If wealth creation is what you are planning to do in the land investment business, this is the perfect discussion for you. Jack Butala and Jill DeWit present five critical questions you need to ask yourself before attempting to create more wealth in this particular space. From determining your personal goals, identifying your motivations, to understanding its overall impact on your life, gain valuable perspectives on making this business highly sustainable and profitable for you.

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5 Questions About Wealth Creation In Land Investing

This is episode number 2072. In this episode, Jill and I are talking about the five questions to ask yourself before you attempt to create more wealth in your land investment business. More wealth to you could mean, “I need to create some wealth more than 0,” or it could mean, “I’m at $100,000 a year. I’d like to make it $300,000,” and on and on. It’s more wealth than you already have created for yourself.

The topic is the secret recipe for success in the land investment business. Jill and I have been doing this for 30-plus years. We’ve been buying and selling land for 30 years and running Land Academy for almost 10. We’ve noticed some consistencies in people who are successful. We’ve gone through, and it has been enough time, some of the phases in our land investment business right alongside members.

Multiple times.

Discord Question

Each day on the show, we answer a question from our Land Academy member Discord forum and take a deep dive into land-related topics by popular requests.

Kimberly wrote, “I’m finishing up a self-close on a deal and I have a few questions. Number one, do I need tile insurance now or when I sell? Two, I’m working on neighbor letters. It has some great market value. Is this what I’m pricing it at when I go to the market or do I look at the assessed market value from the county? Number three, does anyone else have experience with a self-close who wants to chime in with the details of their experience? I’m all ears. I’m so nervous I’m going to screw something up.”

She asked, “Do I need tile insurance now or when I sell?” You do not need it now. You can get it now. It depends on the property. For me, most of the time, if I’m quickly buying without title insurance, there’s usually a reason why. I will not choose to do title insurance, which you can. That’s property-specific. Most of the time, I’m not going to get it right away. I bought the property. It’s in my name. I did all my due diligence. I feel really great about it. I’m not going to run, open up the title, and get the title while I’m selling the property because it’s going to happen at that time probably anyway. It’s property-specific.

I don’t know when this question was put in here. At the beginning of November 2024, because my whole land gals, the Land Academy Women’s Group, get together once a month, this was my whole presentation. I talked about this in great detail, doing a self-close, what’s involved, how to do it, what are the steps, what are some paperwork involved, how to get the title, and all those things. I covered the whole thing in the group, so it’s fresh in my mind. That’s what we talked about.

The reason I brought it up is because it’s the end of 2024. You can grab some great properties at the end of the year because people want to get it sold but you don’t have time to close with escrow and tile insurance. That’s why I went through the whole thing. It is so everybody is ready, prepared, and knows what makes it okay to do it and when they have to go, “I don’t feel comfortable. I need to go through escrow. We’re going to do it in January. Even if I pay more for it, it’s going to have to be that way.”

The whole thing is with title insurance, personally, for my last deals, I did it then when I sold the property. Depending on the property, I offer it to the person. Let me give you one example. What if it is a recreational hunting property? It’s half wetlands. It’s perfect for geese or whatever it is. It will never be built upon. I throw it to my buyer like, “I’m happy to open escrow. We can go the traditional way and get tile insurance so you have that, or if you don’t want to spend the extra money because we’re both going to eat some extra costs here, we can do this without title insurance and you could happily hunt on it and do your thing. It’s going to work out great.”

Question number two is working on the neighbor letters. She’s figuring out how to price it. Clearly, Kimberly’s going to try to pre-sell it by sending a letter to all the people in the vicinity. Maybe it’s in a couple-mile radius. Maybe it’s the whole ZIP code, whatever numbers Kimberly comes back with. I’m going to guess a couple hundred people. This is a great way to sell property.

She asked, “How do I price it?” I do not look at the assessed anything. That is so often not correct, years behind, and not even used. Realistically in our world, it’s used to base their taxes on it so I don’t even go there. An easy way to look this up is to look at your own property. You get those letters in the mail. They might assess your property at $100,000 but down the street, 1 sold for $500,000. You’re like, “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Most people who are smart are not going to say, “I’m going to call the assessor. I want to get this updated to say, “The house down the street sold for $500,000. You have mine at $100,000.” What will happen is the assessor will say, “Thank you for telling me. Now we’re going to tax you as if you have a $500,000 asset instead of a $100,000 asset.” You’re going to go, “I don’t want that. Leave it at $100,000.” This is what I’m talking about. It’s so often out of whack or behind from what’s really going on in the world.

How do I price it? Look what’s going on. Do some time. Look at comps. Do your own checking. You can quickly see online what things are being marketed for price per acre and what they’ve sold in the last 3, 6, or 12 months price per acre. Price your property based on that. You want to come below that. You’re sitting at a neighbor letter because you’re sharing with the planet, “I don’t have an agent. I don’t want to pay commissions. This is an off-market deal. This is your chance to buy this property at a great price. This is what it is. If it doesn’t sell between now and the end of the year, I’m going to put it on the market for this because I know what can happen.” That will also spark some call to action and interest for anybody who is interested.

She asked, “Number three, does anyone have an experience with self-closing and want to chime in?” I do. I didn’t record it but I did have the slides. In the ladies section of Discord, I know I put the slides in there because everybody said, “Can we please have these?” I did it right after the call. They’re there waiting for you with all the steps. This is an excellent question.

Do you think I can possibly add anything to that?

Could you?

I don’t know.

I don’t think so.

Jill’s Five Questions

Five questions you ask yourself before you attempt to create more wealth in your land investment business. Go first, please.

I thought about this. This is a really good topic. Thank you for bringing this up. Number one is, “What do I want? Am I trying to gain more time or more money?” That’s my number one. Number two, “How will that change my life?” We have several examples in Land Academy of all kinds of people that I’m like, “You do know you’re only doing one deal a month. Why don’t you do two deals a month and double it?” They’re like, “I don’t want to. I don’t want to work that hard. I love my lifestyle. I do what I want to do. This is it.” I’m like, “Touche. I get that.”  They value the time more than the money. They know they can double it. It’s always sitting there waiting for them if something changes.

Number three, “What will I have to sacrifice?” You are going to give up something. Most likely, it’s going to be time. Number four, “Is my family on board?” You don’t want to go at this and say, “Daddy’s gone. Daddy’s moved away,” or, “Mommy can never have time for you because mommy’s always on the phone now. Mommy thinks that having more money’s going to make everything better.” You’ve got to think about and include your family and make sure that they’re on the same page and they understand how this is going to affect them. Maybe you don’t have little kids at home, but it’s your partner, your friends, or whatever it is.

Before you attempt to create more wealth in your land investment business, you have to sacrifice. You will give up something, and most likely it will be time. Share on X

Number five, to me, is a biggie. It is, “Is this going to do it? Is this going to be final?” You want to do this with, “I’m done,” and then mic drop. Speaking from experience here, in the room I’m sitting in, it’s so easy to go, “I thought I was going to be happy with that.” I remember when you and I said $5,000 a month was it and they were like, “It’s $20,000.” You keep changing the number. You can’t keep doing that for the rest of your life. You’ll drive yourself and everybody crazy. It’s never enough. You’ve got to think about it ahead of time and go, “Is this going to be final?” If it’s not final, what is it going to be to be final? Go at it like that. Make a number 1 through 4 tied to number 5. That’s my list.

Jack’s Five Questions

Here’s my five. They’re very different as always than Jill’s. Question number one, “Do I believe in this business model? Do I believe in this or do I think those last four deals were luck?” The second part of it is, “Do I believe this is sustainable?” The answer is heck yes to both, but you need to believe in that. You’re sitting there saying, “Should I now take this seriously? I’ve proven it. I’ve done a few deals,” or, “I’ve done 50 deals. I want to do 500.” When you ask yourself, “Do I believe in this business model?” What you’re really asking yourself is whether you believe in yourself, your talent level, and your ability to learn things.

Number two is, “Do I enjoy it? Do I dig this every day or do I hate it?” Chances are, you’re going to say something like, “I love the data part but I don’t like the talking sales part,” or vice versa. That’s why you’re in Land Academy, to find your Jill or Jack. Number three, “Do I have the resources to continue? I’ve been funding these deals myself. I don’t like running checks out of my personal checking account and neither does my wife.” You do have resources within Land Academy to leverage these deals with equity, not debt. The first person you should think of to help you do a deal is us.

Number three, “Does it fit in my life plan?” That’s the theme in Jill’s answers. If you’re like, “Is this what I want? I’m trying to be a rockstar but I’m doing these land investment deals to pay the bills,” that’s going to end. If your life dream is to be a rockstar, then go do that. This has always not only fit in my life plan, but it has been my life. Jill and I reconfirmed that when Jill and I joined forces. It turned out that that was her untuned, untweaked life plan also. She did a bunch of real estate deals before that very successfully. We put our heads together and made it a thing.

Finally, and Jill nailed it, it is, “Where does it end? What does the end look like both financially and socially? My kids are 4 and 5 right now. What does it look like when they’re 10 and 12? What does it look like when they’re in college? What does it look like after that? My wife never liked the land business and she’s never going to like it. I can accept that. She can accept it. We’re making some money.”

Think of real, honest, straight conversations like that. The answers to those conversations will tell you what the next step is. It’s like number one. Think, “If I don’t believe in the business model, what business is going to replace it? I have to make some money. Am I going to go back to work?” Think of the real, honest, straightforward stuff. Those are five questions to ask yourself before you move on. I unhealthily ask myself these questions all the time.

The number 1 thing for me is number 5, “Will this be final?” that should almost be number one. It goes back to, “What do I want? Is this going to do it?” Merge those two together. This is stuff that we talk about in Career Path. What’s your end game here? Are you taking care of your family and your kids? Are you trying to make sure your grandkids’ college is paid for? What’s your real big goal here? Put it on paper and see what it’s going to take, like how much money, how much time, and how much energy, and whether it all works. You then put yourself on autopilot and go, “This is what I need to do this month.”

What's your big goal here? Put it on paper and see how much money, time, and energy it will take. If everything works together, you can put yourself on autopilot. Share on X

Importance Of Delegation

There are some milestones and things that happened in my career, probably 3 or 4 of them, that changed my professional life forever. They all involved finally getting the right person in place to do the job that I was doing. A million years ago with that first employee I ever hired, it was a light bulb moment for me. I was like, “This person’s doing 80% of the crap that I can’t stand. It’s not to be selfish or spoiled about it but it’s freeing me up to do the stuff that I’m good at, which is why we’re here, to locate undervalued real estate. Now, I don’t have to talk to the customers on the phone.” Our numbers went way up.

Throughout my career, there have been pivotal people who would take those positions over. This is before Jill. In the end, what I was allowed to do was go to work every day, locate new areas and property types to buy, and then get the mail out. When I met Jill and we professionally joined forces, it was game over. She took over that entire side of the business and did way better than I ever dreamt was even possible at all of that stuff. We started making millions of dollars a year. It’s all about the people who are involved and who you are choosing to let into your relatively successful business model.

Thank you.

Closing Words

Join us in the next episode. We’re going to talk about why Jill and I have survived and thrived for 30 years together in this land investment business. I’d like to know Jill’s thoughts on that. Also, you are not alone in your real estate ambition. We are information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.