Once again, I find myself saying… “If I only had a mentor like me 10 years ago who knows where I’d be?” Having someone a few months or years ahead of you as you are navigating the ins and outs of starting or growing a business can add up to years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, saved.
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Jack is diligently working with BluePay to create credit card processing for all members to be used in conjunction with your available properties on LandPin. Stay tuned for more information…
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Cash in and Out of First Deal in 45 Days Recording Location: 33.840103, – 118.391379 Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello, happy Friday. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how you cash […]
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Cross Marketing with Tiny House People Recording Location: 33.840103, – 118.391379 Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill Dewit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today, in this episode Jill and I talk about cross-marketing with tiny house people and with the […]
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Recording Location: 33.840103, – 118.391379
Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode …
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:00:05]. Sorry.
Jack Butala: In this episode, Jill and I talk about our land investor topics for our live meetup tonight in Los Angeles, South Bay, really, of Los Angeles.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I have something funny about South Bay I’ll say in a minute, too.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, though, let’s take a question from one of our callers.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Jack Butala: On the LandAcademy.com community.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’s free.
Jill DeWit: All right. Jordan asked this question, “I noticed the latest recording date link next to the menu from which you choose a county in RealQuest Pro. It seems like most counties have very new data, but a few are a little older. How bad is it if the date is significantly, say over a year, in the past?”
Jack Butala: This is a great question and it’s actually a bigger picture. Actually, I sat down and wrote half of a blog on this exact topic.
Jill DeWit: Did you? Good.
Jack Butala: Called, “How to Pick a County.” There’s a simple three-step process that we use to pick a county from a demographic standpoint, like where we really think this will logically work. But what you also have to take into consideration is the quality of the data that you’re pulling and how much information you might have about once somebody does sign your offer and send it back, you know, can you actually do the research? There’s a few more semi-advanced ways to look at these counties to make sure that you can actually pull off doing a real estate deal.
Let me give you a couple of examples. In east Texas and west Texas and some parts of northern, let’s say, New Mexico, and there’s several other counties in northern Michigan for some reason, they just don’t participate in the RealQuest Pro program and they don’t, let’s say, have … There’s some counties in Arizona, you know, it’s hit or miss all over the country, really. There’s no rhyme or reason, east or west, north or south. They just don’t participate in it or they don’t have a GIS site. It’s not a high priority. Once you get a little further into this, you know, no one wants to get stumped. I’ve never heard of anyone sending a mailer out and getting completely and totally stumped and not buying one property if you do it right. But you want to look into these things. Does the county have a GIS site? Do they have working hours that … Do they work more than one day a week? Some counties, they’re so small that everybody’s got another job. They only work one day a week. It’s hard to get stuff recorded.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: You want to look into that. I guess Jordan’s question here is, “If it’s older data, how bad is it?” The answer, quite honestly, with this product type is it’s not that bad. Okay? These rural, vacant properties don’t change hands very much, but if you listen to yesterday’s show, Jill and I talked about turning some very large ranch-type transactions that are in the million dollar range in southern California. Those properties change a lot more frequently so you want to have fresh data. If you’re just starting out and you’re going to send out a 2,000-unit mailer, check into these things and just apply common sense. Make it easy on yourself. If the data’s more than, I’m going to say, a year old … And I don’t think that anything in RealQuest is more than a year old …
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: If it is, I’d love to know about it. I’ve never run into it. Then I would maybe consider moving on to a different county, but in the end it’s going to be okay.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s interesting is that … because we are in constant communication with these guys about the data and the …
Jack Butala: At RealQuest.
Jill DeWit: At RealQuest.
Jack Butala: CoreLogic.
Jill DeWit: It’s so interesting to me because I asked this question, I’m like, “What do you guys do for those counties that are so darn rural that they don’t even have a computer system?” They say, “You know what? We actually have extractors that really go out there and sit with their laptop and flip pages. They actually get the recorded and they’re flipping the book and they’re flipping the pages and they’re manually adding it in.” That really does happen. It’s stuff you can’t get.
Jack Butala: Some counties fax in, literally, fax in to RealQuest in … Are they in Irvine? Where’s RealQuest?
Jill DeWit: Oh, RealQuest?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, CoreLogic? Yes, they’re over in Irvine.
Jack Butala: They fax the tax rolls in like it’s 1979.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I had someone the other day ask me to fax something. I’m like, “How about if I just scan it and email it to you?”
Jack Butala: Yeah, what did they say?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. It was the funniest thing. It was an insurance person and like, “Do you have a fax?” I’m like, “Do you have a fax?” You know? It was hilarious. Are we really talking about a fax?
Jack Butala: I know.
Jill DeWit: So, anyway. It is funny.
Jack Butala: It’s hilarious. If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on LandAcademy.com. Today’s topic, and this is the meat of the show, new land investor topics for our meetup tonight.
Jill DeWit: All right.
Jack Butala: I’m a little nervous. I’ve got to be honest.
Jill DeWit: Oh, you are not.
Jack Butala: I am.
Jill DeWit: Are you? Why are you nervous? How are you nervous?
Jack Butala: No. Not really.
Jill DeWit: Okay. I never see you nervous. I’m like, “That’s the weirdest thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
Jack Butala: Have you ever spoken to a stadium full of people live?
Jill DeWit: Let me think. Not a stadium.
Jack Butala: I haven’t either.
Jill DeWit: I’m trying to think what’s the biggest group I’ve been in front of? There’s been, over the years, there’s high school stuff.
Jack Butala: Yeah, a couple thousand people [crosstalk 00:05:11].
Jill DeWit: Maybe college stuff and getting up in front. You remember, you and I … We haven’t done it in a long time because we’re not in Arizona … But remember we would show up and do impromptu teaching at that …
Jack Butala: Oh yeah, yeah, the college class.
Jill DeWit: … the college class and so … But you know what I find? As long as you talk about what you really know, then it all comes easy. If you find yourself in front of a group and you’re winging it and you’re kind of guessing, oh, you will fail, I think. You shouldn’t be up there talking about something, by the way, that you really don’t know inside and out.
Jack Butala: If I did a course or a seminar on how to lose money, I wouldn’t know what I was talking about.
Jill DeWit: If I did a course or a seminar on how not to get a second date, I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Just kidding.
Jack Butala: Or if you did a course or a seminar on how to not look good, that wouldn’t work.
Jill DeWit: Aw, thank you very much. I appreciate that.
Jack Butala: If I did a course or a seminar …
Jill DeWit: Thanks, Jack.
Jack Butala: You’re welcome. If I did a course or a seminar on how to raise kids, that wouldn’t work at all.
Jill DeWit: Oh, boy. If I did a course or a seminar on safety on a snowmobile …
Jack Butala: Oh, my God. You’re right.
Jill DeWit: … or an ATV, I wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.
Jack Butala: If you did a course on how to fly a plane, you could do it.
Jill DeWit: I could do that.
Jack Butala: I couldn’t.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. This is a fun game. All right. Back to our show.
Jack Butala: Oh, yeah. What’s the show about?
Jill DeWit: Yeah, the show.
Jack Butala: What are the topics tonight?
Jill DeWit: Here are the topics that we’re talking about.
Jack Butala: More importantly, what do I have to speak about? Because I honestly don’t know.
Jill DeWit: I’m glad you asked. I will tell you. Here’s what we’re talking about tonight. You’ll know now before you see it on the PowerPoint presentation behind you.
Jack Butala: Okay. That’s good.
Jill DeWit: That’s always helpful. All right. The topics are, one, the four traits that you and I … Now we are going on … We’re two years into LandAcademy and well over two years of teaching this to people. Over these many, many years we have identified the top traits on what people have to be successful to do this.
Jack Butala: Oh, yeah. That’s good.
Jill DeWit: That’s one of the things we’re going to talk about. And you don’t have to have all four. If you have one, preferably one or two, it’s kind of like the four A’s.
Jack Butala: Three would be good.
Jill DeWit: You need to have a few of these, too. We’re going to talk about that.
Jack Butala: One of them is not money. One of them is not have a ton of money.
Jill DeWit: One of them is not? Well, you do need to have some funds.
Jack Butala: Yeah, but we’ll get into it tonight.
Jill DeWit: Okay, exactly. Yeah, you don’t want to come in with nothing and you don’t want to come in saying, “I’m just going to max out my credit cards.” That’s not what you want to do.
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: You’re not going to be taking out mortgages. That’s not what you’re going to do. But we’ll talk about that. We’re also going to cover the tools, which is really your expertise.
Jack Butala: That’s the key to this.
Jill DeWit: The few key tools that you have to have as a land investor, or any kind of investor, to be successful and to source the deals. We’re going to talk about … You want to elaborate on that for a second or do you want me to keep going?
Jack Butala: It’s just I answered a very detailed question a couple days ago on BiggerPockets about … Because somebody literally, they asked this question, “There’s a bunch of data sources out there now” … Which I don’t understand because there aren’t, but …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: “How do I choose which one? Is RealQuest okay?” They asked about a couple other ones. In the end, the answer is if you’re serious about this in any way …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: … you need RealQuest.
Jill DeWit: You’ve got to have the best. Don’t buy a list.
Jack Butala: And you need some instruction on how to use it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, you can’t do that.
Jack Butala: We’re going to talk about that in detail.
Jill DeWit: Right. That’ll be really good. We’re going to also cover …
Jack Butala: We’re going to make this easy for yourself, not hard.
Jill DeWit: That’s the whole point. Isn’t that funny? You know what I think happens? Sidebar. You know how there’s people that walk around that say, “I spent 80 hours on that and … ” Like they’re going to get a medal for it. That’s not how we roll.
Jack Butala: Yeah, they’re probably from the Midwest.
Jill DeWit: Maybe.
Jack Butala: Because there’s an unwritten contest. Because I’m from Michigan, I can say this stuff.
Jill DeWit: Yes.
Jack Butala: It’s whoever suffers gets … For some reason, if you suffer more you get an award or you get …
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You ever hear somebody just say, “Oh, yeah, well it used to be I had to go through the snow and go to work that way.”
Jill DeWit: Right, uphill both ways.
Jack Butala: Congratulations. You suffered the most.
Jill DeWit: Right. That’s not what this is about.
Jack Butala: Just move to California and have fun and turn deals, if you want.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: “No, then I wouldn’t suffer if I did that.”
Jill DeWit: It’s like [inaudible 00:09:28].
Jack Butala: Good. Stay in Michigan, then.
Jill DeWit: There you go. There you go. All right. Two more topics we have … Well, there’s three parts or five parts to this so that’s the first and second. The traits were identified. Second is Jack’s tools. The third thing we’re going to cover tonight is the 45-day start to finish. I’m going to outline that, because you and I did a show on it. Everybody loved it. Everybody keeps asking for a calendar. They want to know, “How fast can I really do this? How much time do I need to spend on it? How quickly can I get a deal and test this, if you will? Or even just see if I’m good at it or if I can get the same results like you do?”
Jack Butala: Right.
Jill DeWit: We went into a really slow, methodical … kind of like the guy on Monday’s show this week, Kyler Dawson, covered. There’s times Kyler did two to three hours a week. There’s times he did no time at all a week, and he was successful. We’re going to go into our little 45-day outline of start to finish buying, sourcing, finding, buying, recording, advertising, posting, selling it, all the way to completion, a deal. We’re going to cover that.
Jack Butala: 45 days is if you really take your time and if you have a job.
Jill DeWit: Yup.
Jack Butala: Hey, by the way, she’s talking about Kyler Dawson, who’s a member of ours. He was nice enough to grant us an interview on Monday.
Jill DeWit: On Monday.
Jack Butala: It aired on Monday. It’s an audio-only podcast, because by definition, that’s what a podcast is.
Jill DeWit: Correct.
Jack Butala: We’re breaking the rules, here. You’ve got to catch it. If you haven’t listened to it go back. It’s really worth listening to. It’s actually amazing. It’s just amazing.
Jill DeWit: It’s so fun.
Jack Butala: I’m so proud of him.
Jill DeWit: You know what I love, too?
Jack Butala: Kyler, you rock, by the way.
Jill DeWit: Yes. When we do these podcasts with our members, it’s really just a random … We just throw it out there, “Hey, anybody want to be on the show?” It’s like a “yeah”. We don’t even talk about it. There’s no coaching. There’s no …
Jack Butala: We didn’t pay him.
Jill DeWit: … no paying.
Jack Butala: It sounds like we paid him.
Jill DeWit: It does.
Jack Butala: That’s how positive he was.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: I was looking for something wrong.
Jill DeWit: It’s just kind of like, bring it. Good, bad, or otherwise, we want to know what’s your experience and tell us how you’re doing. It’s been like, wow. Good stuff. The 45-day outline, that’s the third thing. The fourth thing we’re going to cover tonight is the mistakes that we see. We’re going to cover …
Jack Butala: There’s actually some content tonight.
Jill DeWit: There really is. Some things that we’ve seen people slip up on and how we’ve helped them and things we’ve identified so we can save more people from making those same mistakes. The last thing is going to be Q and A. I think that’s everybody’s favorite.
Jack Butala: Yeah. Right.
Jill DeWit: It’s kind of like our member call but in person.
Jack Butala: Can we ice out about eight minutes where I talk about the people that I had to kick out of the group so far?
Jill DeWit: Oh, right now?
Jack Butala: No, tonight.
Jill DeWit: It’s going to be a positive event.
Jack Butala: I always try to just trip you up, Jill.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: You always have to be so positive. What the heck?
Jill DeWit: No, it’s a positive event.
Jack Butala: We’ve got to talk about some bad stuff. It’s not all peaches and cream.
Jill DeWit: You know what? I’m going to leave that to everybody. Here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s what’s going to happen. Tonight is going to be like everything else that we do, where it’s going to be completely honest. Someone’s going to say, “I have no money. What do I do?” We’re going to be honest and go, “Well, you maybe need to wait.”
Jack Butala: The potential stuff. Okay, so it just works itself out that way.
Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah.
Jack Butala: All right. Fair enough.
Jill DeWit: I’m not going to sugarcoat anything tonight. I want to be like we always do. We’re going to be honest.
Jack Butala: Yeah. It’s just us.
Jill DeWit: Good, bad, or otherwise, we’re going to tell you the truth.
Jack Butala: That’s right.
Jill DeWit: You know what? People ask us all the time about times that we’ve failed, like when the market took a big turn in 2008, 2009, 2010, and how we recovered. We talk about it. We talk about, “Yeah, we screwed up.” Which is true. We did some things that weren’t right and we figured it and now we’re saving everybody else.
Jack Butala: If we have time tonight, I’m going to spend five … I’m going to spend the time that a TED Talk takes, which I think, is what?
Jill DeWit: 18 minutes.
Jack Butala: Right. How long is this whole thing tonight?
Jill DeWit: Oh, it’s technically 90 minutes. 6:30 to 7 is kind of a sign in and get settled. You and I talk from 7 to 8 and then 8 to 8:30 is Q and A.
Jack Butala: All right.
Jill DeWit: And then 9:00 is beer time. 9:00 is cocktail hour.
Jack Butala: We’re going to have cocktails?
Jill DeWit: I don’t know. We’ll see.
Jack Butala: Yeah, we are.
Jill DeWit: It depends on the group. We’ll see.
Jack Butala: Okay.
Jill DeWit: Well, you and I will be having cocktails. I don’t know if we’ll invite anybody.
Jack Butala: In a very animated and fun way, if we have time tonight and if it’s appropriate, I’m going to tell my story from start to finish.
Jill DeWit: Uh oh.
Jack Butala: I’m going to tell my story from sitting at a coffee table in 1999, turning that first deal. I’m from Pennsylvania, turning the first deal in Arizona, and then til, let’s say, today or tomorrow.
Jill DeWit: How much time do you need?
Jack Butala: I can do that in eight minutes, eight to ten minute. We could make it a Q and A thing where that’s the Q and A, like, “Stop right there, man. Hold on. What do you mean you turned a deal from Pennsylvania.” That kind of … I can hear people saying this now. I get this question weekly. “It’s over.” What do you mean? “Well, that was 1999. That was 2004. There’s no more land to flip.”
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Which is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: In fact, now more than ever, if you know a little bit about computers, it’s better and easier and way more profitable. Maybe that specific $100 an acre model may or may not … Well, I mean, it hasn’t waned for us.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Maybe that model has changed a little bit, but it’s not any different.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I’ll tell you what, there’s never been, never been more opportunity for a bunch of reasons, most of them are because of the tools we provide and the amount of data that we can collect in one spot. There’s never been more opportunity for taking [inaudible 00:15:15] lots or larger, equity-type deals, more expensive deals, buying them for 20 or 30 or 40 percent of what they’re worth, and selling them for way more. You want to talk about your 45-day thing? I mean, do one of those deals and make $100,000.
Jill DeWit: I know. That’s what I’m talking about.
Jack Butala: I wouldn’t recommend it as your first deal, but we’ll talk about that tonight.
Jill DeWit: That was me exhaling, that big sigh before Jack went into that ten-minute rant.
Jack Butala: Was it that long?
Jill DeWit: It was a while. I kept trying to …
Jack Butala: Oh, I’m sorry.
Jill DeWit: It’s okay. I’m just teasing you. No, I was going to explain that sigh was my exhale of relief, which is true about …
Jack Butala: That I’m going to go tonight?
Jill DeWit: We’re just going to talk non-stop. Just kidding. No, no, no, no. No, my exhale about what you said about how much easier this is. We are still … We launched LandAcademy two years ago, almost two years ago, and even from then until now, the tools, the engineering things that we have at our fingertips …
Jack Butala: Oh, my gosh. Night and day.
Jill DeWit: … the stuff that we’re bringing to the table with JillLive.com and your Parcel Fact and County Wise and these great sites and things that we’ve got coming up. I mean, we didn’t even have that two years ago and I’m so excited. I know it’s even going to get better.
Jack Butala: County Wise, Parcel Fact, JillLive, Land Crowdfund. All those dotcoms, they’re rapidly being developed. I’m putting my RIT staff … Hey, IT staff, if you guys watch this, I’m sorry. They worked all through the weekend this weekend. I’m calling it … I’m Steve Jobs-ing this thing, because … I’m probably not the most pleasant person to be around, but we’ve got to get these products out.
Jill DeWit: I know.
Jack Butala: And like you said, they just rock. It’s the stuff that we use.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: We’re just dressing it up and cleaning it up so that you don’t have to go through it like an aerospace engineer.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It’s usable.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Let me wrap it up with this. If you’re driving around right now and you’re listening to this and you find your car all of a sudden detouring and heading to Hermosa Beach, come on in. We’ll figure it out. If we have to do a standing room only, we’ll figure it out.
Jack Butala: Oh, yeah, yeah. Exactly.
Jill DeWit: We’d love to have you.
Jack Butala: Excellent.
Jill DeWit: It’s totally free. Thank you.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode where Jack and Jill discuss information, that’s me …
Jill DeWit: … and inspiration, that’s me …
Jack Butala: … to get just about anything you want.
Jill DeWit: We use it every day to get property for half of what it’s worth and sell it immediately.
Jack Butala: You’re not alone in your real estate ambition.
Jill DeWit: It’ll be fun tonight.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I can’t wait.
Jill DeWit: Me, too.
Jack Butala: I can’t believe you made me wear this scarf.
Jill DeWit: I know. I thought it would be cute because we’re doing some video stuff here, so I’m changing it up a little bit.
Jack Butala: No, it’s not cute at all.
Jill DeWit: You look a little like Snoopy and I like it.
Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I look like a girl.
Jill DeWit: You do not. You’re like a hippy, here. I’m adjusting your scarf to make it cute. It’s all good. You look handsome.
Jack Butala: Thank you. Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at jack@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
Jack and Jill Live Tomorrow in Los Angeles Recording Location: 33.840103, – 118.391379 Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about Jack and Jill Live tomorrow. Jill DeWit: I know, happy Tuesday. Jack Butala: Yeah. […]
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Recording Location: 33.840103, – 118.391379
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit and Kyler Dawson today.
Jill DeWit: Hey.
Jack Butala: Welcome Kyler.
Kyler Dawson: Hi guys.
Jack Butala: We’re really happy to have you on the program today. Today our show is all about you.
Kyler Dawson: Perfect, sounds good. I’m excited to be here.
Jack Butala: Awesome. Jill’s got some real specific questions because she’s like that.
Kyler Dawson: Okay, shoot.
Jill DeWit: It’s so funny. I’m not normally the organized one, but in this area I am. I want to ask you first kind of your back story. Let me tell you what I’m going to ask. I’m going to ask you your back story if you want to just tell us a little about your history, then I want to go into how you found us, and then I want to hear what you’re doing now.
Kyler Dawson: Okay, perfect. I’ll just jump in. If I start talking too much just cut in and stop me. About a little under two years ago I was working full-time and just kind of wanted something else to do. The monotony of my day-to-day job was getting to me, and I just wanted to find some kind of side thing to do and keep my full-time job. I had a commute to work, about 45 minutes each way, so I just started listening to podcasts, a bunch of different business podcasts, trying to get [inaudible 00:01:15] of what I could do and all that. I came across a podcast for land investing and it wasn’t y’all’s. It was a different person’s. I liked the idea of it and the numbers seemed to make sense so I did research on my own and I decided to go ahead and purchase that program. I did that program for probably about six or seven months. Throughout the entire process I felt like there were just holes throughout it where I just wanted more information or there had to be a better way to do this or that. Just a little bit about that, I was getting data from the county directly, so I think you guys know that that’s like looking at the matrix and trying to decipher the information.
Jack Butala: Kyler, you can use Mark’s name on the air.
Kyler Dawson: Okay, yeah it was Mark’s program.
Jill DeWit: I was waiting.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I was trying to be politically correct here, but yeah, so it was Mark’s program. Nothing against the program because it brought me to land business and it gave me the idea and the passion. Just dealing with the county data, I’d send a mailer out, and no lie, 50% to 75% of the letters came back as undeliverable.
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh, wow.
Kyler Dawson: That name, that address, whatever.
Jack Butala: Wow.
Kyler Dawson: It was just, maybe it was just the counties I was dealing with, but it was just super frustrating and I just had so many questions about different things. I bought a couple properties through him and was lucky enough to sell them for a profit, but I just bought them completely wrong. I mean, I was just getting lucky and I just knew that there was a better way to do this. I went back and just started searching land investing podcasts and somehow stumbled across y’all’s very first podcast, I think it was a different one than what it’s called now, but just on y’all’s podcasts, the first few I listened to, y’all were answering a lot of the questions that I already had, so I knew there was more to you guys and there was more to this business than I knew. I think I emailed Jill a few times and I read everything on y’all’s website, read all of the reviews I could just because …
Jack Butala: Do you remember that Jill? Do you remember talking to Kyler the first day?
Jill DeWit: I don’t, no.
Jack Butala: No?
Jill DeWit: No, sorry.
Jack Butala: How long have you been with us by the way?
Kyler Dawson: I bought y’all’s program last February, so this will be 12 months.
Jack Butala: All right wow, this is a good test then. 12 months later.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, cool.
Kyler Dawson: We can get into my financials later, I’ve kept pretty good financials, so we can do that later.
Jack Butala: As long as they’re black. Are they black or red?
Kyler Dawson: They’re green. They’re green.
Jack Butala: They’re Land Academy green.
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Kyler Dawson: They’re Land Academy green. I emailed Jill a few times and then I got kind of that blast email saying you get a free property if you buy today or whatever. I was like, “Okay, I’m going to do this. If I sell the property I’ll, you know, recoup pretty much the investment and all this kind of stuff, and I think there’s more to this.”
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Kyler Dawson: I did it, bought the program in February, and kind of the rest is history. I’ve been doing it ever since and it’s night and day different. The back office support that we get with you guys, not just the program but then SuccessPlant, and then when Data2Doorstep came out and RealQuest, I was like a kid in a candy store looking at that data compared to what I was used to.
Jill DeWit: I’m so glad.
Kyler Dawson: It was just amazing. I’ve been doing it ever since last February, I guess I really started in March because I was doing the program in February, but it’s been a lot of fun and I probably spent, I would say an average of three hours a week on this business, and some weeks I didn’t work on it at all.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Kyler Dawson: It’s truly a side business for me. I’ve got a full-time career and everything, so that’s kind of my back story. I can go into any more details that you guys want. I’ll let you guys kind of guide me.
Jack Butala: Jill and I are just sitting here fist bumping each other. Seriously, because there’s some people that look at, they just don’t understand it. The first time I went into RealQuest a lot of years ago I was the same way. I’m like, “I’m going to turn this into some serious stuff,” and it sounds like you had the same experience.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah. I don’t think people truly understand the quality of the data that we get through RealQuest unless you’ve had to deal with the counties. I mean, its just, it’s crazy. I have a full appreciation of it. If you want to try it out just call a county and get a list from them, get a hard CD that they’ll mail you and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Right. You know, I love that. That’s one of my favorite things is when I talk to people that have done it like you did, the hard way. I’m like, “Yeah, trust me. Once you get into this you’re going to fall over.” It’s so true. Nowhere else can you get all the counties delivered the same way.
Kyler Dawson: Exactly, yeah.
Jill DeWit: That’s so good. Thank you, so that’s your back story. Now are you still doing, so tell me about now. Are you still doing three hours a week or has it taken over more? Give us some deals and what’s going on.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah. Up until right now, today, it’s just a true side business, but I think here in the next couple weeks I’m going to switch it over to full-time. I’ve built up a little nest egg and I’m going to just dump into a business checking account and I think I’m going to start running with this. I mean, I’ve tested it for a year, so I think that’s news. That’s new news. My wife didn’t even know that, so now all the podcast listeners know.
Jack Butala: Talk to us about the deals you’ve done. Did you have good ones, bad ones. Please don’t, we don’t want this to be a commercial, so just completely tell the truth, transparently.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, no I will, no problem. I’ve got all my numbers pulled up right in front of me. Since March of last year I’ve done a total of 13 deals, so about a deal, a deal and a half, a month, and I’ve only sent out one mailer and it was last March.
Jack Butala: Wow. Geez.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah. It was about 800 letters, and I got 40 back signed PAs for a phone call.
Jack Butala: What?
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Jack Butala: Those sound like our numbers man.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I’m serious, those are like the Land Academy’s, what we produce personally.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, it was about a 5% return rate which I thought was awesome.
Jack Butala: That’s about what we get.
Jill DeWit: Yep.
Kyler Dawson: Jill, do you remember the picture I sent you of all my letters fanned out and then the Land Academy book right there?
Jill DeWit: Yes, I do remember that.
Kyler Dawson: I had like 13 letters in one day, and I was like, “Woah. This is happening.” I sent you the picture that one time.
Jill DeWit: I do remember that. That was awesome.
Kyler Dawson: Right now I’ve got 25 accepted offers, about $30,000 worth of just me purchasing price, just sitting and I’ve just been mowing this list down. I buy one or two a month.
Jack Butala: On the same mailer?
Kyler Dawson: Yeah. Same county, same mailer.
Jill DeWit: That’s so great.
Jack Butala: All right, we don’t want to talk about what county it is at all.
Jill DeWit: We’re not going to share that.
Jack Butala: I’m serious because you’ve obviously, you’ve struck gold.
Jill DeWit: This is your little …
Jack Butala: And you priced it right. Your first time. Well, no, you had experience with Mark first, so Mark warmed you up. Good, thanks Mark.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, he hooked me up and I came out ready.
Jill DeWit: I’ve got to say, I hate to say it’s a starter place, but it’s a good starter place. I’m sure you’d know in SuccessPlant there’s several of you in this same situation that said, “Oh, thank goodness, now I got all my questions answered and I know what I’m doing.”
Jack Butala: There’s this old saying in marriage, and it goes like this: “I don’t care where you go get hungry, just come home and eat.” If you go to the gentleman’s club, let’s say for an example, and then you come home and, you know, everybody wins. Thanks Mark for warming Kyler up.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah.
Jack Butala: He’s with us now.
Jill DeWit: That’s so funny.
Kyler Dawson: It works, yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. All right, give me some numbers Kyler. What was your best deal? Bought for this, sold for that?
Kyler Dawson: Well, I mean if it’s okay with you guys I’d like to tell my honest numbers because I know as listeners people just want to hear that. I’m a numbers guy, so I hope this helps make sense to people.
Jill DeWit: Please.
Jack Butala: Everybody just wants the truth.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, exactly. Of the 13 properties that I bought over the last 10 months, just for the property the purchase price was $16,000. With other fees associated with each of those individual properties, like one of them had back taxes, and then recording fees and just mail costs, I attach each one of those costs to each, you know, specific property, it’s another $2,300, so total cost just for the land, no overhead or anything and then just the mail and everything was about $18,500.
Jill DeWit: Okay.
Kyler Dawson: My sales price on all 13 of those from $18,500 was $43,000.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Kyler Dawson: That’s a net of $24,500.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Kyler Dawson: That’s about 133% profit margin average over all of them.
Jack Butala: You doubled your money.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Perfect.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, a little over doubled. All of those were cash sales besides two which I’ve got, I collect on those two monthly and it’s the same guy, so it’s convenient.
Jill DeWit: Nice.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, with everything else added in, I kept pretty good financials of the purchase price of the program and the membership fees for Land Academy, membership for LandWatch, and all my other fees. Everything ran in the positive. My website, all that stuff. The net that I’ve made after everything’s said and done is a little under $20,000 working two to three hours a week, some weeks zero hours. That comes out to about $2,000 a month I guess, over the 10 months I’ve been doing this.
Jack Butala: We can’t pay for publicity like this. I have to say, this was completely unrehearsed and uncoached, and I know that the vast majority of the people, the members that we have, are experiencing something similar to this. I didn’t, we don’t know, we have a couple other people scheduled who are members too and we didn’t talk before this and we don’t. I mean, this is not coached and he could have come on and said, “This thing sucks and you’re an idiot.”
Jill DeWit: “You guys stink.”
Jack Butala: “You’re funny, but it’s not funny.”
Kyler Dawson: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: “My wife left me.”
Jack Butala: That’s how the next call is going to go.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Well, I’ve got to ask too, were you surprised by anything? I mean, did you just, were there parts of this that you said, “I don’t know how this is going to work but I’m going to do what they say,” or did it all make sense to you?
Kyler Dawson: Honestly, after coming from the previous program, it all made sense and it’s just so streamlined and easy and then all the things that you guys keep adding in. I mean, the only questions I have I just go to SuccessPlant and type in a search bar and someone’s already asked it.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Wow.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I’m not that active on SuccessPlant. I mean, a lot of people are, but I work on this like one night a week and a little bit on the weekend or something, so I’m just not that active in the community and with my work schedule I can’t jump on those member calls on Thursdays, so I just kind of use SuccessPlant as a Google and type in my question and it’s almost always answered already.
Jack Butala: Wow, so it’s Google for land investors.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, exactly.
Jill DeWit: It is.
Jack Butala: That’s amazing.
Kyler Dawson: You can use that.
Jack Butala: I am going to, that’s going to be the new tagline. We bought landinvestors.com and we’re moving SuccessPlant. As we speak it’s being worked on right now, moving it to landinvestors.com, just because I think it’s more logical. Man, I’m so glad that, you know, full disclosure, that was Jill’s. SuccessPlant was completely Jill’s idea, and it was at the response of us having to answer too many questions.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, well you know what was funny, it was Claire and I talking about stuff and actually I think it was, I don’t know if you remember Claire. She said, “We’ve got to have a way to communicate.” I said, “You know what, she’s right. I’m doing too many back-and-forth emails,” so one weekend Jack threw that together and here we are.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, and it works perfect. I mean, like I said, I don’t always ask the question because I just type it in there and SuccessPlant’s been around so long, it’s almost always answered.
Jack Butala: You’ve got these 25 deals laying around, right?
Kyler Dawson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jack Butala: Do you have, are you going to spend $20,000 or do you have … I’m sure because of the way you’re taking this, you’re taking a very intelligent approach to this. How are you going to do these next 25 deals?
Kyler Dawson: I’ve got, ideally I think I’m going to try to buy 10 here in the next few weeks and then I’d like to send out my second mailer here in the next couple of weeks as well because I’d like to just mow through these, I think it’s 28 that I have waiting, pretty quick ideally. Your story is like blowing through 50 and 60, and I’m over here doing one or two and you’re like, “Okay, I’m going to step it up a little bit.”
Jack Butala: How is your engineering process? Is there a bottleneck anywhere? Is there anything that you think you can improve on?
Kyler Dawson: I would say, I mean, for me doing it part-time not really. It wasn’t, I mean, I could handle it all, but I think whenever I start blowing and going full-time, the only thing I’m worried about is just call volume coming in and making sure I get back to everybody and do the due diligence that I need to on everything, just because I remember from that first mailer I did it was just a mad storm of calls and emails and everything. I think I can still handle it, it’s just getting the processes down and just being more structured, and I’ll have the whole day to do it, so it should be I’m hoping a pretty easy process.
Jill DeWit: Well, it just so happens Kyler I can help with that.
Kyler Dawson: I know.
Jill DeWit: Did you hear what’s coming?
Kyler Dawson: I’ve heard, yes.
Jill DeWit: Okay, yeah. We will have Jilllive.com to help you out with that should you need it.
Jack Butala: Right about the same time you’re going to need it too if it all goes well.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I just saw that in the newsletter that you guys sent out.
Jill DeWit: Good, I am so glad. What’s your big picture goals? I mean, is this going to replace your day job or are you going to just, what’s the plan?
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, that’s the plan. Like I said, I’ve saved up money and I’m just going to go for this full force here in the next couple of weeks because you can only read so many motivational books and business books and hear so many stories from other people in Land Academy until you say, “Why am I not doing this?” I obviously like it, I talk my friend’s ears off about it anytime they ask, and it’s just fun to talk about and it’s easy to talk about, it’s easy to explain. I’ve always been kind of entrepreneurial, so this is just a fun thing for me to do and for me to be able to take it full-time I don’t have any doubts. I mean, I’m obviously a little nervous, but I think I’ve done the due diligence over the last year and I’ve got good financials, and just looking at the numbers it makes sense. The beautiful thing about this too is, I mean, you can sell 10 properties in a month or 30 properties in a month, your overhead does not increase at that same rate.
Jack Butala: That’s right.
Kyler Dawson: I mean, overhead increases 1:1 maybe, and your revenue is going to increase 1:10, 1:20, so that’s what I love about this too. It’s not like you have to hire …
Jack Butala: Do you have an accounting background?
Kyler Dawson: A finance background, yeah. I’m pretty familiar with QuickBooks and that’s what I do with my current job.
Jack Butala: Remember fixed cost and variable cost analysis?
Kyler Dawson: Yeah.
Jack Butala: There’s no fixed cost to this.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I mean, minimal.
Jack Butala: It’s odd.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, just the memberships, yeah. It’s very minimal.
Jack Butala: Hopefully you’ve got a desk somewhere in your house and that’s the fixed cost and that’s, you know, and a $9 a year domain.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I mean it’s true. The fixed costs are so minimal it’s beautiful.
Jack Butala: You know, when I left my job, here’s my story real quick because it’s very similar to yours. I purchased a portfolio of property, it was all in the same place in Arizona. This is after I did what you did. I was basically at the spot where you are right now. I took the money and I bought, I don’t know, it was like 250 properties all for like $150 bucks each literally. They were near the Grand Canyon and I sold them all while I still had my job and I was doing it on eBay at the time for the most part. Jill’s heard this a million times. Four months later I check my bank account and there’s $560,000 in there. I quit that day. I was like, you know what. Here’s the sentence, it was like I won the lottery. Here’s the sentence that I said in my head. I’m like, “If I actually tried at this instead of just horsed around with it, I could probably quadruple that,” and I did. That’s what happened. I’m sure you’re thinking that too, like man if you really try to go buy some property instead of just fielding the calls sort of half-assed, I don’t mean you’re putting half-assed effort, just time wise.
Kyler Dawson: No, that’s true.
Jack Butala: You’re going to knock it out of the park if you really try.
Kyler Dawson: Well, yeah. You hit the nail on the head. I mean, that’s the difference of doing it whenever I feel like it or just doing it full-time and knocking it out of the park like you said and the numbers are here. I’m looking at black and white numbers here, so they’re there. It’s just a matter of doing it and making a decision, which it’s not an easy decision to walk away from the steady paycheck and the comfort and all that stuff, but when the time’s right it’s right, and if you’re confident then …
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s great man. You haven’t used LetterStream yet either then.
Kyler Dawson: I haven’t, no.
Jack Butala: That’s life-changing. What a company that is. You know, you probably used ITI the first time?
Kyler Dawson: Yes, you had ITI Direct.
Jack Butala: LetterStream is, it’ll change your life. Stuff goes out the same day and it’s just five clicks away from sending a mailer out and it’s really cool.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I’m excited to try it.
Jill DeWit: Their customer service is awesome, they love us. They’re really really good.
Jack Butala: They’re an IT-driven bulk mail company. We were joking about it around the office because most of the bulk mail companies I’ve ever dealt with whenever we would go in there whoever we meet with has ink on their hands and they’re wearing an apron like it’s 1971.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah. I laughed when y’all said that on the podcast I listened to last week or something. I mean, it makes sense.
Jack Butala: These guys, it’s like you just walk around and there’s these big square machines and it’s all quiet and everyone’s laughing and we’re having fun, and all the mail is going out and we don’t even know.
Jill DeWit: Exactly! They’re doing it right.
Jack Butala: It’s like the size of a, it’s not a large operation but there’s a bunch of people just looking at the machines, looking at the screens on the machines saying, “Yep. It’s working again.”
Kyler Dawson: That’s awesome.
Jill DeWit: That’s something.
Jack Butala: Remember the Maytag repairman Jill? We’re old enough for that. There used to be these sad commercials that Maytag is working so well that the Maytag repairman would just be watching TV in his office all day.
Jill DeWit: Right, nothing to do.
Jack Butala: You’re not old enough for that.
Kyler Dawson: I don’t, yeah.
Jill DeWit: No? Hey Kyler, do you have any advice for anybody? A year ago when you were thinking about this, do you have something you want to share with anybody in your shoes?
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I mean I figured you might ask this. I just thought about it, I’ve been thinking about it since I knew I was going to do this podcast. There’s a quote that I read every day, it’s one of my favorite quotes from Napoleon Hill, and the quote is, “Don’t wait. The time will never be just right.” I think that’s a trap that a lot of people fall into in not just business but life. You want to have all the answers before you start, you want to have everything lined up, you want to have your bank account, your LLC, or whatever, and specifically in this business you just have to jump in and do it. I mean, action breeds more action and you’re going to make mistakes. I still make mistakes.
I mean, it’s, every time I call a new county there’s something I don’t know. I think my biggest advice is do your due diligence, be comfortable with it. I mean, that’s what I did. I was skeptical at first just like anybody else, but just do it. Just take that first step. If you come to the point where you think it’s not for you then it’s not for you, but you’re not going to know that until you take that first step. I would encourage people not to wait until they have all their ducks lined up in a row. I think if you want to do something just jump in and learn as you go. You’re going to make mistakes, but that’s how you learn more.
Jack Butala: You know, that’s what our parents said before we had kids. The time will never be right son.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I’m still hearing that.
Jack Butala: You’re not going to know anything. Once you start that you can’t get out of it, I tried.
Jill DeWit: You’re awful Jack. Silly. That’s good, I like that.
Jack Butala: That’s great advice.
Jill DeWit: You know what’s funny, that’s so interesting because that’s how I come at things too. I mean, you’re going to figure it out, you’re going to make mistakes, you’ve just got to jump in and you hear us laughing about taping things all together, we’re still peeling the tape off of some things around here I’ve got to tell you. One of them is SuccessPlant.
Jack Butala: That’s right.
Jill DeWit: Right now it’s still kind of clunky, the forums aren’t as great as it could be, but Jack’s going to make it rocking.
Jack Butala: We’re not rehabbing SuccessPlant, we’re replacing it.
Jill DeWit: It’s going to be awesome.
Jack Butala: We’re pulling all the existing data and the back-end database so you can still use the functionality and the search like Kyler is talking about, but it’s all way faster and cooler and cleaner. I’m heavily getting into it, we’re going to release probably six or seven dot coms that are tools, additional tools to help make things easier like engineering, locating property, and on and on and on. I don’t want to go into it too far, but what I’ve learned in the last couple of weeks is that there’s a thing called an MVP in a computer industry or the sky application industry, where you do stuff online, and it’s called Minimum Value Product. Here’s the saying about MVP: If you’re not completely and entirely embarrassed by your MVP, your Minimum Value Product, that you release just to see if it’s going to work, then you’ve done it all wrong. You’ve waited too long to launch it, you’ve developed it too much, and it sounds like what you’re saying, you know, you’ve just got to get out there, run your head against the wall a few times and figure it out.
Kyler Dawson: Oh yeah, that’s exactly what I did, because I had no experience with counties, assessor’s offices, or clerks, or land in general. I don’t think I’d ever even seen a deed before in my life before I did this –
Jack Butala: Wow.
Kyler Dawson: – business, so it was a completely new thing for me. The learning curve was steep, but I think especially with you guys, I mean, the amount of back office stuff you’ll give us, the Land Academy program, it makes it so hard to fail if you give an effort.
Jack Butala: Wow.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Kyler Dawson: I mean, it’s a compliment to you guys.
Jill DeWit: Wow.
Kyler Dawson: You guys keep rolling out new stuff, new stuff, and it just makes everything so easy and helpful. That’s a huge part of why I’m about to take this leap into doing this full-time is because you guys give us so many tools. It makes it hard to fail.
Jack Butala: Thank you. I tell you, this program though is not for everybody. I’ve realized that in the last six months. You’re coming at us with a little bit of experience from somewhere else, which is good. I think there were like five things that we said Jill, like four or five things you and I recently sat down and said what are the five things that, you know, you have to kind of have before you’re going to be really good at this. He’s got all of them clearly.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, he does.
Jack Butala: One was a little bit of experience somewhere else. Not necessarily with an educator but like flipping houses let’s say.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Another one is you’ve got to be real comfortable with numbers and data and spreadsheets and stuff. If you come into this with us or anyone else learning about spreadsheets and numbers it’s just not, you’re doing it too soon. Some people are, we all know people that are not numbers people, and quote unquote, I heard this recently. Someone said, “Excel is a mystery to me.”
Jill DeWit: Someone said that?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that’s interesting.
Jack Butala: I said, “That’s good. Keep moving,” because this isn’t going to work for you. We don’t teach Microsoft Applications here.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: This isn’t freaking Romper Room.
Jill DeWit: That’s right. Oh my gosh, that’s so good.
Jack Butala: He’s probably too young for Romper Room too.
Jill DeWit: Oh gosh.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I’m not familiar with that.
Jill DeWit: You’re dating yourself. I don’t know Romper Room Jack.
Jack Butala: Romper Room was maybe an East Coast thing.
Jill DeWit: I do.
Jack Butala: Romper Room was like a show for toddlers, like little tiny four-year-olds. It’s like Barney.
Jill DeWit: You could say Sesame Street, everybody knows about Sesame Street.
Jack Butala: Okay, Sesame Street.
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, that one works better than Romper Room I think.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, data, there were a couple of things. You have to be comfortable with data, if you have some back experience it helps. One of the other things too is have some finances. You’ve got to be able to –
Jack Butala: Time and money.
Jill DeWit: – devote something, because you know Kyler. That program takes a little while to get through. There’s a lot of information in it, and I don’t know, is it 10,12 hours?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Then you’ve got to have money to, when you pull the trigger, send a mailer and you’ve got to have some money to buy some property to get going. The last thing we thought, if people have had their own business that’s like a bonus if they’ve had their own business.
Jack Butala: Oh yeah, that’s right.
Jill DeWit: That is the thing that really –
Jack Butala: That was an option at the end.
Jill DeWit: – will help.
Kyler Dawson: I agree, because you have to make all the decisions. You don’t have a boss to say, “Is this right or is that right or should I be doing this?” I understand that side of it for sure.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Right. We’ve got a couple of members who are walking around like Eeyore right now. Does that date me?
Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: Do you know who Eeyore is Kyler?
Jill DeWit: He knows who Eeyore is.
Kyler Dawson: Yes I do.
Jack Butala: All right, from Winnie-the-Pooh?
Kyler Dawson: I do know.
Jack Butala: Winnie-the-Freaking-Pooh. We have a couple of people just walking around like Eeyore, like, “Oh man, I don’t know.” I’m like, you know, I’m ready to … nevermind. There’s always one person. Always.
Jill DeWit: Well that’s okay.
Jack Butala: No it’s not.
Jill DeWit: That’s all right. No, no, no.
Jack Butala: That’s not okay.
Jill DeWit: That’s why we have a small group, and this is really good. You know what? Everyone, everyone, everyone. The cream rises to the top, it really does and that’s where you are Kyler, and that’s awesome. You’ve got it and you’re going to grow and get better and bigger and then you may have a deal someday that you need a little extra help or you need some finances or something, and that’s why we’re here. You can lean on us. We want to. You’ve got a big deal, we can all do it together. Whatever. It’s good.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, definitely.
Jack Butala: Are you familiar with our membership levels Kyler?
Kyler Dawson: I literally was just looking through those the other day when I was cruising though the website, but I didn’t, it was a glance through each of the different things.
Jack Butala: Okay, I’m going to fast track you through there.
Kyler Dawson: Okay.
Jack Butala: We don’t, we’re not active yet, but there’s green, silver which is what you are, which is what everyone is because we haven’t released the next ones. We will soon though. After silver is gold, and then platinum. These are all designed to remove the, it’s all providing you more resources to make you more efficient as you do the more number of deals. Then ultimately black, which is invite only, a black level member. They’re all modeled after the American Express card colors. Black level members, we’ve got a couple people in the group that are just knocking it out of the park and real positive about it like you are, and we’re doing some deals together. I’m going to fast track you up there.
Kyler Dawson: Okay.
Jack Butala: You’re invited if you want to be there.
Kyler Dawson: Wow, thank you so much.
Jack Butala: It doesn’t mean we’re going to do a deal next month, it just means that you just have the right attitude and the right, you came into this with the right skill-set and it’s fun talking to you. That’s a lot of it. I don’t want to sit and talk with people that are no fun.
Kyler Dawson: Well I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Jack Butala: Did you ever try to a deal Jill with somebody, or anything with somebody that it’s just like, “Yeah you’re brilliant and this thing’s working, but man, it just sucks.”
Jill DeWit: It’s painful, yeah totally. Oh yeah, I have. Once. I only usually try to deals with those people once.
Jack Butala: Yeah. We have three kids and one of them is just like that. I’ll never tell which one.
Jill DeWit: You’re silly.
Jack Butala: All three of them will wonder, “Is it me or not? Is it me?”
Jill DeWit: You’re awful. Silly.
Jack Butala: Congratulations man. Outstanding.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, thank you so much and like I said, you guys are a big reason for this obviously, so I’m really appreciative of everything you guys do for us in the community, so from the bottom of my heart, y’all are awesome.
Jack Butala: That’s wonderful.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Hey, can we do this in like six months again and check back and see how it’s going?
Kyler Dawson: Oh yeah, I think that’d be great. Yeah.
Jill DeWit: Awesome. Keep sending us … Hey, you know, the reason we keep creating these things is when you let us know what you need, so as you start moving up here and using different things and engineering help is coming and all that stuff, you think of something, please let us know.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, I’d love to. Like I said, I’m about to be a lot more involved, so I’ll be happy to.
Jill DeWit: Cool, awesome.
Jack Butala: Great. If you need anything give me an email directly, personally.
Kyler Dawson: Okay. Yeah, I can definitely do that.
Jack Butala: Thanks again Kyler, have a good day.
Jill DeWit: Thanks Kyler.
Kyler Dawson: Yeah, thank you guys.
Jack Butala: All right, bye.
Jill DeWit: Bye.
Kyler Dawson: Bye.
Jack Butala: What a good guy.
Jill DeWit: Aw, that was so much fun. I love that he was all ready and had his numbers for us and I wrote them down.
Jack Butala: Yeah. I did not expect that at all.
Jill DeWit: That was so cool.
Jack Butala: You know what we did is we just, we asked the senior manager Aaron in our Land Academy office to reach out to anybody who wants to do a podcast, any member. We didn’t pick and choose somebody who we thought would be, who has had success with it. They randomly responded, so there’s three or four other people we’re going to do this with soon here, this week.
Jill DeWit: I’m so glad.
Jack Butala: Man.
Jill DeWit: I love it. Well, I’m just cracking up too when you really think about it. I’m really, right now I’m focused on his numbers that, I mean, he really did one mailer and he’s still been going, so he’s going to get two years out of one mailer almost if he wants.
Jack Butala: That’s like us.
Jill DeWit: He’s going to step it up now. My other thing I love is, because this really comes up often, is the time commitment. Kyler just shared exactly, “I do two to three hours a week, sometimes zero, and in the whole process I was all in $18,500 and I made $24,500.”
Jack Butala: Yeah. You wrote this down.
Jill DeWit: I did. He said, you know, “At the end I have $43,000 now, so 133%.” That’s where you’re like, “You know numbers.” He’s like, “Yes, I’m a finance guy.”
Jack Butala: Well at $40,000, and his expenses are obviously being paid by his job, I mean, not his expenses but his regular bills, like his electric bill, he’s going to be able to easily buy 25 more properties with that cash and turn them quick. If he doubles it there now he’s looking at $80,000, and then $160,000, and then pretty soon $500,000.
Jill DeWit: Oh yeah.
Jack Butala: I mean, it’s pretty, that’s what happened. That’s what happens.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: You know what happens Jill I really think? I was just thinking about this throughout the whole call. I’m so glad we instituted this thing, this call with our members, because like everything, the real negative stuff gets to us first. There’s not much negative stuff, but when someone’s got trouble.
Jill DeWit: Things don’t work sometimes.
Jack Butala: Right, but it’s so nice to hear positive, just a half hour of positive.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Well, Kyler is a good one too and I know that is true that there’s a lot of people that read SuccessPlant that they aren’t real vocal on SuccessPlant. I know there’s a lot of folks there, and Kyler’s like, “Oh I’m there, I’m just not real vocal.”
Jack Butala: I wonder how many people are out there that are not members.
Jill DeWit: Oh, totally.
Jack Butala: I love that.
Jill DeWit: Oh, I know.
Jack Butala: They’re not members of Land Academy, maybe they got a subscription to RealQuest themselves. I’m not sure why, it would be twice as expensive, but it doesn’t matter. I bet there’s a lot of people that are completely off of our radar that do well.
Jill DeWit: They’re just flies on the wall and doing really well.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: I love it.
Jack Butala: Me too.
Jill DeWit: That’s good. I’m happy to help. You know, that’s great. That’s why we’re here. Join us in another episode.
Jack Butala: I’m all disheveled.
Jill DeWit: You are not. You did great. No, that was so good. Great call, glad we did this. Thanks Jack.
Jack Butala: Information and Inspiration to Buy Undervalued Property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at jack@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
Recording Location: 33.841318 -118.391593
Transcript:
Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit.
Jill DeWit: Happy Friday!
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how land investors mitigate risk. And I have to admit, I’m excited about talking about this. I talked about it a little bit on our weekly call-in Thursday, and decided to do a whole show on it, because I haven’t thought about it in a while but man, this is so much less risky than flipping houses.
Jill DeWit: Totally.
Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Academy community website. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Okay, Ryan asked, “What is fractional ownership of a parcel?”
Jack Butala: I can tell you, I found out what this is the hard way.
Jill DeWit: This is gonna be good. All right, we’re not picking on you Ryan, I promise. This is funny. “Is there anything I can do about it when I’m trying to acquire a parcel with fractional ownership?”
Jack Butala: Don’t, don’t, don’t do it.
Jill DeWit: Don’t.
Jack Butala: Don’t buy-
Jill DeWit: Great, do you really want one third of that property?
Jack Butala: Quite some time ago, somebody in California got the bright idea to assign APNs, assessor’s parcel numbers, to individual owners of fractional ownership. Like if Jill and I went and bought a piece of property, 40 acre property, it would get two APNs.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: You can predict what’s going to happen. It turned out to be a massive mess. One person passes away, what happens? We don’t know.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It said, to rectify it now, title companies and attorneys, they rectified it by different ways to take title.
Jill DeWit: Right. Tenants in common.
Jack Butala: Tenants in common, joint tenants, lots of different ways. So if one person passes away, the way that title is taken it addresses that upon-
Jill DeWit: Dictates what’s going to happen.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s right, and that’s the right way to do it. I have percentile letters, like all of us, offers over the years, and incorrectly sent them to fractional ownership. It’s hard itself, you’re looking at a list of APNs, which ones are and which ones aren’t.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: And accidentally bought a fractional, you know, closed the deal. And you don’t want to do that.
Jill DeWit: Don’t want to do that.
Jack Butala: Because it’s just impossible to track the other person down. Maybe they passed away, their heirs are wherever. It’s a mess. It can be a mess.
Jill DeWit: I still see it, by the way.
Jack Butala: The only way to rectify is quiet settling it.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, well I would say, we still have one or two that we just said we’re not going to worry about it. We just let it go. And I still see the taxings coming through where it shows our company name with this other guy’s name on it.
Jack Butala: This is from like eight years ago.
Jill DeWit: Ivan something, and I’m like, ‘This is hilarious. Like we’re ever going to do anything with it.’ We don’t even know who this Ivan guy is.
Jack Butala: I know exactly which one you’re talking about.
Jill DeWit: We’ll never see him. I hope he uses the property, because we’re not.
Jack Butala: That being said, think with me here. You can buy this thing, buy this fractional ownership. Maybe you get it for next to nothing, 100 bucks for 40 acre property, let’s say. This is not inconceivable, because no one wants to touch it, you’re the only person, and then you quiet title the heck out of the thing, because you become an expert in that, or you find an expert in the area, an attorney, and quiet title it to all the other owners, and now you own a 40 acre property for 100 bucks plus quiet title fees. Could it backfire? Could somebody read the newspaper like it’s 1948, where you have to post it from the statute standpoint and say, “Oh my gosh, that is my property.”? What are the chances of that?
Jill DeWit: And me, I’m going to describe it a little differently, meaning that you’re the one that’s showing up and starting to pay the tax bills and so you’re taking responsibility for the property with the county. You have to post it that, ‘Hey, I’m showing up here, I’m doing it and I want to quiet title it all to my name. I don’t know where these people are.’ There’s legal ways you have to reach out and try to find the other owners to get them involved. That’s what Jack’s saying. If you did that, there’s things that have to go in the paper, and notices have to be sent.
Jack Butala: It’s a literal court case.
Jill DeWit: That’s true.
Jack Butala: It’s literally filing a lawsuit.
Jill DeWit: Then eventually they say, “Nobody else came forward. We did A, B, C, D, and E. Since nobody came forward, which maybe it’s one other person, then you officially are now the sole owner. That’s a process.
Jack Butala: I’ve quiet titled property, and I’ve had properties quiet titled against me. It’s no big deal.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You just follow the rules. You have to be super, super Johnny-on-the-spot. There are timeframe requirements, and if it says 30 days, they don’t mean 31, they mean 30.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: But once you do one, you get it under your belt, and the laws are all different all over the country. And it’s not called quiet title, it’s called adverse possession. That’s the concept, and then that’s the Roman numeral one, and then quiet title is one of the ways to do that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. Good question though, Ryan. Thank you. I know. Ryan only asked the time, he didn’t ask how to build a watch.
Jack Butala: How a watch works?
Jill DeWit: Exactly. By the way-
Jack Butala: Thank you for making this show interesting.
Jill DeWit: You’re welcome, you’re welcome. Thank you. Here to help.
Jack Butala: Last Thursday, for all you members out there, you know this is, but if you’re not a member, Jill is in New York at a fashion thing, and I did the weekly column myself. All the staff with their heads on the desk, they were sleeping. [crosstalk 00:05:18]
Jill DeWit: I can see what’s so funny, because I’m in New York. At the time, I could break away and I could throw on a headset and I could call in to the call and at least say hello to everybody, I was back stage at New York Fashion Week, helping hang up dresses- not kidding- with these gorgeous gowns. Because my friend is a designer, so we’re there supporting her, and I’m telling everybody where I’m standing, and I’m in this hallway, and there’s models and they’re all changing clothes, and it’s just beautiful people and beautiful gowns, and all this stuff. And I’m calling in, and I’m like ‘Say, yeah, how is everybody?’
Jack Butala: You watched models change their clothes?
Jill DeWit: Oh, I did. I saw some- some of the models were full-on nothing underneath, by the way. It just didn’t work with what they were showing, so as they were walking out, we’re like “I’m seeing, uh, she doesn’t have anything on under there.” So anyway, my point is, especially because we were that close. We were that close in that little area right to the right, where the VIPs sit, that’s where we were. It was awesome. All the photographers were up-
Jack Butala: I forgot what this show was about already.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, anyway. So, yeah, over here, Jack, over here. Woo-hoo. Eyes on me. My point with your member call, that was by yourself, and I called in and I’m like, “Hey, how is everybody?” Silence. It was so funny because our staff was saying, “Yeah, nobody’s really asking a lot of questions this week. It’s really kind of quiet,” and I’m like “Aww. I feel bad.”
Jack Butala: That’s what happens with … Jack without Jill dot com.
Jill DeWit: I’m like, “Aww, all right. Well, I’ll be there. Here, here I am. I’m alive and well. I’ll be back, so I’ll be back.” Good stuff. What’s our show? Today’s topic …
Jack Butala: Do you have a question? Do you want to reach out to either one of us? Check it out on landacademy.com. So today’s show is all about how land investors mitigate risk. That’s the short version of the title. The long version is: “It makes so much more sense to invest in land, as a land investor, versus houses.” There’s so many things that can go wrong with a house. Especially if you mortgage it, it’s a financed deal. Think about it for a second. You’re buying a piece of land. If it burns down, it’s not going to be any less valuable. In fact, sometimes burning all the stuff off of it makes it more valuable.
Jill DeWit: Exactly, just cleared away all that debris.
Jack Butala: Think about the things that can go wrong in a house that you buy and rent out. Just think about it. Go ahead and list a few. We’ve done a lot-
Jill DeWit: “My washing machine, oh my washing machine doesn’t work.” “Um, you know, I don’t know, someone slipped in the pool.” There’s so many things. They’re just not paying their bills. They’re not paying the rent. That’s a big one.
Jack Butala: Not pay the rent. You gotta evict them.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. Roof leak, bring it. There’s all kinds of things that could go wrong that you have to take care of.
Jack Butala: That are out of your control. In a land deal, in my opinion, you have control. If something really goes sideways in a land, it’s probably because you paid too much, and you have control over how much you pay. If something goes sideways in a house deal, or an apartment deal, and you financed it, it could be because it rained. It rained hard for two weeks. That’s not your fault, and you have no control over that. If it rains hard for two weeks on this piece of dirt, that you own, that’s good.
Jill DeWit: You know what the thing is, too? I don’t have to go out and see it, I don’t have to babysit it. That’s a big thing for me. For what we do with land, I’m buying and selling land all over the country.
Jack Butala: There you go, there’s a long list of … You don’t ever have to ever go look at it.
Jill DeWit: Number one. It doesn’t matter where I am, and it doesn’t matter where the property is. It’s all about the numbers, and it’s great because we have so many people in our world that are in other countries that are buying and selling land here, too. So you don’t even be in the United States, nor do you have to be a citizen. It just takes all that out of it. Gosh, so there’s no risk with the property, like you said. No risks about where I am. I don’t have to see it, do something to it. What are your other-?
Jack Butala: It’s really easy, when you look at the back end of an assessor’s database, like we do, that’s how we send mailers out to owners, to assess. Once you know it’s vacant, which is where- not vacant, once you know there’s nothing improved on it, there’s not a house on it, or roads, it’s very, very simple to value it right out of the assessor’s database, in my opinion, and then consequently easy to send offers to owners that work. Houses, without looking at the physical asset, which none of us have time to do, it’s very difficult to really value it.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: If it’s in a master plan community, or it’s got some sales comparisons around it, you can kind of guess, and we do buy a lot of houses that way. But nothing beats a good piece of land that nobody wants anymore, from a money standpoint. It’s virtually risk-free. If it’s got drive-up access and you’re buying a property that’s less than 50, maybe 20 to 40% of what they really sell for, how can you lose?
Jill DeWit: Exactly. I got one, I got another one. One of the ways we mitigate risk is we pay cash.
Jack Butala: Yeah, no financing.
Jill DeWit: There’s no financing. It doesn’t’ matter to me if it sells tomorrow, or a week from tomorrow, or a month from tomorrow. I’m not worried about it. I’m not paying mortgage. The banks not looking for me.
Jack Butala: Taxes are real cheap.
Jill DeWit: I’m not trying to flip it real quick, and then there’s a delay, and I’m losing money because of that. Yeah, and the taxes are a lot cheaper. I seriously, at the end of the day, no matter what asset you’re buying, even it’s a residence, ’cause that’s the way we roll, too, is … God, when you pay cash for it, it’s so nice. You sleep so well at night knowing that it’s paid for.
Jack Butala: Well it’s an asset on your balance sheet, on the right side of the balance sheet. The correct side, is what I mean.
Jill DeWit: Correct side. Not the right side.
Jack Butala: Left side of the balance sheet, and a little bit on the bottom right. That’s the accounting coming out.
Jill DeWit: Left, bottom right.
Jack Butala: There’s nothing in the upper left-hand corner. All you accountants out there are snickering.
Jill DeWit: And I have no idea what he’s talking about. There we- and Jill’s out.
Jack Butala: Assets, liabilities, equity. Assets minus liabilities equal equity.
Jill DeWit: Ah, got it. Okay, got it.
Jack Butala: On a cost basis, here’s the kicker, you have to record it on a cost basis. If you bought a 40 acre property for four grand, but it’s worth 22, how do you account for it then? You just jump up and down. It doesn’t matter.
Jill DeWit: Oh, good.
Jack Butala: Because you don’t report to anyone, ’cause it’s your land, and your career.
Jill DeWit: There is that, that’s true.
Jack Butala: There is no structure.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. The last thing you want to do is call the assessor and say, “Hey, by the way, did you know it’s worth this and you only priced it at that?” Don’t do that.
Jack Butala: We had a member do that recently. Do you call the IRS, too?
Jill DeWit: You say, “By the way, you missed something. You forgot, my father-in-law just gave me $100 thousand dollars. You didn’t catch that.” No. All right, you want to do the right thing, but let’s not be silly.
Jack Butala: Just for reality check, you can get your butt kicked in this thing if you don’t do it right, and here’s how:
Jill DeWit: Ready.
Jack Butala: That was Monday’s show. If you don’t take your time and really learn how to do this right, and expect to just- you’re going to splatter a million offers out. Splatter the whole world with offers that are silly. They’re $5 and $15 and $48. Yeah, you’re going to waste a lot of money on mailing to upset a lot of people, so you don’t want to do that.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: Buy the assets properly.
Jill DeWit: The one I see is people who pay, I see it all the time, that people overpay for something, and they’re trying to get something more out of it than they really can, and I have to just tell them, “Just cut your losses, get rid of it, and move on.”
Jack Butala: Yeah, you mean like-
Jill DeWit: Overpaid for property.
Jack Butala: Just ’cause they wanted to do a deal so bad?
Jill DeWit: They just didn’t know what they were doing.
Jack Butala: Oh. I see what you’re saying
Jill DeWit: It’s interesting, because it came to me that they think they’re investors, and they own a couple properties that they bought, and they’re wondering why they didn’t sell, and I’m going though different things, and I’m asking, too, about the pricing. I’m like, “Why is it priced so high?” And they’re like, “Well, I paid X for it,” and I go “Whoop, and there’s the problem.”
Jack Butala: You know what? I’m going to say this sentence: Never, ever buy a piece of property, I don’t care if it’s land, or an apartment building, or anything in between, house, for more money than the cheapest property in the market that’s available.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, perfect.
Jack Butala: If you go to a website, Zillow, Trulia, LandWatch, Land and Farm, or our site, Land Pin. Any of them. And you’re buying a five acre property like Cathleen disclosed yesterday, for 22 hundred bucks, you’re buying five acres, and there’s 10 of them posted there for 23 or $2400, don’t do the deal. Or go back and say, “I only can pay 1500.” And it’s the same thing with houses, you do not ever. Whoever bought property incorrectly that you’re referring to, they could’ve rectified that in five seconds.
Jill DeWit: They just didn’t know. I know. They didn’t know, they overpaid. And then I bring it to them and point it out, they go, “Yeah, that’s why that guy was jumping up and down.” Yeah, that’s why he was jumping up and down.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s another indicator.
Jill DeWit: If your seller says, “Hot-damn”, as they hang up the phone or something like that, you might be overpaying. No.
Jack Butala: If you walk into a dealership and do a deal, and everyone is jumping up and down except you, that’s not good.
Jill DeWit: Then they start throwing in free things, like, “We’ll deliver it. Here’s flowers.”
Jack Butala: “And here’s a toaster and stuff.”
Jill DeWit: “We’re going to fill up the gas tank.”
Jack Butala: Nevermind. I was going to throw in some snarky humor about getting a date, but not good.
Jill DeWit: Thank you, thanks for saving that. I appreciate that.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or you want to be on the- Oops, sorry, let me turn the page.
Jill DeWit: How about: Join us in another episode, where Jack and Jill discuss information-
Jack Butala: That’s me.
Jill DeWit: and inspiration, that’s me, to get just about anything you want.
Jack Butala: We use it every day to buy property for half of what it’s worth, and sell it immediately.
Jill DeWit: You are not alone in your desire to buy assets risk free ambition.
Jack Butala: Nice.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: Good show, Jill, good work.
Jill DeWit: Friday. Thank you. Thank you very much. It’s Friday.
Jack Butala: I like this video thing, I guess.
Jill DeWit: I think this could be really good. I’m anxious just to see how this all comes out.
Jack Butala: I think we should, next week, we’ll do it in different locations each day. We’ll just do one each day-
Jill DeWit: That’d be fun.
Jack Butala: And try to get a boat. Let’s charter a boat.
Jill DeWit: That’s easy.
Jack Butala: Do ’em out there.
Jill DeWit: We can just join on the whale watching tour that we watch go out. That’d be hilarious.
Jack Butala: Oh my God, we should get two tickets to the whale watching show.
Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:15:51] and walk around with this on.
Jack Butala: And just do the whole show while the whale watching thing is going on. Or we could take like a-
Jill DeWit: Wouldn’t that be fun?
Jack Butala: A shuttle to Catalina.
Jill DeWit: And do it from Catalina.
Jack Butala: Or just do it on the shuttle.
Jill DeWit: That too. It’s a long ride.
Jack Butala: I know. It’s bumpy.
Jill DeWit: It’s a long ride. Well, today’s a good day.
Jack Butala: I wonder if we could get a water taxi from here to Marina Del Rey.
Jill DeWit: Sure we could.
Jack Butala: We should do it on- Oh my God, [crosstalk 00:16:16].
Jill DeWit: Done. Lots of ideas.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy under-valued property.
If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at jack@LandAcademy.com.
I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable.
And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.
Jack Butala: Jill’s Phone Answering Service JillLive.com. Leave us your feedback for this podcast on iTunes and get the free ebook at landacademy.com, you don’t even have to read it. Thanks for listening.
Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit!
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about JillLive.com. Jill’s new answering service …
Jill DeWit: What?
Jack Butala: … which we have not launched yet, but she’s pretty jacked about it and so am I. Before we get into it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members on LandAcademy.com. It’s free.
Jill DeWit: Cool! Kathleen asks, “I had a signed purchase agreement sent back to me.” Yay! “The seller is a retired developer and has multiple parcels available”. Okay, this is getting even better.
Jack Butala: I like this.
Jill DeWit: “He signed my purchase agreement for $2250, two-two-five-oh, for five acres. Parcels are selling for eight to ten thousand dollars in this area”. Perfect. “He said there are some ” …
Jack Butala: Hey, you priced it right, by the way …
Jill DeWit: Yeah …
Jack Butala: I mean, it’s not, you didn’t send an offer out for a hundred dollars?
Jill DeWit: For a dollar?
Jack Butala: For a hundred dollars an acre?
Jill DeWit: Exactly, thank you Kathleen, you did great.
Jack Butala: You know what, I’m really glad this questions in here.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, it’s perfect. All right, “He said there are some delinquent taxes, and that he was going to pay them off with a check that I sent him. I checked with the treasurer and there are back taxes and a lien for those back taxes in the total amount of $3000. I’d like to work with this seller, as he has other properties in the area that he wants to liquidate”.
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: “Given the prices on active listings boat”. Love it!
Jack Butala: I wish I was on that boat.
Jill DeWit: Ahhh, there’s a boat going out. We gotta go! Hurry let’s wrap this up.
Jack Butala: We can do our show on a boat.
Jill DeWit: We should do the show on a boat. Now you’re talking. Thank you. Okay.
Jack Butala: Next week.
Jill DeWit: All right, something shiny. So, “given the prices on my active listings, my profit margin is still good if I pay off the taxes”. Okay. “I was thinking of calling him back, telling him about the amount of back taxes and saying that I’ll send him 100 bucks with a new deed to sign and I’ll take off the back taxes, what do you think”?
Jack Butala: That’s the way to do this. If you absolutely answered your own question and you answered it perfectly. I mean Jill’s probably going to disagree but I would not send him a check for any reason. That reeks of …
Jill DeWit: We do agree.
Jack Butala: Oh, okay good.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, we do agree.
Jack Butala: So, when you buy property with back, it’s got back taxes on it … It’s totally okay. All you do is you buy it for whatever amount. It’s a great way to negotiate too, if you say, “Yeah, it’s got some back taxes, I can’t really pay what I thought I could”.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: “I need to, you know, I’ve heard Jill do it a million times. I, no, no. So I sent you an offer for 2250, that means 2250 net-net-net. So if there’s $3000 of taxes on it, I’ll send you an offer for a hundred bucks …
Jill DeWit: Yeah
Jack Butala: I mean I’ll send you a … We’ll close the deal at a hundred bucks and I’ll take over the taxes and then …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: Now you’ve inherited the property and the lien and the taxes then you go deal with it yourself.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: You know, they think it’s the other way around because of houses. When you look at a HUD one when you buy a house, you settle up on the taxes right at closing. You don’t need to to do that here when there’s no loan.
Jill DeWit: Well then here’s what could go wrong. Because even though he says, “Hey, oh yeah, I’ll pay off those back taxes as soon as you pay me”. He’s not obligated by the way. He could change his mind. I’m assuming he’s a good person but let’s just be realistic, he could not.
Jack Butala: I’m assuming he’s a total tyrant, tyrannical crook.
Jill DeWit: Well, that’s where we … You’re so silly. But that’s what could happen. You can send this guy out like “Oh okay” you’re like trusting. He’s gonna pay him off and he might not and then run, or you know, whatever, walk. Anyway and you’re stuck! So the better way is what you’re doing Kathleen saying “I’ll absorb those back dated. You pay it off now”. I mean there’s your choices too. You can say “Hey if you want to be the one to pay it off, great. Let’s make the deal at this price. You pay the taxes and then I’ll pay you”, you know kinda thing. Or “I’m just gonna take on the whole back taxes, you don’t have to send anything in. I’m gonna give you a couple hundred bucks for your time and everything ’cause it’s better than walking away. ‘Cause that’s what the guy is faced with now – he’s either going to walk away, pay it, which I’m sure he doesn’t want to pay it, or get something out of it which often, you know, is the better deal.
Jack Butala: The kicker here too is you wanna do some more deals with this guy. He’s gotta bunch of property.
Jill DeWit: That’s true. Well that’s a whole nother thing. What about that? Okay maybe this is getting interesting too. “Okay I’ll give you a hundred dollars for that one and what else do you have? Okay then I’ll give you two thousand for that one, a couple thousand for that one, maybe you can put together a whole package thing where in his head, “All right I’m getting rid of three properties and I’m getting $3000 when you know your even getting more value out of it. And then everybody wins.
Jack Butala: For the record, you don’t have to pay his taxes off.
Jill DeWit: That’s true too.
Jack Butala: If you disclose the heck out of it in your posting. There are people though that have this perception – whether it’s correct or incorrect, we don’t know …
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: That when they buy property with back taxes associated with it, that it’s a bargain.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: That “Oh that’s why it’s so cheap! It’s got back taxes on it”. Yeah. Like there’s some people who buy a car that needs work because they have the perception it’s a lot cheaper.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: And there’s some people who just want a turn key perfect, walk in the house and it’s perfect and pay top dollar.
Jill DeWit: It’s true.
Jack Butala: So …
Jill DeWit: Which one are you?
Jack Butala: All ways are right. House, I want it to be turn key. If I’m gonna live there primary residence, I want my favorite song playing throughout the house.
Jill DeWit: Oh, that’s not what I thought you would say!
Jack Butala: For houses, yeah. [crosstalk 00:05:36] For primary residences. For business, no.
Jill DeWit: Got it.
Jack Butala: I want it to be half falling down. And I want to get it for free.
Jill DeWit: Duct Tape
Jack Butala: And for cars, no. I don’t want a project.
Jill DeWit: Yeah, for cars, I definitely … that’s very true. For houses, I can take it or leave it ’cause I’d wanna make it my own. But I’m okay with that I [crosstalk 00:05:56]. So. Cool.
Jack Butala: Great question.
Jill DeWit: Yeah.
Jack Butala: I think we answered it, probably spent too much time on it.
Jill DeWit: Good. Probably.
Jack Butala: If you have a question or want to be a show, reach out to either one of us on Landacademy.com. Today’s topic, I’m happy to introduce, is JillLive.com.
Jill DeWit: Not like right now on JillLive.
Jack Butala: So hopefully you’ve heard of PatLive. If you haven’t, PatLive is kind of a real estate based answering service. They do a great job. I talked to one of the executive … We get 20% off there and it’s just not good enough. I want it to be cheaper so …
Jill DeWit: Just not good enough.
Jack Butala: It’s not! You know …
Jill DeWit: That’s kinda a theme for us now, that’s how we roll. ‘Cause if we can’t come in the back door and have access to everything and then set our own pricing for our people, we don’t want to play. What we’re gonna do, we’ll just develop it ourselves.
Jack Butala: That’s what we have with CoreLogic. That’s what we have with UpperStream. And …
Jill DeWit: Otherwise we develop it ourselves which what we’re doing now.
Jack Butala: Yeah, that’s exactly right. So. Well it’s half developed ourselves and half, and we will do an agreement with a very experienced team of people that have been doing this for years and years and years in this country, that’s the key.
Jill DeWit: Yes. [crosstalk 00:07:07] Oh that is key. Thank you for saying that.
Jack Butala: So there’s nothing wrong with other countries. It just makes a lot of sense to do business with people that are close to you, not far away. It’s as simple as that. For me, anyway. And they have a personal relationship, you know?
Jill DeWit: I wanna keep it in the US and I want to keep it where we … That is important to me to talk to someone who can really understand me.
Jack Butala: So we toiled though, not toiled, we really … Jill and I discussed who should take this – some companies are mine, some are hers – And it just makes a lot of sense, she likes talking. And I really don’t like talking. So …
Jill DeWit: Despite what you think right here.
Jack Butala: Well they can’t talk back!
Jill DeWit: Oh this is true.
Jack Butala: This is a one way conversation.
Jill DeWit: Oh oh! Wait so you like talking, yet you just don’t like conversing?
Jack Butala: That’s right. I don’t like conversations.
Jill DeWit: That’s it.
Jack Butala: I don’t mind talking.
Jill DeWit: Talking is fun. Yelling is even better!
Jack Butala: I had this theory about arguing …
Jill DeWit: On a soap box.
Jack Butala: I don’t know if I’ve ever said this on the show. I have a theory about marital arguing and it all starts with talking. If you don’t talk, you’ll never argue.
Jill DeWit: Converse. Nice. Yeah. You know, that’s kinda true. I know. Those mornings you are your happiest I can tell when you walked around and for your whole team, you talked and there were nods or yes or okay and you’re happy.
Jack Butala: It’s probably a one way street, now that I think about it.
Jill DeWit: It’s okay. It’s all right. So okay. Back to JillLive. So JillLive … I’m excited for this – this is going to be great. So and that’s the whole thing. The reason we’re doing this is because there’s a need. And once again, like all of our other products, our members have come to us and said “We need help with this. This is something that’s slowing us down. We’re spending all this money on this other service with this other company. We found this is the best but there’s gotta be another way”.
And we talked about, we said “Okay it’s been on our radar for months now and we thought we were going to do it with our personal staff and we hadn’t quite figured that out so now we figured out a way to do it”.
Jack Butala: Yeah I mean, yesterday we did a show called “What the Real Time Commitment Is”. So you don’t have to … Even though our most successful members don’t have time to answer their own phone, it’s just too complicated. You can’t really use your own personal phone because you don’t want everyone in the world to have … There’s a lot of things to overcome. It’s just easier to spend a hundred bucks a month. Let somebody professionally do it with a script and then you can read through, literally read through the script of the people that have contacted you and decide who you’re going call back.
Jill DeWit: You know, I gotta add something to it. There’s a little added level of professionalism when they think you have a team and you have a staff that’s answering your phone for you and that’s what they’ll think.
Jack Butala: Oh yeah.
Jill DeWit: That it’s your staff.
Jack Butala: I mean that tested and over tested PatLive and several other companies. I mean, you can overdo it. PatLive is too … I mean, I love that company, I really do. They do a great job and they’ve been around for a long time.
Jill DeWit: Right.
Jack Butala: I mean you have the sense that they overdo it though, let me just put it that way. Like there’s just, “Oh hi, how are you?” You know, come on man.
Jill DeWit: God, you don’t wanna do that. You wanna be friendly and professional. And then you want to be efficient and that’s my thing too I want. ‘Cause these people, they don’t really want to chat. They’re calling to sell you their property and let’s be honest and they might be calling on there … Heck I answer the phone. Yeah, they’re calling on their lunch break or whatever. They’re so excited they got an offer in the mail and they’ve been carrying around their in their briefcase for a week and they now have time on their lunch break and they now have time to give you a call and you’re not there, okay. But at least you have somebody that can answer the phone and take down all the information and schedule a time for you to really call them back.
Jack Butala: And hopefully it’s the same person. You know, that’s kind of a criteria too when we find who’s gonna fill these orders.
Jill DeWit: Figure that out.
Jack Butala: It should be you know …. Obviously can’t be 24/7 the same person but it can be predictable.
Jill DeWit: We’ll figure that out. As long as it’s efficient, that’s my thing. It’s gotta be efficient. We don’t want your people holding for that person ’cause they’re on a phone call. We won’t let that happen.
Jack Butala: I see.
Jill DeWit: We won’t let that happen. And we’ll make sure that it’s good and I’m gonna personally weigh in. You’ll be able to choose my script, modify your script, submit your own script, whatever.
Jack Butala: See, you’re the right person to do this.
Jill DeWit: Thank you! Cause I’ve done this! Well I’ve done this for like companies but I personally did this for us. I’m used to answering our own phone.
Jack Butala: And now it’s our people.
Jill DeWit: And now it’s our people so I trained our people how I want our phone answered. And I trained our people with the script or the questions that I want. And I trained my people how to – gosh – how to work with these people ’cause some of these people they sell those, they call back. You know, they’re very timid, they don’t own a bunch of properties, they may only own the one. And they might be, you know older and they don’t even …. It’s the funniest thing. They might literally lay the phone down, I’ve had this, and you can hear rummaging through papers while they’re looking through the parcel and they’re looking for that letter, “I just had it” kinda thing. It’s really cute. But anyway, we’re gonna help with all that. I’m really excited.
And this JillLive, I’m sure it’s going parlay into other things that we can do you know …
Jack Butala: Like close the deal.
Jill DeWit: And let the mail maybe. Are we going to do the mail thing?
Jack Butala: Yeah. Yes.
Jill DeWit: So okay. Good.
Jack Butala: Yeah, it’ll like every single one of these products that we roll out, they’re all driven by what our members say, “Hey it’d be great if we could do this” and that’s how it all starts.
Jill DeWit: Exactly. That’s how it all starts. “Hey, it’d be great if you can teach me this whole plan thing”. That’s how it all starts!
Jack Butala: That’s how it all starts!
Jill DeWit: There we go! Oh my gosh.
Jack Butala: Join us in another episode. Where Jack and Jill discuss hotties information, that’s me.
Jill DeWit: And inspiration, that’s me.
Jack Butala: And 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 think about this video thing versus just audio in the studio.
Jill DeWit: We’ll see what the whole … Is it just going to be on YouTube or how you gonna host it?
Jack Butala: It’ll be on our website too.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Jack Butala: No, it’ll be everywhere. It’s gonna be syndicated. Seriously.
Jill DeWit: Okay. Oh no.
Jack Butala: Is it just going to be on YouTube?
Jill DeWit: Do I look okay? [inaudible 00:13:19]
Jack Butala: How do you think I roll? Do you think it’s just gonna be on YouTube.
Jill DeWit: I gotta tell you something funny. This is reminding me … I don’t know if it was last summer or summer before, it was last summer! We did a webinar from our couch and I had a surfboard behind us, I don’t know if you remember this – and we sat there sweating and it was the funniest thing. Cause then I had this cute dress on but the sweat was just dripping down me and I know we looked like a hot mess by the time it was done. We sat in the living room sweating but we were there for our people and it was really fun. We had a lot of people that were just hearing about LandAcademy and we let them call in on our big webinar and ask us all these questions so they could … they typed in a question and we were on video and the whole world could see us. And made me think of this.
Jack Butala: And it did really well.
Jill DeWit: And we did really well. It was a blast. But it was like I’m like having flashbacks to that right now. That’s so funny.
Jack Butala: Maybe the video part of this will never …
Jill DeWit: See the light of day?
Jack Butala: Yeah.
Jill DeWit: No I know you. You tend to do that.
Jack Butala: Information and inspiration to buy undervalued property.
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