Transcript:

Steven Jack Butala:
I am Steven Jack Butala.

Jill K DeWit:
And I’m Jill DeWit, and this is the Land Academy Show.

Steven Jack Butala:
This is episode number 1,997, and today we are talking about three ways to take advantage of the 2024 real estate stagnation that is sure to happen this year. A little later we’ll talk about how we’re going to take a look at how you respond to change. This change is going to happen this year, not just in real estate.

Jill K DeWit:
Uh-oh. Is this a, “Jill, we’re taking a deep dive into your psyche. How do you respond to things?”

Steven Jack Butala:
I would not dare.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, gosh.

Steven Jack Butala:
To put you center stage, and ask you all kinds of questions that put you out of your comfort zone. No joke.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, right.

Steven Jack Butala:
No, that’s not what this is.

Jill K DeWit:
Thanks a lot. We left my comfort zone a long … way back there a long time ago, like 10 years ago.

Steven Jack Butala:
Were you ever in your comfort zone, do you think? Seriously?

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. I mean, yeah. You know what? I was not in my comfort zone. I was in a comfort zone, and I hated it.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.

Jill K DeWit:
I felt trapped.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.

Jill K DeWit:
I felt stuck. I couldn’t stand it. I hit the ceiling of where I was working. There was nowhere to go, and then that’s why … I’ve had that a couple times in my life, and I had to make changes, and now that we run our own companies, I don’t have that problem anymore.

Steven Jack Butala:
We just had this exact talk about, I don’t want to blow the episode here, but how risky a W-2 job is, and it’s so ironic because you think it’s the greatest thing ever, “Oh, I got this great job. I’m going to get a new car. I’m going to buy a new house. I’m finally going to do the stuff I want to do.” It’s totally the opposite.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
You should hunker down, especially this day and age, and prepare for that single point of failure to fail.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
Each week on the show we answer questions from our Land Academy member Discord forum, and review land acquisitions from our weekly member webinars, and then we take a deep dive into two land-related topics.

Jill K DeWit:
Yup. All right, so Alicia wrote, “How many zip codes do you gauge your mailer on in the red yellow green test? So what I mean is, do you test 3 to 10 zip codes, and then if 6 out of 10 are good, and then 4 don’t pass, what’s your number? I’m sure I’m overthinking here.” I like this question.

Steven Jack Butala:
Alicia-

Jill K DeWit:
How many is enough, and what’s not too much?

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not overthinking this at all, and I have to tell you, I love your contribution to Discord, not as a person who’s … you are using Discord how we intended it when we set it all up. She’s asking tiny little questions every single step of the way. I can read through Discord on most of the channels, and I can see where you are in your career.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s sweet.

Steven Jack Butala:
And at some point I’ll tell you, and I say this with passion, we’re just not going to hear from you again. That’s how this always happens because you’re off and running and, “Thanks, guys-

Jill K DeWit:
That’s true, “Loud, loud, loud, got it.”

Steven Jack Butala:
“I got what I needed from you, and bye.”

Jill K DeWit:
True. True that.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re not overthinking this at all. I would test as many zip codes as you possibly can stomach. The more that you test, the more you’re going to find two or three or four that absolutely kick the heck out of the other ones. But I will tell you on a personal note, the vast majority of the time when I pick an area to test, and I run, let’s say a 10 zip code test, I choose like eight or nine of them. There’s usually one glaring.

Jill K DeWit:
What’s your average, 8 or 9 out of 20?

Steven Jack Butala:
10.

Jill K DeWit:
10.

Steven Jack Butala:
10 is good. 10 is a good-

Jill K DeWit:
10 is good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Regional rural market, if it’s urban, it’s a whole different deal, and we talk about that in House Academy. Urban markets are usually for House Academy, and you can see right away where you should be sending mail, but rural land markets, like 10.

Jill K DeWit:
What’s the most common thing that you … of the red yellow green tests, days on market new list is sold, and what’s the third?

Steven Jack Butala:
In the universe of properties, what’s listed.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. Okay. What’s the number one? What weighs the most? Is it days on market?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, it used to be. It used to be days on market for a long, long time was a real indicator, or you could look at, let’s say three zip codes out, just on the sake of argument. One’s got a days on market of 80, one’s got a days on market of 70, and one’s got it of 60. 60 is the best because stuff’s moving faster, but that’s just not … What I really look at now is what’s pending, and what’s existing. So if I have … There’s a market I just analyzed for mobile homes, and it has as many pending properties as it does for sale properties. What I can tell then is that, and it was a lot too, like 30 pending, and with the entire list, I think there were, left over there were 30 for sale still. So there was a huge problem, in my opinion, with the properties that are still left for sale, meaning they’re not priced correctly, or the quality of the product or location is substandard. So now it’s telling me everything I need to know about that market, and I want to stay out there.

Jill K DeWit:
They’re not interesting.

Steven Jack Butala:
So you can tell so much from this red green yellow test.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s true.

Steven Jack Butala:
You can’t overdo the red green yellow test. First of all, it’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
By the way, it’s free. Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s free.

Jill K DeWit:
You haven’t download any data yet.

Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s easy.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
Doing the mailers, if you don’t get concierge data to do it, especially if it’s your first time, it’s time-consuming and a pretty big learning curve. But red green yellow test is you in a weekend and a pot of coffee, and you’re going to come out of that, which I can tell you know what you were doing already just by asking this question. More is better for all this stuff.

Jill K DeWit:
I think more is better too, in a lot of things, most things, not kids.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a gear shift there. I agree with you.

Jill K DeWit:
Not marriages or kids, more is not better.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill, just bought a new couch, and she, I think overspent on it, and-

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, this is good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hold on, there’s a compliment here.

Jill K DeWit:
I can’t wait to hear this one.

Steven Jack Butala:
We both sat down on this couch, and it’s really nice actually. It’s going to change our lives quite honestly.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s sad to report, but that’s all it takes.

Jill K DeWit:
I won. I was right, not that I need to win.

Steven Jack Butala:
The first thing, we both looked at each other and said, “No children will ever sit on this couch. It’s not going to get racked or-

Jill K DeWit:
We have no kids at home, and no pets.

Steven Jack Butala:
We both just had a little smile on our face like-

Jill K DeWit:
I can have a tan couch, a cream couch, that’s it. I intentionally bought a cream couch and I love it.

Steven Jack Butala:
I do too, actually.

Jill K DeWit:
It’s awesome.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s first topic, three ways to take advantage of the 2024 real estate stagnation that will happen. Mark my words. It’s happening now. The real estate market is finally responding, finally responding to the crazed frenzy that was COVID-driven. Everybody got to work from home, who could. Everybody moved out of town, who could.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so there was a lot of movement. There was just … and it drove prices way up, unrealistically high.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
And so for lots of industries, they got subsidized by the governments, not just in this country, but all over the place. So what ended up happening, in my opinion, is this massive interruption in real supply and demand, and that trickled into this pure supply-demand of real estate in location and price and all of that. Then a bunch of other stuff happened, it got too crazy, so the federal government stepped in specifically last year, raised the hell out of interest rates to a kook level, in my opinion, and that had a huge effect on access to capital, including mortgages. The whole result is, and that was the federal government’s intention, is to stop the madness, and to bring some balance back into pure supply and demand, and we’re going to see that.
Before that actually truly happens, the pendulum’s going to swing back in the other direction. It was a frenzy before, it’s going to take a huge chill pill, and this year we’re going to see what I’m going to call stagnation. It’s probably going to be a little bit deflated, but it won’t crash, I don’t believe, like it did in 2000 and, let’s say ’10 or ’09. So how can we really take advantage of this as investors? I said this before a thousand times, this is my third time, so I really … my third time buying and selling land as a primary way to make money, my primary income in business. The second time was just a repeat of the first time, the severity was different, this time will be just like the first time, pretty equal severity. So number one, there’s a lot more properties on the market so you need to, number one, make a lot of offers, a lot more offers than you’re making now because they will be responded to much more favorably because there’s so much real seller competition.

Jill K DeWit:
I love this.

Steven Jack Butala:
Number two. More people, and take this how you will, will be renting than buying. There is the stagnation that’s going to happen or is happening, happens in the job markets too, less people are getting-

Jill K DeWit:
Because they can’t afford to buy.

Steven Jack Butala:
Less people are getting raises, more people are getting laid off. I hate to be negative here, but there’s no other way to say it. So there’s a lot more down, and when things are down, it’s just like the stock market, when it’s down, those are opportunity. Some things … In my opinion, the stock market usually gets artificially put down, like let some newscast comes out, or some type of natural event happens and the stock takes a huge dive and then it comes back up. It’s all based on news reporting. It’s based on reality. This is based on reality.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
People lose their job, they’re going to need to make some decisions in life, which takes me to point three. People are going to move. All this frenzy of all these people that are working from home in response to COVID, and bought a property in Lake Tahoe, can’t afford it now, or maybe they’ve got a jobs change or scenario, and they have to move back into the city, and so it’s not just houses, it’s all of it. Tons of people bought land with the idea of building a house out in the woods because they were going to work from home forever, and that’s all going to change, and it is changing. So enter you, the real estate investor, take a look at all these things, digest it all, run and just keep sending offers out in areas that are indicative to these three things or more, whatever makes sense to you, you’re going to win.

Jill K DeWit:
I love it. I’m trying to think what is … I had a question about this as far as prices. Did you really dive deep enough, I wonder, in the pricing or can you add to that? In addition to sending out more offers, this is where you can just … We talked … How do I say? On our Thursday member call, we have people that will bring up deals sometimes, and they’re kind of on the fence about it, I’m like, “You know what then, what will solve it?” Often it’s money. So I’m like, “All right, so if you got it for what,” they’re like, “Well, yeah, if I could buy it for that, then I’d do it and figure it out. It would be a no-brainer.” I’m like, “Okay, that’s how you need to think about it.” I think that’s going to come up even more.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me just kind of tee up what Jill is really saying. We get a deal in. Where’d you do this deal? On our Thursday call we look at tons of them, every single Thursday for our membership group, and they are presented like this. This is a buy for 14,000, and a sell for 65,000.

Jill K DeWit:
Right.

Steven Jack Butala:
We look at it, and bring our experience, and a bunch of other people that are on our panel say, “Oh, I love this about it. I love this about it. I love this about it, but this is not good. There’s an issue here.” What’s going to fix it? Well, you’re buying it for 14, what do you say you try to buy it for 7, and then you’ve got all kinds of room on the sell side if something goes wrong to say “No, it’s a buy for 7 and sell for 22.” Because some stuff went wrong, and you don’t want to be buying for 14 and selling for 22, it’s just not worth your time. So what she’s saying is, I think, if I can paraphrase, “Just do that anyway. Send out the offers that way. Do it on all the deals. Just send out three times as much mail as you’re currently sending, and pick and choose which ones you want to do.”

Jill K DeWit:
You speak Jill very well. Jill got three sentences out, and Jack says, “Let me take this back over here, I’ll explain it.”

Steven Jack Butala:
[Inaudible 00:12:59] super clear. What she’s saying is buy the freaking property cheap, all right? Especially now, there’s a lot more property-

Jill K DeWit:
That’s it, be aggressive.

Steven Jack Butala:
On the market. Probably it’s going to take you a little longer to sell it, you want to make sure you’re buying the stuff cheap.

Jill K DeWit:
You should be looking at everything like this. If this guy says yes to this number, I’m buying it. I got to buy it. That’s how I want you to think about it with every deal right now, and like he said, mail it out that way. Don’t be afraid of it. Watch what happens. We joke about this all the time. You’re on the phone and you say, “You know what? I know I said 53, I meant 53,000. I meant 5,300. I did some looking at it, that’s best I can do,” and then wait for it and see what happens. Usually there’s a reason behind it. I don’t want you to be that guy, don’t try to be a not good person, but there’s circumstances that you’re like we’re talking about right now you got to make some really smart decisions, and you’re not … Whatever it is, it’s up to them to say yes or no, if they’re comfortable with it, they say yes, and if they’re not, they’ll say, “Can you make it 10?” And I might make it 10.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let me tell a little anecdotal story about Jill to really drive her point home here. I used to live in Hermosa Beach, and there was a town in California, a town close by named Torrance, and a property came up for sale. I’m not sure if it came up on the MLS. It was a house, which is way out of our business model. Back then we were buying and selling land just like we are now, but a property came up, we either became aware of it or it was listed on the MLS, and it was a good deal, just the square footage and all the statistics. It was clear to me something was going on with the seller, so I said, “Hey, you know this girl friend that you have, who’s a real estate agent, and she seems to be really active and very successful at it, let’s get her to go find out why. She can be our real estate agent on this deal.” I think it was 700,000 bucks in a sea of 1.2 million properties.
So she did, she called her girl friend, she went and found out the whole thing, and we determined that the property at 700,000 was a pretty good deal, but not a good enough deal for us. We determined that at 650 or 625, I don’t remember the exact numbers, that’s the kind of Jack and Jill pricing and deal that we’ll do. It’s real tough for us to lose any money. In fact, we’re probably going to make a hundred grand pretty quick. That was the exact thought process. So Jill being Jill goes back to her and says, “I know what’s listed for this. This is the price, and let’s close the deal,” and she blew her top. She said, “At that price I would buy it.”

Jill K DeWit:
That was it. I’m like-

Steven Jack Butala:
And Jill said, “That’s the whole point.”

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Every deal we do is like that.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
As if to say, “You have to buy it at that price,” and a big massive light bulb went off in her head and said, “That’s why these guys live on the ocean, and I don’t.” I could see it unfolding in her head, because she was thinking it-

Jill K DeWit:
Wasn’t that funny?

Steven Jack Butala:
In terms of presenting offers and potential embarrassment, or whatever real estate agents think about. I don’t know.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, probably maximizing her commission, I would say. I don’t know.

Steven Jack Butala:
I don’t know either.

Jill K DeWit:
No, but that’s a good story. I forget about that.

Steven Jack Butala:
When you look at the land deal, you need to look at it and say, “I have to buy this. I have to buy this. This is … In fact, I probably should open escrow today and-

Jill K DeWit:
Run to the bank.

Steven Jack Butala:
“Stop what I’m doing now. This deal is so good I need to buy it.” Those are the-

Jill K DeWit:
Before anybody changes their mind.

Steven Jack Butala:
Those are the only deals that Jill and I do, and there will be more of them during this stagnation period. How do we accomplish that? What’s the real secret? We send out truck tons of mail and offers.

Jill K DeWit:
I love that. That was good.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look. Do you want to talk more?

Jill K DeWit:
Nuh-huh. I’m drinking my tea.

Steven Jack Butala:
Let’s take a look at one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m trying to think what to say, to talk about … I liked your offers to owners. I’m trying to think if there’s another product I can roll in here and talk about.

Steven Jack Butala:
Well, it’s March, are you ready?

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
Jill and I own a full-blown commercial company.

Jill K DeWit:
Printing.

Steven Jack Butala:
A commercial printing company called offers2owners.com, and I know for a fact because I just approved it, that we are running some pretty amazing March sales.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. As a matter of fact-

Steven Jack Butala:
March discounts.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, and there’s going to be some special stuff going on too if you join us next Tuesday. So next Tuesday, March 26th, I will be live with our concierge data lead. What do we call him? We’ll just say lead in the companies, and doing a behind-the-scenes look at the concierge data, what really goes on. So join us, go to offers2owners.com or landacademy.com, and you’ll find on the front page there a place that you can sign up to attend the live webinar, and just see what we do, what goes on, and ask some questions, and take advantage of the deals coming up. Now we’re going to take a look at another question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy Discord online community. All right, Sid wrote, “Responding to Troy-

Steven Jack Butala:
Another member in Discord.

Jill K DeWit:
“I started with another,” I can already tell this is cool, “I started with another program that used neutral letters as their primary marketing method. Since you’re not putting a price on the letter, you will get three to four times the number of responses. You will spend a lot of time on the phone to determine that 95% of those callers will not fit your buying criteria, and want retail price for their property. I did buy my first property with this method, so it does work, but with a lot of wasted noise.”
“I joined Land Academy and switched to the blind offer method, not near the amount of responses, but the seller has an idea of the price you’re willing to pay. Most will want to negotiate the price, et cetera, so the person answering the phone or calling you back, if you have it going to a service, is the key to the business. I’ve priced too high and I’ve also priced too low on some mailers, so the key is to determine what price you’re willing to negotiate and stick with it. I’ve had sellers refuse to initial accept my price only to call back one to two months later and accept. Good luck with your journey.” That’s so sweet.

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s a lot of … For whatever reason, we had several people in the last, let’s say 60 days, join us from other programs, and there’s all kinds of different methodologies out there. We obviously believe ours is the best, and one of those is neutral letters where you just send an offer saying, “Hey, yeah, you know, I’d like to buy a piece of property.”

Jill K DeWit:
One of the other ways to do it. Yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
“I’d like to buy a piece of property, give me a call,” and so it generates a ton of activity, but not at a price that you typically want to pay.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. I even had one come in. We don’t do neutral letters at all. We don’t do postcards. I don’t do anything to warm anybody up because the last thing I want to do … If I send out a postcard to the planet saying “I want to buy your property,” they’re all going to call me, and then we’re going to all … It’s just going to slow me down and waste my time. What’s funny about the offer range, which I’ve seen, did we mention that?

Steven Jack Butala:
No.

Jill K DeWit:
This is just … I got to tell you, I just had someone send me an offer on a property that I don’t own anymore, but it was so funny because not only … they’re expecting me to do math as a seller, they don’t know who I am. So I get this thing like, “Hey, we want to buy your 4.6 acre property in Tennessee, and we’re willing to pay anywhere between 2,000 and $8,000 an acre.” I’m like, “Well, A, all I see is $8,000 an acre, and now I got to do the math.” But when they sent that out, I’m sure they’re thinking 2000, why don’t you just send an offer for 2000 an acre and just cut to the chase? Then when I get it and I see it, it either works for me or it doesn’t, that’s the point.

Steven Jack Butala:
Why would somebody do that?

Jill K DeWit:
I know, ain’t that weird?

Steven Jack Butala:
No, I’m asking seriously why.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t know. I guess just to get a phone call. I would say that if you’re going to write 2,000 and 8,000, just say 2,000 or more, or just at minimum or something like that. I don’t know.

Steven Jack Butala:
Whoever you are, and-

Jill K DeWit:
When you give two numbers, you’re automatically going to see the higher one. Unless you’re buying something, you automatically see the red sticker.

Steven Jack Butala:
Whoever you are, whatever type of investor you are, or you want to be, please take note of this. When you do a mailer, I don’t care what kind of mailer it is, put yourself, picture yourself sitting at the kitchen table opening the mail, and they open your letter and what their response is going to be. I don’t think that you’ll end up sending a letter that requires somebody to get out a solar-powered calculator out of their junk drawer, and then explain it to their husband who doesn’t want to sell a property anyway for any price.

Jill K DeWit:
That happens. Is it really 4.6? I mean, can we-

Steven Jack Butala:
We make them go through four steps to actually consider picking up the phone and saying, “Oh, $8,000 for my four acre property, $32,000 sounds pretty good.” About 1% of anybody who receives your letter that way is ever going to get it … is ever going to go through that process. They’ve already had the life event that’s going to make them sell the property to you, if they see $32,000 associated with a property they never wanted in the first place, they’re going to call you. If not, if they think it’s worth 55,000, they’re going to call you and yell at you. That’s fine, that happens all the time. They’re going to crumple your letter up and throw it away, and that’s fine too. That’s all part of what we do.

Jill K DeWit:
Totally. It’s hilarious.

Steven Jack Butala:
Today’s second topic, let’s take a look at how you, not you, Jill, but you listener, respond to change.

Jill K DeWit:
It should be let’s take a look at how Jill responds to change. Let’s just start there actually.

Steven Jack Butala:
Actually, you know what?

Jill K DeWit:
I’m okay with that.

Steven Jack Butala:
You handle change really well.

Jill K DeWit:
You know, I didn’t always.

Steven Jack Butala:
Really?

Jill K DeWit:
No, I didn’t. Well, I guess it depends on some things, but I remember … maybe I do it well because there’s one situation I didn’t, and then that surprised me, and that’s the one I hang my hat on. It was changing from Sabre to quick Res. Anybody who was in the airline industry knows, “Ah, I know what that is.” Heck, I spent eight weeks learning Sabre, and you’re making me ditch all this knowledge that I had. It’s like, you know what it is, it would be like if I took Excel away from you and said, “No, you’re just going to fill in the boxes.”

Steven Jack Butala:
That happened.

Jill K DeWit:
You would fight, wouldn’t you?

Steven Jack Butala:
I went from Lotus to Excel, and I was in companies where they would start riots.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah. So that was the same with me, I’m like … That one I wasn’t really comfortable with, and there was a reason why, because I like the old school. I want to know what I’m pulling and what I’m doing. I don’t like easy buttons. What?

Steven Jack Butala:
We come from a generation, Jill and I, as many of you do, where just putting a computer on your desk was a massive change.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
Why can’t I put this in a three-ring binder? Why don’t I have to use a copy machine anymore?So that first generation of change, then there was terrible software we used that didn’t work, so you turn the computer off and just do it the old way. Then some software came around that actually worked okay, and the supervisors all said, “We’re going to use this now so you can throw those three ring binders away.”

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly.

Steven Jack Butala:
Then we really started getting software that made our lives easier. So if you entered the workforce when software was good, then change is really easy for you. That’s my whole point to this. So if you’re younger, change through computer … Now we know, fast-forward to now, we know that Apple 17 is going to be better than 15 theoretically. We just know that, and we’ve accepted it, and change will come, and it’s going to happen and we pay for it, and it generally makes our lives better.

Jill K DeWit:
Usually, it’s better. Now I’m excited for it.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s better. Yeah, me too.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, you know what? So here’s what happened, that was my one thing. So you know what? You’re right, I am good at change because I’m … as you’re talking, I’m thinking about it. I’ve moved a lot. We’ve moved a lot. We go where jobs are. We go where kids need to get in school. We go where we want to be. We go where we can now afford, or we go where we can’t afford. We are not afraid to do that. Some people don’t do that. A lot of people don’t do that.
So I was raised on change, I wonder if it’s nature or nurture. I guess that’s my … I always think of that, whatever it is, I always go, “Is it nature or nurture?” I don’t know why, but it helps me process it when I think of it like that. So I think for me, by nature, I’m probably fine with it like, “Am I still going to be able to do X?” Then I’m like, “Sure, then let’s do it.” That’s all I care about. I don’t have a lot of major needs, but by nurture, I was raised in a little bit of a, “Here’s what we’re doing now,” kind of thing. All right, let’s go.

Steven Jack Butala:
So a lot of this too, I think is industry-specific. If you’re in the tech industry, you have to embrace change, and it’ll make or break you. You’re always trying to find the next best thing and make it great. Timing is everything in that industry. In healthcare, you have to embrace change. I used to be in healthcare, and I’ve never seen a group of people, in general, that are more adverse to anything changing in my entire life.

Jill K DeWit:
If we’ve got by with using this old charting system for 25 years, why can’t we do it for 25 more?

Steven Jack Butala:
There’s some reasonably good arguments to back it up like, “I’m going to deliver the same exact care to this person, whether I put it in the computer or not.” What you lose is outcomes, and care plans, and all the stuff where you can measure the delivery of care, and which caregivers maybe has a better outcomes than the one next to them and all of that, and that defeats the purpose of why you should theoretically get into healthcare in the first place. So I get it, a lot of it is industry specific, and some of it is age, but I’ll tell you what? Change happens, and in this industry you better embrace it.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, I’m going to talk about you before you bring it into us real quick.

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, man.

Jill K DeWit:
I know. Well, just how do you think you are on a scale of 1 to 10? And then I’ll tell you what you really are. Wait, I’m writing down a number. All right, so what do you think you are?

Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology change, on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 meaning I’m terrible, and 10 meaning I’m great at it?

Jill K DeWit:
Mm-hmm.

Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology change probably north of 9.

Jill K DeWit:
Okay.

Steven Jack Butala:
I embrace technology or I embrace change that’s related to the regular building blocks of life like where I live, I’m probably a 2.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, so where would you if you overall averaged it? I’m holding … You could probably see my number.

Steven Jack Butala:
I can’t see it.

Jill K DeWit:
So yeah-

Steven Jack Butala:
I’m probably like a solid 6.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, I gave him an 8. Do you see that?

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, good.

Jill K DeWit:
You can’t see it, but there’s an 8 on there. I gave him an 8. You’re way better than you think.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re probably about an 8 too.

Jill K DeWit:
You know what? I take it back. I’m an 8, you’re a 7.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I think those are good numbers, maybe 6.

Jill K DeWit:
For whatever reason, I’m good at it. You’re like, “Here’s what we’re doing now,” I’m like, “Okay.” When we bring people into Land Academy in our backend part of it, the staffing, what’s one of the things I tell them? Don’t get comfortable, because however we’re doing it today might not be how we’re doing it tomorrow, so just hang on and you’ll get used to it. So it’s funny, so thinking about Land Academy, this is a good topic because we are now, we are in year nine of just Land Academy, everybody. We’re going to be in 10 years of Land Academy, a decade of teaching and helping people. How cool is that?

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s insane, yeah.

Jill K DeWit:
Man, this is awesome. So we’re going to quickly be rolling into year 10 of Land Academy, and I’m thinking about the changes we even had since Land Academy. We didn’t have the mapping stuff. We didn’t have the GPS stuff that we had when we started Land Academy. We had a whole different data. We’ve gone through three different data sources, almost four when you go back to the old, old, old school ways, it’s pretty cool. Our online community has changed three times. I’m trying to think-

Steven Jack Butala:
Oh, geez.

Jill K DeWit:
Right?

Steven Jack Butala:
We failed at sending out mail with outside commercial printing companies, to the point we were so upset about it we just started our own.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
How many data set? This is our fourth. This is our fourth source of data because they just keep getting better.

Jill K DeWit:
Four, yeah.

Steven Jack Butala:
And it’s not our last.

Jill K DeWit:
Right. That’s the thing, you know-

Steven Jack Butala:
You know what hasn’t changed?

Jill K DeWit:
What’s that?

Steven Jack Butala:
What Jan does, Jill’s transaction coordinators. How we source transactions has dramatically changed.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
How we sell them has changed.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
First, it was real estate agents, then it was just us, Facebook marketplace, all this other stuff, then we did it on terms, then we didn’t, and now we’re back to finding good real estate agents. We’ve come full circle.

Jill K DeWit:
Myself in the middle didn’t change, the way I answer the phone-

Steven Jack Butala:
Nothing in the middle changes.

Jill K DeWit:
Oh, the way I enter the phone, and what I do, that didn’t change.

Steven Jack Butala:
The two ends change, and that’s it.

Jill K DeWit:
Wow.

Steven Jack Butala:
Processing a deal, and taking it through escrow is all exactly the same.

Jill K DeWit:
That didn’t change, and my phone number didn’t change.

Steven Jack Butala:
It’s really important to really, I think, deconstruct your life and see where a change is appropriate and where it’s not, and not to be hard-headed about this. I was very hard-headed about this. I was the last person to get a cell phone. Once I embraced it though, and some of it’s really worth it, I think social media in general has a terrible change, I think it brings worse than better.

Jill K DeWit:
I think it peaked.

Steven Jack Butala:
Yeah, I hope so.

Jill K DeWit:
I really do think it peaked, so we’ll see. My point for me to wrap up today is, I still mean it, we’re investors right here with you, doing our own deals right alongside you, so when a change is needed, we’ll do it. We’ll record it for you. We’ll write a program and record it for you, and we’ll share it with you. We’ll figure it out. We’ll watch for it. We’ll figure it out. We’ll test it, we’ll perfect it, and then we’ll share it with you to keep you moving forward, because we do want to do some bigger and better deals with you all the time. That’s our goal.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hey, let’s take a look at another one of our favorite land acquisitions from our weekly Thursday member webinar. Jill, you have something to share?

Jill K DeWit:
I do. So I was thinking about this recently, talking with my staff about people in Land Academy, and people not getting to Land Academy. Off and on I help take calls and talk to people who are interested, and have questions about joining, and I have a new person now helping me out, who’s within our existing staff, he’s been here for years, he said, “I want to help with the phone calls,” I’m like, “Thank you, yes.” It’s interesting, my point today is it’s interesting what we’re uncovering, and some people are not coming at this with the enthusiasm that they need to to be successful, or to make it more positive, yay, to those who are. So let me pivot for a minute.

Steven Jack Butala:
Hear the story. There’s a story here.

Jill K DeWit:
I’m going to pivot and make it good. Why wouldn’t you not go 110% at something, anything that you’re committed to?

Steven Jack Butala:
I agree.

Jill K DeWit:
I don’t have it in me to not do that.

Steven Jack Butala:
Me too.

Jill K DeWit:
I would rather not do it. If I’m going to start a new hobby, take on a new project, definitely a new line of business, oh, I’m in, and I’ll start kicking other things. Anything else that’s not important, takes up my time, takes up my mental energy, oh, it’s out of here. Anybody who stands in my way, especially people who stand in my way, who don’t agree with what I’m doing, or just holding me back, sorry, they’re just not going to be around because I’m going to commit, and I’m going to go at it. So that’s the thing, most of our community is made up of that, and that really does make me happy. That was my comment today, is think about when you make a pivot and you’re jumping into something new, make sure that you are all in, because if you are and you make those tough decisions to say, “I’m not going to let this fail,” you have to come at it and say, “Whatever happens, I’m going to get through it. I won’t let it fail,” you will succeed.

Steven Jack Butala:
My dad used to say, “If it’s worth doing, do it right,” and that’s what I think you’re saying. If it’s not worth doing or you don’t add into it or whatever, then don’t even just … just get out of there.

Jill K DeWit:
Well, if it’s not worth doing to you, then you don’t see it, you don’t feel it, you’re not invested in it.

Steven Jack Butala:
That’s what I mean.

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you shouldn’t do it. Don’t do anything you’re not invested in.

Steven Jack Butala:
First, figure out what’s worth doing.

Jill K DeWit:
Right, and for me, well, for you, if it’s a hobby, you’re doing it to, for whatever reason you want to do the hobby, you love it, you want to learn it, maybe you just want to have a release, it’s relaxing, those are all good reasons too. But for what we do, like if you’re starting a new business or something, or adding to your existing businesses, you’re going to make sure the math works, and then when you make sure the math works, then you’re in.

Steven Jack Butala:
Times 10. Make sure that-

Jill K DeWit:
That’s what you do.

Steven Jack Butala:
It had to work in a spreadsheet before it’s going to work in real life.

Jill K DeWit:
Exactly. What about you, Jack? What do you have to share with us today, informational?

Steven Jack Butala:
Along the lines of what we talked about today, I’ve realized that this is an endless pursuit. Components of it end and restart, but it is not … you don’t ever stop trying to get better at what you’re doing if it’s worth doing, along the lines of what you’re saying, so it’s endless. I used to think, and for a lot of reasons, and I grew up in an environment where you start a company, the company works, you keep your customers, you keep them happy, and that’s it. You keep making parts or whatever it is that you’re doing, and it’s not an endless pursuit, it’s kind of like a and then you kick your feet back up and this whole notion of, and you don’t hear this anymore of, “Hey, I want to be on the beach by the time I’m 40 years old.”

Jill K DeWit:
Yeah, you don’t hear that anymore.

Steven Jack Butala:
Ever. Because it’s not a thing anymore.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s interesting.

Steven Jack Butala:
You’re going to endlessly pursue whatever it is because, largely because of technology, technology changes so fast. The way that we source real estate deals will not be the same next year as it is this year, that I can tell you for sure.

Jill K DeWit:
True.

Steven Jack Butala:
Then three years from now, we probably won’t even be … it’s probably going to look really different, how we buy them, how we sell them, the amount of technology that’s used, whatever role AI plays, it will play a role for sure, and if you don’t have an open mind to that, it’s going to end. This is just an endless chase.

Jill K DeWit:
That’s so interesting.

Steven Jack Butala:
I actually think it’s good.

Jill K DeWit:
Don’t forget, you can reach us and my staff for questions, or you want to join or just find out more, whatever it is, two things, go to landacademy.com, or if you need to reach someone, just send a note to support@landacademy.com.

Steven Jack Butala:
Join us next Wednesday for another interesting episode. You are not alone in your real estate ambition, we are Jack and Jill-

Jill K DeWit:
We are Jack and Jill-

Steven Jack Butala:
Information-

Jill K DeWit:
And inspiration.

Steven Jack Butala:
To buy undervalued property.