Better ROI with Land or Houses (LA 723)

Better ROI with Land or Houses (LA 723) Transcript: Steven Butala:                   Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:                            Good day. Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:                            And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala:                   Today Jill and I talk about, do you get a better ROI with land or with houses? Or with mobile homes or with skyscrapers. Or apartment buildings. Jill DeWit:                            Or apartment buildings Steven Butala:                   Yeah. You got it. Jill DeWit:                            Or gas stations, or industrial. Steven Butala:                   Why do you guys just, did you guys choose the land over apartments because you get a worse ROI? I don't think so. Jill DeWit:                            Good point. Steven Butala:                   Is this all happen on accident for you, Steve and Jill? Jill DeWit:                            Right. Steven Butala:                   Were you just sitting around and kinda fell backwards into buying and selling land? Jill DeWit:                            Yes, I just kinda ... Steven Butala:                   Just hope for the best. Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, I just ... what's it, swing hard? Steven Butala:                   Swing hard and hope for the best. Jill DeWit:                            Yeah. Steven Butala:                   It's how I play golf. Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, you know, it was either this or, you know, that cleaning service that we talked about. I don't know. Could you imagine? Steven Butala:                   I owned a dry cleaner one time. I'll tell you about that in a minute.                                                 Before we get into this, let's take a question posted by one of our members on LandAcademy.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit:                            I do remember you saying something about that, by the way, and every time we were anywhere near a laundromat you'd look at those coin machines like, oh, like your eyes light up. Like people put money in for this. Steven Butala:                   So, I owned two laundromats. I was very young in my early 20s. And one with a dry cleaning service and then later in life I owned a dry cleaning drop off. Talk about printing money. Jill DeWit:                            Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven Butala:                   But like the houses, every time we buy a rental house, we own it for about five months, do the math and say, “If I keep this rental house, I can sell it right now for three times what I paid.” Jill DeWit:                            Right. Steven Butala:                   "Or whatever the numbers are. Or I can just rent it out forever and just collect the money. I think I'd rather sell it. It's gonna take me like, I'll be dead before I actually make my money back." Jill DeWit:                            Right. Steven Butala:                   So we would just sell it. That's what happened with all those laundromats and everything. Jill DeWit:                            I understand. All right, so here's David's question.                                                 Hi everyone. I'm getting ready to send out my first mail campaign. Steven Butala:                   Yeah. Jill DeWit:                            I live in L.A. I know I don't need to market close to home, but if at all possible, I'd prefer it. I want to be fairly close to a big city and I also want a place where the land is relatively inexpensive so I can afford to get into the game, buying up multiple properties in a short period of time. What criteria do you all typically use when researching and choosing an area. Population?