits the bill perfectly. Probates, no big deal. You’re going to laugh when it’s over. You’re going to laugh and say, “Wow, that’s it? We just had to run some stuff through and it’s over.”

I have a third scenario. Why would Mike not just do this? I’m sure the attorney could handle closing the deal. Why don’t we do the probate all at the same time and then have Mike and the blank funding partner at the very end of end up owning it when he’s done? We don’t have to do the lien thing and undo a lien thing. We don’t have to worry about the option deal and all of that.

I would bring in a business partner or a funding partner now and tell the attorney that we’re just going to do this all at once because when you’re done with this, buy for $200,000 could be buy for $197,000 because it’s $3,000 in attorney fees. I don’t know if Mike’s going to pay for that or not. At the end of this, it’s going to go from this situation through you to me in 30 days and you’re going to have money.

If you don’t already know this before there were escrow agents lawyers closed deals. Escrow agents I think came about in the 1930s or 1940s. Lawyers up to that point would do the paperwork and file it with the county and the whole thing. That’s still the case. What I would do is exactly what Jill said. I would open escrow on it now.

Or just have the attorney do it.

The estate lawyer is probably not a real estate lawyer, but he probably knows one or maybe one. Now, you get two lawyers involved and start right from the beginning, tie this property up. You don’t have to file a lien. Jill’s right.

I hate to do all that extra work and it’s faster for her.

Jill just got done with a deal where she had to do some easement work that took a couple of months. It stopped everybody from buying the property forever. It’s going to end up being a very attractive financial situation for us. Seek these things out. Don’t avoid them. I’m glad that you asked this question.

As I said, you’re solving this woman’s problem. There are a lot of people that wouldn’t touch this deal. Good for you, Mike.

Land Business Competition

Our second topic is called The Land Business Competition By The Numbers. As I referred to at the beginning of the episode, there’s a constant, “Am I too late to the party?” “Is it too competitive?” It doesn’t come up as often as it used to. I think that the community that we’re in has generally taken my advice over time and my advice over time has been this if you feel you’re in a competitive market, get in a different market.

If you feel like you're in a competitive market, get into a different market. Share on X

Jill and I don’t franchise Land Academy, we don’t sell Michigan, Ohio, or California the way that territories are. That surprises a lot of people. You are free to mail all 150 million properties that there are out there in the country. Here are the numbers. There are 150 million APNs in the USA. That means there are 150 million properties. In that are houses. Land, commercial property, Air Force bases, hospitals, and all kinds of stuff.

Anything that has an APN.

One hundred fifty million of those. Twenty million are SFRs, single-family residences, and detached houses. Six million of that 150 million are commercial properties. That’s everything. Apartment buildings, office buildings. I, for round numbers purposes, assume that there are four million other properties like Air Force bases, hospitals, and stuff like that. I don’t think there’s that many. I don’t think there are 400,000, quite honestly, but I’m just doing it for round numbers.

That leaves us with 120 million-plus properties, which are land. All different types of land. There’s maybe, by my estimation, a thousand people in this business who, like Jill and I, regularly send mail correctly and regularly do real estate deals. Are there a lot more people who read this? Yes. Are there a lot more people in other real estate groups out there that are sending out? I think there are a thousand people in general. I think it’s less.

That’s pretty good. That’s a good number. I think that’s fair. Probably at a time too. How many people think about it? They send out one and then they give up or they stop or they do postcards or something dumb. Sorry.

If by some magical scenario, all of us are equal, which we’re not, there’s a huge bell curve at play here. Jill and I are probably in the top 10% of the 90th percentile. Let’s say it’s all flat, there’s no bell curve. That’s 120,000 properties per person. If you divide, 120 million divided by a thousand people. If your mailer yield is 4,000, just in the example earlier, then each of us buys 30 properties a year. If you make 50 grand, that’s a million and a half dollars a year that you’re going to make.

If you’re smashing it to the top, the 90th percentile, you’re going to make way more than that. I can tell you that’s the case for us. If you’re brand new and it’s your first mailer and you are in this thousand-person group or you want to be, then you will gradually work your way up to make a hell of a lot more than a million and a half dollars. If you just average in this thousand-person group at the top. Is it too crowded? I’ll let you decide if your average performance of that thousand people is a million and a half dollars a year. 

It’s funny. I just had this simple conversation. I have a new person on my team helping answer questions for people who want to get involved in Land Academy. His name is Christopher and he asked, “How do I answer this question if it comes up?” I said, “Christopher, there are 3,144 counties and parishes in this country. Personally, if I did it once a month, I couldn’t hit them all before I die.” He said, “Got it.” There’s no way.

Now we’ve got that million-and-a-half dollar number average in our head. I’m going to give you a comparison of the real estate industry for licensed real estate agents making commissions. People who buy and sell your house. There are 1.6 million real estate agents in the country. Not 1000 people. In our industry, 1.6 million.

Each year, approximately six million houses are sold. Again, if we average this all out, that’s 3.75 houses sold per agent. Let’s just call it four. $475,000 average sale price, which means that for each of those four properties that they sell, their gross commission is $25,000. You have to split it with the house, the brokerage, and the other agent on this side.

You have to divide that at least by two, or by four and you can confirm all these numbers on the internet. That’s where I got them. I don’t walk around knowing this stuff. I just did some research on this before the show. They make $8,000 to $12,000 for those deals. Let’s just call it $10,000. $10,000 times four transactions a year is $40,000. We just talked about making a million and a half dollars a year.

The average real estate agent in this country, the average or mean number is between $40,000 and $60,000 a year. The people in the top 10th percentile make a couple of million dollars a year. Guess what? That’s our average. You’ve got six million deals that 1.6 million people are chasing. We don’t chase deals. They come to us. We send out all this mail. A bunch of properties come back, we choose which one we want to buy and we buy it.

We don't chase deals. They come to us. Share on X

I like this sentence, I got to tell you. I’m going to pause this moment. I just read this as he moved up the script and it’s cool.

This got me prompted to, in my research this morning, look at what property managers make because, in my entire real estate career, I have always looked at property managers as super intelligent, numbers-based, non-emotional real estate agents. A person who manages a 180-unit apartment building for a REIT.

It’s probably a salaried employee of a huge property management company. Okay, it led me to Jill’s sentence here. If Jill and I were 22 years old, this is what I would do. This is what I would pitch to Jill and she would probably say yes. The average property manager makes $110,000. It tops out a lot higher than that, $150,000 to $180,000.

Jill and I aren’t used to doing anything average. If each of us became a salaried property manager, our household would be making a quarter of a million dollars a year. Now we don’t have to worry about bills. Also, if we were 22, we would live in the worst block of the worst neighborhood that you could find that’s close to all the fun.

Theoretically, that would be cheap. It would be way below average housing costs. 1) At that time we would send out a ton of mail and start doing deals. 2) We would look around at other failing property managers and either buy their company, figure out how to buy it, or start our own and go get the clients. Competition? There’s no competition.

Hold on a moment. That’s a 60-hour-a-week job. I might sign up for that in the beginning because I need the dough and I’m going to use the dough for something else but I’m certainly not hanging out in that job.

To pay the bills, get ahead, fund our mailer, and fund either buying a small property management company that we could grow or starting our own or both. My point is, there are huge numbers of solutions out there. If you put your mind into it and realize that you’re not average. That there’s no competition.

Competition is a thought process in your mind, which to me is another way of saying, “I’m conceding.” Do you think that NFL stars, while they’re running down the field, are wondering if they’re the fastest person in the league, how they got there, or any of that stuff? No. They’re just smashing it out there on the field.

As I say, people confuse average and they think that they’re put into a box based on how smart they are and that’s 100% not true. What’s going to differentiate you and somebody else? Not this. How hard you work. Period. If you are showing up, killing it, getting better every day, learning, getting more efficient, getting the right people around you and under you, you will be above average.

That’s right. When I met Jill, she had a work-from-home job selling education for a trade college and she smashed it. She was at the top of the list as a salesperson every single month. There were plaques all over the place. One day a light bulb went off in my head and I said, “What if she did this for us?” “What if she sold real estate for us?” “I can buy these properties all day long. What if she sold them?” We did. If we were 22, can you imagine?

I can’t even imagine. I know I agree.

One-Acre Property Deal

I have to do this every six months. I have to talk about competition and I take a different angle at it every single time. There’s no real competition in our industry at all. If you sent out a mailer and somebody says to you, “I just got three letters this.” They didn’t. They did not get just three letters. They maybe have one, and it’s maybe in the Austin, Texas area where you shouldn’t be sending mail probably anyway, which we cover all in the entire program. Let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

“Fayette County, Tennessee, accepted the offer price is $12,000. Thinks we can sell it for $24,000 to $30,000. One acre.

What’s the deal breaker on that 40? I can tell you about usability. Let’s just say it’s all wet and it’s just duck hunting land with access. That’s not bad. We just need a comparison.

Then I would just need to bring in and make sure it’s a Whitetail Properties guy.

The Whitetail Properties guy would be great. They’ll tell you right away.

They’ll fix it. Is someone else trying to fund this around me? Just kidding. 1.6 acres next door, for $22,000 in 2000. 1.1 acre, five parcels over, for $17,000 in 2000. I see houses. If you guys can see the display, you can make out the houses here. When we do our deal review, we do just this where we look at different maps and different layers to see where the houses are and then look at other things that might be built out.

It’s not wet according to FEMA. That’s good. Access is fantastic.

It is right there. That one did. Got it. There’s a seller. He’s selling the one furthest away. I like that.

As I’ve said in the past, these properties are easy to value. All you need to do is take a look at this house. We’re going to look at the owner’s house and see what it’s worth. Whatever it’s worth, we’re looking at a few of these other ones. Sit into the lot. It needs to be less than 10% of that value.

What a smart man. Sweetheart, I’m going to own all these three lots. We’re going to pick the best one and build on it. When we need dough later on, we’ll start selling them off.

Exactly, which she had $30,000 or $40,000. We never have to work. $285,000, right away, it needs to be less than $20,000 and you’re at $12,000. Your target price is $20,000, which is fantastic. Let’s just confirm other sales. These are the properties that are more than one acre that are sold. I’m going to remove the boundaries just we can see the area. 1.2 acres sold. This is the cheapest at $20,000. For sale, the cheapest property that’s over an acre is $50,000.

We like it.

Inspirational Message

Two for two. I love this deal. Jill, you have something inspirational to share with us.

Yes. I was thinking the other day about an individual that I’ve been watching in Land Academy, not you.

Thanks. It’s not about me.

Someone who stops and starts, they get involved, they get un-involved. This poor person, I don’t know what’s going to happen to them. They started to do Career Path and then they’re like, “I don’t know if I can do Career Path.” I was thinking about myself. I’m thinking about the other successful people in the group. I have this question that I want to ask you readers to figure out who you are.

Are you a stick-with-it kind of person, or you are constantly chasing something shiny or even worse, just starting and stopping, and not continuing and finishing something? Part of this whole thing, and it’s not even Land Academy, what we do, period. Life. Think about college. Think about any career you choose. There’s going to be highs and there’s going to be lows.

You have to decide if that’s what you want and then you’re going to commit to it, stick with it, and work through the stuff. This is it. Versus, you never get anything done. Sometimes chasing something shiny, “This could be better.” “This could be better.” “This could be better.” I’m going to argue is not just that, “I found something better and I had to go that path.” I’m going to argue that you’re never going to commit to something.

That’s your way of saying, “I don’t have to do anything. I’m just still researching. I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” You’re just not sticking with it. I don’t know why I’m thinking of a doctor. That’s a long path. Say you want to be a doctor, or you want to be a surgeon. You get into it. Now, you want to be this kind of surgeon or just even any college.

We all know people who have 8 or 10 years of college education and not one degree because they constantly change their major. What a waste, what a waste of time and energy and money, and all of that, “This one’s going to be it.” They just can’t finish it. Do you know what? Maybe, you are worried that you made the wrong decision.

Later on, revisit it. Later on, if you find something it doesn’t work for you. I can understand there are a few exceptions. This is the people that I respect. People who go down the path and start something, finish it, have a wonderful career, even though it wasn’t their dream passion, but they had a nice life. They made it work and then later on say, “After all this time I realized this is what I want to do. Now at 60 or fill in the blank, whatever, I’m going to do this. This is what I’ve always wanted to do.” I’ve always wanted to paint. Who knows? Not me. I have no talent like that. No art talent, Jill.

Wow, that’s a great prelude to doing whatever you want.

There are lots of things I could do with that. Singing or drawing, that’s not me, I’m fine with that. Anyway, I just wanted you to think about that, and you can fix it. Jill, that’s me, you’re talking about me, I didn’t even realize it. I do that, I start this, I turn it off, I get half involved, I come up with excuses. Stop it, hold yourself accountable, and give yourself little rewards if you have to along the way. Break it up into reasonable tasks so you’re not overwhelmed and just finish it. Watch what will happen. It’s going to change you, change everything when you accomplish something.

That’s a perfect prelude to what I want to share. I don’t agree with Jill in most of what she just said.

You don’t agree with me? This is awesome, she says sarcastically.

Bill Gates, senior. The Bill Gates that we know, his father wrote a book called Showing Up For Life. It’s probably my favorite business slash inspirational book. The name of my share here is How To Get To The Top 10% Of Performers In Any Business. The very first inkling of you wanting to do well at anything, you got to sit yourself down and have a real serious honest conversation.

Sit down and have a real, serious, and honest conversation with yourself as soon as you even think about wanting to do well at anything. Share on X

I’m not a very good student. I graduated from Michigan State University, barely because I didn’t care. I found out a lot later in life that I didn’t care because I have a mild learning disability, dyslexia. It doesn’t apply to numbers for some reason. I’m very good at math. That’s my point. Have a real honest conversation about what you’re good at, what you enjoy, what you’re not good at, and what you don’t want to do.

I wasn’t good at school, all the way through. I’m not a college professor, it’s just common sense. I was very good at sports, not all of them, but some of them. I hated it. I hated the locker room culture and all that. I was rewarded for that my entire life. Never went into that either in any way because I didn’t like it. What I loved and what always came easy to me since I was 14 years old is making money and organizing things that I could use my head not my hands because I got tired of cutting lawns, shoveling snow, and all that stuff like many people.

Great. Now that’s the end of the conversation with myself. I suck at this. I’m okay at this but I don’t like it, and I’m pretty good at this. This is the thing that I want to be the 10% on. What Jill just said was, “You can change it.” You can’t. You’re not going to change something. If you’re bad at it, you’re just going to punish yourself for decades trying to be in the top 10% or you’re just going to go through the motions and wait so you can retire until the social security kicks in.

Not that there’s anything wrong with those things, but I think that’s what happens to most people. If you want to be in the top 10% and in my case, it was making a lot of money. You have to come up with a way where it makes sense to you. I still can’t get over this, we went to a Billy Currington concert. Before that, we went to Sun Valley, the resort because that’s where the show was.

We were having dinner in a bar and there was the gas station chain Sinclair if you’ve ever seen that big green Brontosaurus. It was a national convention of gas station owners. It was all kinds of people dressed up. It was probably an award show. My point in bringing this up is that I don’t want to own any gas stations.

I don’t want to get into a 10% margin business where there are customers in and out 24-7. There’s bricks and mortar you got to deal with, leases, and all kinds of money and debt that you’ve got to accumulate. In that program, there was a top 10% and I can tell you, they probably had that conversation with themselves or they inherited the business from their parents or something like that.

They got to be in the top 10%. That’s what this whole meeting was about. For me, I don’t want any risk. I don’t want any bricks and mortar. I don’t want any employees. I want to be able to get in and out without a real commitment, the way that we get in and out of these deals. Through the course of failing at a bunch of stuff, which I still fail at sometimes.

I came up with buying and selling land in the early 90s out of frustration. My whole motivation was, I don’t want to work for anybody else. I don’t even want to work for myself. Ultimately, we decided in 2015 to teach it. It starts with a real honest conversation with yourself about what you’re good at, what you’re not good at, and where you want this all to go. Sitting in front of us, in my case, a spreadsheet or a yellow pad of paper, and deconstructing you and where you want to go. Then putting together a plan to get there.

Cool. That was great. Thank you. Don’t forget, you can reach us for questions or help or anything that you need. If you want to get something answered here or learn how to learn more about us, you can easily text (480) 530-7383. Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are Jack and Jill, information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.

Important Links

• Showing Up For Life