More Wag, Less Bark (JJ 599)
More Wag, Less Bark
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack, Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to the Jack Jill Show entertaining real estate investment advice. I’m Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I’m Jill DeWit broadcasting this week from sunny Southern California where American cars seem to be scarce.
Jack Butala: Have you noticed that?
Jill DeWit: That’s kind of funny. That’s really funny.
Jack Butala: Have you noticed that about this place?
Jill DeWit: We are 33 … no, we’re 25% American vehicles in our family.
Jack Butala: Oh, in our family? Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I’m going along with this, which is true. We have one American car of four current vehicles right now, one of them is American.
Jack Butala: We have an American boat.
Jill DeWit: Oh, okay.
Jack Butala: American boat.
Jill DeWit: So, we’re 20%. It just went down.
Jack Butala: I just thought of it. Honda-
Jill DeWit: I’m sorry, there’s two.
Jack Butala: Honda and Toyota, their North American Headquarters are here among other. That’s, I think, maybe one of the reasons this whole lot of employees that work-
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: … for other car companies.
Jill DeWit: True.
Jack Butala: I know. I’m from Detroit, so it’s just-
Jill DeWit: Do you know what’s funny?
Jack Butala: All you see in Detroit are American cars.
Jill DeWit: Well, the most American car that I see here is Tesla.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Where we are, there’s Tesla everywhere.
Jack Butala: You know what?
Jill DeWit: It’s a Tesla area.
Jack Butala: It makes me feel better because Tesla’s here.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative), so we do have that.
Jack Butala: It’s not that bad.
Jill DeWit: It’s not that bad.
Jack Butala: There’s too many BMWs everywhere.
Jill DeWit: Oh, they’re dumb cars.
Jack Butala: That’s a different story. Today, Jill and I talk about more wag and less bark.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the JackJill.com online community. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Matt S. shares, “In the last member call, Luke Smith talked for a minute about how he goes about picking new counties to mail to, and one of the criteria he uses was looking at counties that have shorter days on market from the time listed to the time sold.”
Jack Butala: This is exactly what we talked about on the last show, last episode.
Jill DeWit: Yep. “I have looked at several different websites and can’t find that information. Where are you getting this data? I have access to that data on the MLS on my own state but not others. I’m looking to send out my second mailer. I want to make sure I’m not going to a county that is really hard to sell in.” Awesome question.
Jack Butala: First of all, it’s a fantastic question. I’m really glad you’re taking the data portion of this seriously. It tells me you’re going to shine, if you haven’t already. The best place to get completed sales data is from the accessor when it gets recorded and then accessed. The best place to get that is either RealQuest, one of the three data services we provide, we’re licensed providers for it, RealQuest, DataTree, and-
Jill DeWit: Black Knight, Title Pro-
Jack Butala: Title Pro, 24/7-
Jill DeWit: 24/7.
Jack Butala: Most all of us here use RealQuest, and there’s a couple of columns in there that where they’re completed or their prior sale is, and those are your completed sales. If you’re in a high velocity market like we are with houses, the time that the recorder records the property and the accessor accesses it isn’t going to do you any good. The MLS is only as good as how real estate agents input the stuff.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: I’ll let your mind wander there. What you want to do for land is forget about it. Days on market for land is almost impossible to review. In fact, it takes a lot longer in general to sell land retail than it does houses. People need a place to live, they don’t necessarily need a land project. So, what we do and what we teach is to forget about days on market and look at sale price for existing properties. You want to come in so far below the existing sale price for like-kind properties on the market that there’s just no way you’re going to be owning it for too long.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Jack Butala: Do you know how long it took me to realize that?
Jill DeWit: Really?
Jack Butala: I spent, in the beginning part of my career, rifling through paper. This is really before computers kicked in-
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: … like they are now, or the internet anyway. Finally, I devised a system, just look at the stuff that’s for sale and make sure you’re about a half price.
Jill DeWit: That’s the easiest.
Jack Butala: It’s one sentence right there.
Jill DeWit: It really is.
Jack Butala: Come in at half price, you’re going to sell it fast.
Jill DeWit: I mean, because we all know just because they paid … There’s so many different numbers floating around, what it’s accessed at, what they bought it for, and all this good stuff. The real number right now today is what’s for sale right now.
Jack Butala: That’s it.
Jill DeWit: That’s it. That’s the best number, like Jack’s saying. I ignore all that stuff. I don’t care what it is accessed at, because it’s so all over the place, it’s hilarious.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: You know? We were just looking at something the other day, I can’t remember what I was looking at, some properties and some things, and I’m like, “Oh, that’s a joke. Look what they put down as the transfer price.” It was like $75,000. I’m like, “Well, that was obviously it just changed hands in the family, and they just put a number down,” because what the asset’s worth … over a million. That’s ridiculous. We know it wasn’t a $75,000 sale.
Jack Butala: Jill and I went to brunch, like we always do, and there’s an open house sign. We walk in, and we laugh. We walked through the house, the house is atrocious. They want five million dollars, literally, five million dollars for it. It’s something I would pay maybe 1.5 for, maybe. Probably not if I saw it. Then we looked at the actual listing, and you’re right, Jill, it said, “Prior sale,” go up, “Current sale five million. Prior sale, 20 minutes ago, 1.2.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: “Prior sale on million, and then prior sales $15,000.”
Jill DeWit: Right. So much, “What?”
Jack Butala: Jill, that’s a great-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: … time to bring that up because now, if you’re going to trust all this data data and you’re not going to apply any common sense to it and test it for reason, you’re going to come you with a squirrely number.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: There’s a story there.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: They didn’t sell it for 15 grand.
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: Then that house never sold for 15 grand.
Jill DeWit: No.
Jack Butala: It was probably an interrelated party.
Jill DeWit: They put a number down, “Put that down.” “Okay.”
Jack Butala: Maybe somebody input it wrong.
Jill DeWit: That could be too.
Jack Butala: Missed a zero or something.
Jill DeWit: Or three zeros.
Jack Butala: Yeah. You never want to just say, “Oh, well the data says I got to do it this … ” No. Just apply some common sense.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Today’s topic, one of Jill’s favorites, more wag, less bark. This is the meat of the show.
Jill DeWit: This is important to me, because I say it at the dinner table every night. Jack, you’re doing it again. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Jack Butala: Good show, Jill, thanks.
Jill DeWit: Thank you. Well, that’s it. Well, you’ve done it again, wasted another two minutes. Just kidding. Just kidding.
Jack Butala: What does this mean, more wag, less bark?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. Why do people … There’s always people out there, no matter what, that are going to complain. Whether you give it to them free or you sell it to them for $10,000, they’re still going to complain. We all know this, and we need to be ready for this and just let it roll off your back, is my thing. I have two things. One is, this is stupid. We could talk about why this happens. The second thing is, how do we deal with it.
The first thing is, this is out there. This happens, and don’t let it happen to you. Originally when we were talking about this subject, we were talking about more wag, less bark is quit talking about it and take some action. I mean, that’s one way to look about this. What were your comments on this, Jack?
Jack Butala: Well, I just think you have to have the right attitude to do stuff. You can sit around and think about things forever, and you’re going to think yourself into doing nothing.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Or, you can do stuff, make a bunch of mistakes, and then a few minutes later you’re going to be doing it correctly. You want to bring the right attitude into that. Barking, we’ve all stared down at a barking down thinking, “Geez, just shut up.”
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: We’ve all stared down at a dog wagging its tail saying, “Hey. How you doing today?”
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: We all love that. So, which one do you want to be? That’s what I-
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: … this show’s about. I think you can apply it to relationships. You can apply it to your kids. You can apply it to your friends, and certainly your real estate investment career.
Jill DeWit: Yep. You just took this show in a whole different direction that I wasn’t even … I was going down a different dark hole, and I like your hole better. So, we’re going to change it up right now.
Jack Butala: I like your hole better.
Jill DeWit: Jack.
Jack Butala: My gosh. Where is your mind today, Jill?
Jill DeWit: What did you say?
Jack Butala: Oh, you didn’t mean to take that to the gutter?
Jill DeWit: Dude. Can you say that?
Jack Butala: Maybe it’s Bugs Bunny’s rabbit hole.
Jill DeWit: That must be it. Oh my goodness. Oh, that’s hilarious. So, I was thinking it was hole … I mean, you know what? Well, here’s part of my confusion. You obviously wrote this topic, and I went and looked it up. I was looking for … I figured that we’ve all seen this. You’ve seen stickers, and I thought there was some underlying soup to nuts definition out there that I was going to find online. I found none. I couldn’t find any really good-
Jack Butala: It’s so obvious.
Jill DeWit: … philosophical … I thought there was still going to be something out there, but there wasn’t. I’m going to put my foot in my mouth once again, because I’m really good at that because I’m a DeWit.
Jack Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: Seriously. There’s two things that the DeWits do all the time.
Jack Butala: I want to hear this.
Jill DeWit: You know this. One is, I put my foot in my mouth. The other one is, we beat a dead horse sometimes.
Jack Butala: I’m absolutely convinced the first one’s true, but that dead horse thing-
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah. Well-
Jack Butala: Really?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, maybe I’ve caught myself lately, but yeah, I’m good at putting my foot in my mouth too. At least you know the good thing is, I’m so good at putting my foot in my mouth that I recover well now. When you tell me I do it, I go, “Okay. Got it. Thank you.” I’m way wrong.
Jack Butala: Here’s why I wrote the topic to this show.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, please share with us. Save me.
Jack Butala: I wrote it last week, because this prior week we launched our escrow title company called TitleMind.com. We launched it, and so Jill and I have an arrangement where I do all the preliminary work, the pricing, I make sure that there’s demand, and I do all the up-front start-up type stuff that she quite honestly doesn’t enjoy. She doesn’t enjoy the research, IT part of it, or any of that software piece. What she loves is operations. Lucky for me, I’m not an operations person at all.
So, I spent … I don’t know, I’m going to say maybe a week we delayed the launch of this thing, not because of what I was doing but … not because of what Jill was doing, because I was barking-
Jill DeWit: I was staffing. Oh, yeah?
Jack Butala: … not wagging.
Jill DeWit: Oh.
Jack Butala: It was all about operations. I’m never stressed about anything that goes on in any of these companies except operations. When I say operations, I mean, “Great, this site’s launched. People are calling or they’re submitting orders, and all this stuff’s happening in a really positive way. In-orders are getting processed. Our people are talking to our customers, and there’s advertising. General operations after the thing has launched are being taken care of by Jill and her team.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: I can’t stand that part. I was all stressed out about it. So, I woke up one morning thinking, “What am I stressed out about? She’s done it like six times-
Jill DeWit: We’re ready to go.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we’ll figure it out.
Jack Butala: She’s done it like six times before. No matter how bad it gets,-
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Jack Butala: … she always figures it out.
Jill DeWit: No matter how taped together it is that you hand it to me, we figure it out.
Jack Butala: This title is more for me than anybody else, like stop whining and barking about it. Just be happy about it, and whatever happens, it happens within reason.
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: I think it’s good advice. I’m sure … I woke up that morning when I’m sitting there thinking all this stuff, and then I’m thinking, “Man, how many members do we have, or how many people out there are starting brand new in their real estate business going through the same thing, worrying about something that’s never really going to happen anyway?”
Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: If it does, you just deal with it when it happens.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Jack Butala: It’s silly.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Even 20 years later-
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: … I’m a little freaked out.
Jill DeWit: That’s crazy.
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: After how many launches, and how many sub-companies, and how many this, and how many that? I don’t even worry about it. You know? You would think as a woman I would be more cautious. I don’t know. Women … So, I’m like, “Whatever happens.”
Jack Butala: I was reading a thing about … somebody interviewed a movie star, and they said, “So, what’s it like right before you start to film a movie?” She said, “All I do I try to get out of filming the movie. I don’t go through any other process. I don’t go through what you’re supposed to go through as an actor, because I don’t want to spend the next two months of my life doing this,” but that’s her barking way and non-wagging way. It’s silly. What are we all worried about? Failing?
Jill DeWit: What do I do? Tell me-
Jack Butala: That’s lazy-
Jill DeWit: Do I have a situation that I’m not aware of … bring it, that I bark more when I should wag more?
Jack Butala: You know what? You’re really, really, really good about keeping it under your hat or really just not … or just being positive.
Jill DeWit: Thanks.
Jack Butala: I don’t think you have any type of stage fright/anticipation concern.
Jill DeWit: Not anymore. Isn’t that funny?
Jack Butala: I will say this though, you’re not as interested as going through the research/data/upfront process as I am.
Jill DeWit: No. It’s not fun for me. It’s work for me. For you,-
Jack Butala: I love that.
Jill DeWit: … it’s play time.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it is.
Jill DeWit: You really do like that. I agree. That’s very, very true.
Jack Butala: We got the holiday season coming up, and Jill is in her element right now. [crosstalk 00:13:10] She’s got decorations. We have tons of people staying at our house and coming through the house. That stuff for me, no thank you. It’s fun to go to though.
Jill DeWit: Right?
Jack Butala: That’s probably what it’s like for you. It’s fun for me to plan all this stuff, and then it’s fun for you to go to it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you just show up and it’s done, and collect the money.
Jack Butala: Do-
Jill DeWit: Or whatever it is, process the orders-
Jack Butala: And the customers.
Jill DeWit: … and deal with the customers-
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: … and all that good stuff. Yeah. Help people. Mm-hmm (affirmative). That’s good.
Jack Butala: I haven’t seen you stressed out about anything, really. You’re a really good traveler.
Jill DeWit: Thanks. I am good at that. That’s one thing I’m really good at. Okay, cool.
Jack Butala: I think it’s good.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, Jack.
Jack Butala: I think we all have the point here.
Jill DeWit: I think so.
Jack Butala: Well, you’ve done it again. You’ve wasted about 15 minutes of your life listening to the Jack and Jill Show. Join us tomorrow where we discuss Jill’s compelling personality, which we kind of did today.
Jill DeWit: And answer your questions should you have one posted on JackJill.com.
Jack Butala: You’re not alone in your real estate ambition. I mean it, Jill.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Yeah, I was pressed to try to find something that you get poopy about.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, Jack. I appreciate that. Think we covered that well enough? I think everybody gets the point.
Jack Butala: I think we covered it perfectly.
Jill DeWit: Good. Thank you. Hey, share the fun by subscribing on iTunes or wherever you’re listening. While you’re at it, rate us there. We are Jack and Jill.
Jack Butala: We are Jack and Jill. Information-
Jill DeWit: And inspiration-
Jack Butala: … to buy undervalued property.
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