How to Get GPS Coordinates for Rural Land (CFFL 0296)
How to Get GPS Coordinates for Rural Land
Jack Butala: How to Get GPS Coordinates for Rural Land. Every Single month we give away a property for free. It’s super simple to qualify. Two simple steps. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and number two, get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jack and I talk about how to get GPS coordinates for rural land. Before we get started, let’s hear about some funny stuff that’s happened to us recently. Jill.
Jill DeWit: I’m driving around with one of the children and this thought comes across. You know how they tease us because we drive around listening to … we’re often interested in the music of our day, when we were their age. I listen to Ariana, or whatever, and they have some really racy music. I’m trying to listen to their music and I’m looking over at kid #2 and I’m thinking “watch it, kid. You might be walking around at this age and what are your kids gonna to say when they’re hearing all this?”. Their lyrics are crazy.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: Is that really gonna to happen?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Could you imagine, I mean?
Jack Butala: I think every generation gets a little bit racier and racier until it’s like Ancient Rome, where no one wears any clothes. Then it comes full circle.
Jill DeWit: Think about some of these bands and the screaming. A that kind of music. #2 I get the EDM, I like that but some of these are … if I had little kids in the car I’d have to turn it off music. What’s that gonna to be like? “Hey, Grandpa what does such and such mean.” You know what I mean? How’s that gonna go?
Jack Butala: I’m happy to explain that stuff.
Jill DeWit: Isn’t that funny? Do you really think that’s gonna happen? I guess that’s gonna happen.
Jack Butala: I don’t know. I think the more education these kids have about this stuff the better.
Jill DeWit: It’s so funny. But I just …
Jack Butala: I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. It’s hilarious. We all do it. We all tease our parents.
Jack Butala: I think you might have gotten a little bit embarrassed. Did you get a little embarrassed in front of them?
Jill DeWit: A little? A little bit. Because … they’re just … there’s a lot of sex talk …
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s what I mean, you’re the Mom.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. We’re just jammin. I’m like, okay, I’m gonna jam with ya. Too funny. It’s fun they’re at the age now when they get in the car and I want to hear their songs on the radio because it helps me. I’m like, okay do whatever you want. Like, okay.
Jack Butala: I have a confession to make about this.
Jill DeWit: Tell me.
Jack Butala: I like the kids’ music. I mean, like 80 or 90% of it. I really do. I thought … my parents hate it. They hated my music.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: They just were “turn that crap off”. I like the kids’ music. Most of it. Some of the really disrespectful rap, I can’t got there.
Jill DeWit: That’s the ones that I’m like, hmm.
Jack Butala: Is that what you were listening to today?
Jill DeWit: A little bit, yeah. [crosstalk 00:02:40] Kid #1 music, all day long, love it. She helps me and kid #3 is pretty good. It gets a little out there. Kid #2, I don’t know. It’s …
Jack Butala: With the 3 kids it’s exactly how everything is. #3, I mean #2, I don’t know.
Jill DeWit: That’s life.
Jack Butala: Let’s take a question posted by one of our members on successplant.com, our free online community.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Luke asked “I have two properties next to each other. One is on the road, the other is not. The road one sold right away. I want to add onto the deed an easement to the back lot. Can I just write on each deed that grantor reserves a 30 food easement across the eastern most border of property X to allow property Y access? Is there some special wording I should use? Does it change all over the place? Like, 20 foot is not enough but 30 is? Or what?”. Crazy question. Good, wow …
Jack Butala: This is a great question, this is almost PHD level stuff. The short answer is it changes everywhere. Sometimes there’s a big process that’s involved even if you own all the properties.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: So check with planning and zoning and chances are, if you own all the properties, you’re gonna fill in some forms. I really hope they don’t make you do a survey.
Jill DeWit: That’s what I was thinking. Once you pick up the phone and call the zoning people and you want to make some changes, it can get expensive and time consuming. Now you got 6 people involved that have to sign off on it and it’s just you wanting to allow one guy to drive past it.
Jack Butala: I personally, I’ve done a bunch of these and I’ve never seen it where you just write it in the description. I’ve never seen an easement in a description. That’s not to say, where you’re doing it Luke, that’s not the case. It all starts with that question to planning and zoning.
Jill DeWit: Mm hmm. In that county because, you’re right. Does it change all over the place? Yeah, everybody’s different. That’s what’s funny about this … our world is … even you think the same state would do it all the same way. No. Different counties will do stuff different ways. It doesn’t matter if they’re in the same state.
Jack Butala: Exactly.
Jill DeWit: So, cool.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or want to me on the show, reach out to either one of us on successplant.com. Today’s topic is “How to get GPS coordinates for rural land”. It’s a huge topic that comes up all of the the time. There’s a couple of 3, 4 ways to do it. We’re gonna run through all 4 of them, or, however many number there are. Chances are, it’s probably gonna lead to more questions.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: No, this is a big topic.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I think I know why. About 6 months ago, maybe 8 months ago, you could go onto Google Earth Pro and type in an APN (Assessor’s Parcel Number). If there was a participating county the land would magically pop up with all the boundaries there, the whole thing and it was neat and beautiful and awesome. Then what happened, Jill?
Jill DeWit: They took it away.
Jack Butala: They took it away.
Jill DeWit: Somebody bought ’em and I don’t know where it went. Somebody bought that capability.
Jack Butala: It turns out it wasn’t Google doing that at all. They had it all subcontracted out to some company that did an overlay, it was pretty techy stuff. That company got sold. Realquest bought that company. Overnight, without an announcement I think, you just couldn’t do it anymore. It resulted in a flood of questions to us. I’ve done a video, and put it on youtube, on how to find with an Assessor’s Parcel Number and a plat map how to find your land.
It is pretty simple if you have a plat map, if you understand range and township and all of that stuff. It all starts, to make this very simple, with a plat map. If you’re a member of ours you can usually get a plat map through the data subscription you get with our monthly membership. If you don’t, you can always call the county and get a plat map. It will still require you to understand range, township so there is a learning curve. The beautiful thing about geography in general, I say this to our kids all the time, it doesn’t really change. Once you learn how to do this stuff, it’s kind of like math. I know it’s tough in the beginning but once you learn how to do it, it’s pretty simple.
You take that plat map and you get the range and the township and the section number. Range 23 North, Township 21 South, 13 South or something, then section 21. Go ahead.
Jill DeWit: I was gonna add in there …
Jack Butala: She just raiser her hand.
Jill DeWit: I did. If anyone doesn’t know a little bit what we’re talking about. Super easy to google this stuff. You can google “what is a plat map”, it’s p l a t. It will show you some and tell you a little bit what it is. It’s kind of like a map. Maybe it’s for a subdivision of your home, you’re on a plat map. Maybe it’s just vacant land, it looks like you’re looking out on a field. That it’s all one, big piece of land but it could be all subdivided up. You wouldn’t know it unless you actually look on a plat map. Right here there’s an imaginary line even though it looks all together, there’s not a border, that’s where the next property starts and all that good stuff. That’s what that is. On the plat map it will show you back the way land was originally divided up with the township and, like Jack said, the range and the section. That’s easy to look all that stuff up. There’s great resources to help you understand that. If you need to know.
Jack Butala: I think 30 minutes of research on Youtube or however you learn. With my video, and there’s a bunch of other ones out there too, it’s not hard to find. What you’ll do then, you’ll snap it in to Google Earth, usually. There’s lots of resources. The one that we use all the time is earthpoints.us. So you get the range township from the plat map and the section number, you pop it into there. Go to Google Earth, click on it and it flies you to Google Earth. Your cursor, if you haven’t noticed it, your cursor in Google Earth down on the bottom right will show you the GPS coordinates. Bang! You found the property.
Jill DeWit: I’m just gonna add one thing kinda funny. I had a member the other day in SuccessPlant ask “what is the big deal about Earth Point?”.
Jack Butala: I saw that.
Jill DeWit: It was so funny. “Why do you guys even care?” I said you are so lucky, most of the time you have the GPS coordinates. We didn’t have that back then. I even went on to add that. Back in the day I couldn’t even pull up a plat map online like I can now and print it out if I want to. You had to physically call the county, physically write a check, mail it in and wait for them, you know, 3 weeks later to send you the map. You’re still trying to decide if you want to buy the property at this point. So funny.
Jack Butala: Google Earth changed everything. I don’t want to sound like an old man, but, when I started you had the atlases in your car. You drive around. We had all 50 states of atlases and that’s how we found property. It was way more of a stab in the dark then it is now.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: It starts with a plat map. From there you research range township and you’ll find it. Go to Google Earth, use earthpoint.us, snap it in. We have no affiliation with them, by the way. Snap that map in, get the GPS coordinates and now you’re in business. I always love … for some reason I never trust just one source. The good thing about starting with the plat map is there’s stuff on the plat map, easements. You can see it in Google Earth and then you can really tie it back to two, you have two sources. You know it’s right or you know it’s wrong. Does that explain anything Jill? There’s other ways to do this, I don’t want to make it complicated.
Jill DeWit: You can go the easy way.
Jack Butala: What’s the easy way? Call Jill?
Jill DeWit: No. Have access to the data, you can look it up yourself.
Jack Butala: Oh, you mean our subscription.
Jill DeWit: I mean …
Jack Butala: Yeah, I don’t want to sound like a salesperson here, but …
Jill DeWit: Let’s just be honest, let’s just say there are companies out there that provide GPS coordinates along with detailed property reports. That’s my number one way.
Jack Butala: Exactly. Well said.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: Join us on another episode where Jack and Jill discuss how to use information. That’s me.
Jill DeWit: And, inspiration. That’s me.
Jack Butala: You get just about anything you want.
Jill DeWit: We use it every day to buy property for half of what’ it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. You’re back in California now?
Jill DeWit: Yep. It’s hot! Oh my God. I just took a screenshot, I was gonna send it to you. It shows the high today, for me, in California at the beach. 97.
Jack Butala: Oh my gosh that is hot.
Jill DeWit: The high for you? 89.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: What is up with that?
Jack Butala: I’m in Arizona, in Scottsdale. We have perfect weather. I mean, it’s been picture perfect. I think, I’m gonna jinx it, I think the weather finally broke.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, that’s what I heard the other day.
Jack Butala: There was a hurricane that came up. By the time it hit land it was fine, it was just tropical storms. But, man, it cooled this whole state off in a big big big way. Got a lot of the rainfall measurement stuff out of the way. I hope that happened in California. California needed rain more than the desert did.
Jill DeWit: If it did, I wasn’t here.
Jack Butala: How was Florida?
Jill DeWit: It was good, it was … yeah.
Jack Butala: What are the highlights?
Jill DeWit: I was gonna save them for our shows. I have some funny little things I was gonna leak out the next several shows. It was really good. Little humid but actually just perfect. I got really lucky.
Jack Butala: Cool.
Jill DeWit: I’ll share a funny story on the next show.
Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Tomorrow.
Jack Butala: You think we covered all this GPS stuff? I think we did. There’s just no silver bullet. It’s one of those things where it comes up a lot because it takes a good half hour, hour to sit down and learn it and understand it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah and figure it out. You have to line up a map and be looking at a map.
Jack Butala: Do you do it anymore at all?
Jill DeWit: Oh sure. Oh yeah, heck yeah.
Jack Butala: I thought you leave it to our people.
Jill DeWit: I’ll still do it because I get excited when properties come in.
Jack Butala: That’s what happens to me.
Jill DeWit: I can’t wait so I don’t want to wait for them.
Jack Butala: I can’t either.
Jill DeWit: I just starting looking up, figure out where it is myself.
Jack Butala: When it comes in and it’s cheap and I’m like, oh I gotta … yeah, exactly
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Cool.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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