Land Academy Show

Jack Thursday - Distractions from Success (LA 1625) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about distractions from your success. Jill DeWit: Oh, I bet you have a whole lot to say. Steven Jack Butala: What's the biggest distraction that you experience? What's the thing standing in your way? Besides me, standing in your way of being the successful woman I know is inside of you. Jill DeWit: Wasting time on deals that are too small. Steven Jack Butala: Beautiful answer. Wow, that didn't take long for you to answer. Jill DeWit: No, it didn't, because it was perfect timing. I just came in from my desk and I'm looking at- Steven Jack Butala: Tell us the story. Jill DeWit: I'm looking at deals... Here's the good news, some of these are coming in and I have... My transaction coordinator has been with me long enough now she knows what my answers are going to be. I just wrote her back saying, "Hey, you know what, you're right, this, this, this and this. You know what I'm going to say no to. Please take ownership of that and only loop me in now when we're at this level." Because I'm wasting time going what the heck, I shouldn't even be looking at this. And some of them is like, it's too small a deal and we're not even sure about the access. Why am I even looking at that? Steven Jack Butala: My answer is, it's just working on stuff that doesn't yield a dollar. Jill DeWit: That too. Steven Jack Butala: And so that's, we'll talk about it in a minute, but it's hard to... This show doesn't make any money. It doesn't make a dollar. In fact, it's a total time suck and it's a money suck, but it really works. It really helps people and it converts the right people to becoming Land Academy members where they can make a ton of money for themselves and contribute to the group, so that makes money. It makes everyone money. So there's this balance between, in Jill's case, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but it's like, should I do this deal that's really small and kind of risky, but I know this person that's submitting it is going to be a superstar. That's what this show's about. Are they distractions or not? We don't know. You just don't want to go down a rabbit hole, that's my point. Right? Jill DeWit: Well, I'll tell you another truth time thing. As a matter of fact, I have one deal that I fund. I just got an email from an agent today saying, you might lose money on this one. I'm like, yeah, I'm prepared for that. It's a deal in a county, in California, that I funded for somebody else who realized later on they paid too much for it, and they kind of threw me the keys and ran away and said, oops, sorry, here you go. I made a mistake. It was your money, not mine and then they backed. I'm like, thanks a lot. Steven Jack Butala: Threw the keys at you. It's a great visual. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: I hope our post production guys can do a little- Jill DeWit: I throw some keys in there. Steven Jack Butala: A little cartoon of throwing keys. Jill DeWit: Me with keys bouncing off me. Steven Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:02:50], throw some keys in Jill's face. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. That's correct. Jill DeWit: Okay. I'm going to take a guess at how to pronounce this. Steven Jack Butala: It's first initial, last name. Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you. Okay. So G Corley wrote, I was going to call it Guh Corley, "Hey everybody. I just joined Land Academy two weeks ago and I'm very grateful to be part of this group.

Learn More About House Academy Here Housing Market Predictions for 2022 (HA 1624) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Really the House Academy Show today. Entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit. And, we are broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I are talking about housing predictions for 2022. Jill DeWit:I like to say I was asking this question too, to you earlier. I'm like, "I know you read up on all this stuff. You're really current on all this stuff. What the heck is everybody saying?" I'm personally dying to know. I have my thoughts, but I want to know what your thoughts are and what the general opinion is. Steven Jack Butala:So, it's the fourth quarter, it's October 2021. It's a fourth quarter where everyone who's got any type of involvement in any market, whether it's a stock market or commodities or anything else or weather or anything, makes predictions for next year. And housing is no different. So, Core Logic piped in Fannie Mae, of course, which is the mortgage insurance backed federal government scenario, which allows a lot of mortgages to happen. So, they all have predictions and I'll talk about them in a minute here. Jill DeWit:Cool. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, Hey, by the way, it's all good. In my opinion, it's not hockey stick straight up. It's good. Slow growth. Jill DeWit:Spoiler alert. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the YouTube Land Academy channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Jason wrote, you guys talk all about houses a lot lately. If we buy and sell land, what is the point of this? I've renovated houses in a past life with success, but decide it's not worth it in the end. Steven Jack Butala:Amen to that. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:So you're in the same boat as almost all of us, probably it's a logical conclusion to look at the things that I think suck. We talked about this a couple days ago. Jill DeWit:Like Monday. Steven Jack Butala:Yeah. What sucks about renovating houses is that... Pick window treatments. I always come back to that. If I hear the word window treatment, I'm not going to get involved in it financially. And so, I'm sorry that you had to go through that welcome to the land investment business. Jill DeWit:I'm sorry. you had to go through this. Okay. Steven Jack Butala:The housing market is very closely tied to the land market for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that when house values go up, people have extra money. When housing values go up and I'm going to get all kinds of comments on this wages generally go up. Compensation or equity generally goes up. Wages in themselves are so untied. So tragically disassociated with house values. It's staggering. Jill DeWit:It's weird. Steven Jack Butala:But in general, from an economic standpoint, not an accounting or reality standpoint, economic, that's not reality. That's just economics equity values go up when housing values go up. Which means there's more access to more disposable income on a macro level, which means people have access to more money so they can buy and sell land. Number one, this is a good question. Jill DeWit:I like the pen on your finger. I'm like, I could just see... you know what's going to happen. Our post production guys are going to poke arrows that what's with the pen? Steven Jack Butala:They will now for sure. Jill DeWit:Yeah, they will because I just said it. Steven Jack Butala:Number two when housing, it was funny for a while. Jill. Jill DeWit:Okay. Steven Jack Butala:When housing goes up like this, there's a need for more housing, people sell their house, they got to move somewhere else. So land, it gets utilized for new housing and we're in a re...

The Truth about Mailer Haight (LA 1623) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I am Jill DeWit broadcasting from this sweet valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the truth about mailer hate. Jill DeWit: Why do you say with that much [inaudible 00:00:18]? Steven Jack Butala: Because I don't want to be misconstrued of mispronouncing it. Does it bug you? Jill DeWit: No, I just was wondering. Steven Jack Butala: You know, why? Because this has been a topic since I've been buying, selling property through sending out mailers. I want to say it with emphasis. There's a lot of hate involved in this business. Jill's about to dispel that theory that I have here. She's long dispelled this because she has experience as a customer service person many, many years ago. Jill DeWit: There's always going to be hate. Steven Jack Butala: Her theory is there's hate everywhere. Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Come on, there's no business that you're going to 100% make every single person happy. They're all going to love you. They're all going to think that they spent way too little for whatever they got back. I don't think that's possible. Steven Jack Butala: She's really much more set up, honestly, to manage all this than I think I ever was and some new Land Academy members are set up to do so. It's something you got to get through. This is a total truth time episode. It's something you need to get over it or you're not. Some people are set up for it and some people aren't. I was not at all set up for sending out my first mailer and the deluge of anger that came back on it. Then I went and bought a bunch of property and made a ton of money. Jill DeWit: There's ways that you can remove yourself too. We can talk about that. Steven Jack Butala: Jill's going to tell us. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Among the Lord wrote "On the receiving hate side of things, that's a different battle altogether with your state of mind. I once wondered if I had the thick skin also, and my first incoming hate sat with me for years before I figured out how to shake it. My secret is a little woo woo. But, I did a lot of personal development during COVID and out how to alter my thoughts around it and many other things so it doesn't affect me anymore in the slightest. I can receive the hate directly or by mail, send out as much mail as I want anywhere I want, and the only reaction get from me even doing the worst hate and threats is a small smile on my face. And then, I forget about it. Sorry for the long reply, but it's definitely a mental game. The good news is that it's a game you play with yourself, and you can set your own rules." That's great. Steven Jack Butala: Here's my response to this because I respond. This was in Discord. It's a long time, not long time, but a couple year member who's this is all worked out for them. I really, I responded by saying this set of reaction, this templated reaction when something like this happens, is so important in life. I have a mechanism like this that I use when there's any kind of confrontation to diffuse it and try to get everybody to laugh at the end. I don't care if it's the checkout clerk at the grocery store. My whole point to putting this question in, really it's a statement, is you have complete control over this, just like everything else. Total and complete control over what you allow someone to say to you on the phone about a offer you sent as insignificant as that is in life and the offer amount that you sent for a piece of real estate. That's obviously clearly worth way less than what they think it's worth.

Psychology of Choosing Land Investment as a Career (LA 1622) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, Entertaining Land Investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the psychology of choosing land investment as a career. It seems simple, but it's not. Jill DeWit: I love this. Steven Jack Butala: So do I. Jill DeWit: It's really good. I have two, I think, really good points that I see as, for me personally, why we do this and why it makes sense to me and I'm happy to share. Because I know a lot of people think like I do, and I want to share this. Steven Jack Butala: Over the course of the years, I've had people way more successful and wealthy than me and way less successful and wealthy than I am make comments on this, and none of it's wrong. So this show is about the perception, those perceptions. Jill DeWit: I think maybe some of it might be wrong, but that's okay. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Steven wrote, "I feel like Land Academy is a cheap code to the game of life in terms of financial precarity. Once you prove the concept to yourself, it's hard not to evangelize this to all the people you care about, but it's strange because they look at you like you have two heads." Jill DeWit: I love this. This is why I stopped a long time ago. When people say, "What do you do?" I never really tell them what I do, because they don't get it. They do look at me like I have two heads. And then it opens up the whole can of worms of me explaining it, and then half hour goes by and they're still looking at me sideways and I'm like, "I just wasted a half hour. I could have been talking about something more fun or just be doing nothing." Steven Jack Butala: And this falls into the heading of you either get it or you don't. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Steven Jack Butala: And you're not going to tell anybody or sell anybody about the fact ... if somebody's on the fence about whether or not this works ... Jill DeWit: Let them sit on the fence. Steven Jack Butala: They'll be there forever. They're not ... Jill DeWit: Don't push them on the other side. Steven Jack Butala: People come to their own conclusion about whatever they see on the internet or talk to people. They come to their own conclusion about whether or not it works. You can see it in their eyes. Jill and I used to go ... this is a long time ago. Before we started Land Academy, just to see what other people are doing, like in 2013 and 14, we would go to these meetups. Jill DeWit: Yeah, and sit in the back. Steven Jack Butala: And stand in the lobby, and not necessarily even go to the event, just go to the ... stand in the lobby, have a cup of coffee and talk to people and listen to people. And of course they were all real estate events about buy and selling houses just like today. Buying and selling houses is ridiculously ... and renovating them ... inefficient. And we know that. We've renovated houses and learned that the hard way. But it consumes ... people are just ... it has this designer component to it, which fascinates certain people. So when you say to somebody who either wants to or has bought and sold a house and renovated it and made $22,000 that buying and selling land is easier and better, they're either going to ... the light bulbs either are going to immediately go off, or they're going to say, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard." Jill DeWit: And that's sad. It's like, "Well, what do you mean? You don't get to pick the carpet and the wall?" That's really what they're doing. They must be fulfilling a love of just shopping...

Jill Friday - How You Know You are Good at Something (LA 1621) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven Jack 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 the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk... Well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about how you know you're good at something. Jill DeWit: Do you know what you're good at? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah, I'm probably a unhealthy level of confidence in about two or three things in life. And then everything else is just like, "Wow. I need to improve on that." Jill DeWit: Oh, come on. You're good at more than you think, and I actually have a couple of things here. This is not going to be all like, "Oh, this is great. We're going to hear them tell each other how great they are." No, but I'm going to give some good examples of some things so you can figure out what you are good at. Steven Jack Butala: I have several questions. Please don't answer now, but my biggest question on this is, do you think that... It's nature/nurture, you know? How much actually can you change? Jill DeWit: We can talk about that. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Buckley wrote. "Hi, all. Question on utilizing a checkout card processing feature on your land sell website. At what point should this be set up? My first mailer is just now getting out the door, so I don't actually have any property to sell, but I'm trying to get ahead of the stumbling blocks later. I know Land Academy has the Heartland payment systems set up for Land Academy members. Thought someone implement this, and the ease of use. I'm totally new at it all and trying to learn. Thanks." Jill DeWit: I love this. This is so funny. Do you want me to just jump right into one of our answers? So one of our members, he goes by Old Steve, put a comment in here. We're going to read his answer to this question. Steven Jack Butala: To which my response is, I'm Older Steve. Jill DeWit: That's right. Old, not Older, Steve wrote, "Specialization is key. We buy 100 plus installment contracts a month in another vertical. Since we're first and last a lending business, we have those issues managed. Because it's what we do, I don't sell land or buy land and take pictures of land to post for sale. I take payments and collect or repossess on past due accounts. I agree that there is only one way to do this, hold title..." Does this really apply to this? I'm confused. Steven Jack Butala: Can I read it? Jill DeWit: Yes, please. Go ahead. Because I'm not getting it. Steven Jack Butala: Old Steve says this, "Specialization is the key. We buy 100 plus installment contracts a month in another vertical. Since we're first and last a lending business, we have those issues licked because it's what we do. I don't sell and buy land. I don't take pictures, I don't post land. I don't mess with that. I take payments and collect or repossess on past due accounts. Steven Jack Butala: "I agree that there's only one way do this. Hold title until paid in full, collect a decent down payment, so the buyer has something to lose. 40 years in the credit and collection business. All the noise is under the $5,000 deals. How about actually underwriting? Nobody seems to do that. Proof of sufficient income through bank verification. Steven Jack Butala: "We have a full online scoring model. 500 applications a month go through the machine. So sell on terms. I'll buy all the risk that's associated with that and discount it. Be a great land investor." This is his advice. "Let somebody else be the collector." Namely him. "Maybe a group Zoom on how to put these terms deals t...

Jack Thursday - Money Management (LA 1620) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday. I'm going to talk about money management. Jill DeWit: And I'm going to take a nap. Steven Jack Butala: You know how I manage money? By buying land and selling it. Jill DeWit: You know how I manage money? By asking for your help. Steven Jack Butala: What? Jill DeWit: Just kidding. I don't know. Not really [inaudible 00:00:26]. You're the money. No, no, this is perfect, because look, you're the money guy in our whole relationship, meaning our personal finances and hey, we can do this or not do this. And I don't question you. I hope you appreciate that. I'm sure you do. Steven Jack Butala: I really appreciate that. I'll lay all the stuff out in a second here and then we'll talk about our personal situation, because it's worked. And it wouldn't work for everybody. Jill DeWit: It's true. Steven Jack Butala: There's some stuff that Jill and I do that most people that are partners like this, wouldn't put up with. Number one, we don't have any joint money. Jill DeWit: We have company money. Steven Jack Butala: We have companies together. Jill DeWit: That's true. Steven Jack Butala: She and I do not share, and never have, and never will, share a personal bank account. So I don't talk about, ever, I mean, I never have, how she spends money. It's her money. I don't care. And vice versa. I think, look, here's a prelude to the whole thing and we will take a question first. The number one way to succeed at managing money is to have a plan. Otherwise, the money will manage you. And we've all had friends like this, friends, or maybe parents, or siblings, or cousins, or people that are just always down in the dumps about money. And it's because they never had a plan. Jill DeWit: It's true. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: [Zach 00:02:00] wrote, "Howdy, y'all. New member from Austin, Texas. My name is Zach K. I'm a seasoned entrepreneur, but totally new to land investing." This is great! "And fairly new to real estate investing, in general." Welcome Zach. This is cool. Steven Jack Butala: Fit the profile perfectly on [crosstalk 00:02:17]. Jill DeWit: Yeah. "Having built several companies, the latest of which is a line of educational toys sold through big-box retail carrying Disney licensing, I'm experienced with building teams, setting up processes, outsourcing, et cetera, et cetera. The entire international supply chain has been wrecked these past years to say the least." Steven Jack Butala: Decimated is what I call it. Jill DeWit: Yeah. "And I felt it's time to a new business started in an entirely different and more stable industry." Steven Jack Butala: Amen. Jill DeWit: Yeah. This is so cool. Steven Jack Butala: We are so lucky we're in this business. We talk about it on the Thursday call all the time. Jill DeWit: Yep. And let's see here. "I started land investing two months ago after hearing great things from a friend who got into the business last year. I sent out 50,000 mailers to start and closed 10 sweet deals for info lots here in Texas, purchased for 8 to $20,000 and sold between 30 and $90,000." Steven Jack Butala: That's the textbook Land Academy deal. Jill DeWit: Totally. "By sending 50,000 letters right out of the gate, I was able to learn a ton, fast. Some of my letters were spot on and others were atrociously mispriced." That happens. Steven Jack Butala: It still happens us. Jill DeWit: That's right.

Learn More About House Academy Here The Psychology of Affordable Housing (HA 1619) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about the psychology of affordable housing. Every Thursday, Jill and I have a call, we call it the Thursday call. It's a webinar, closed webinar with all Land Academy and House Academy members. And one of my jobs that I've assigned to myself is to kind of give everybody a... Let's call it a 10 minute overview on what's happening in the news with real estate, because it's really we didn't use to do it, but this whole COVID thing twisted this housing market all around. In the beginning of COVID, we thought it was going to crash like it did in 2010. So I was trying to prepare everybody, and help everybody with that. And by informing everybody of all these sources... I belong to all these sources of news feeds on real estate. Steven Jack Butala:And so that didn't happen fortunately, in fact it went the other way and we're all a lot more successful for it. I hope you are too. Steven Jack Butala:What I see now predominantly, and as a result of that what I continually go do this research for real estate for the Thursday call is this affordable housing topic. Steven Jack Butala:Over, and over, and over again everyone loves to report on affordable housing, except for the core data tree itself, First American title data tree. The core and ADaM data, which I have tons of respect for, they're real estate data companies. They seem to stay out of it. They seem to know enough to just say, "You know what? The market's going to set itself, and that's it." Steven Jack Butala:And it could end right there, but that's not what happens. This day and age it's just a current event, affordable housing is a cool thing to talk about. Steven Jack Butala:Why? Because people have this perception that they can't afford houses, but that's just not the case at all. They absolutely can afford a house, and in fact I'll get into it in a minute. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "I have some questions about a title close versus a real estate attorney close. Number one, what does it mean when somebody says it's an attorney closed state? Are there no title companies in those states, or is that an extra step on top of what the title company's already doing?" Jill DeWit:Should we answer them in order, or just go through them all? Steven Jack Butala:Yeah, sure. Steven Jack Butala:Go ahead, Jill. Jill DeWit:So number one is yes, there are states, really only one that I can think of in particular. Steven Jack Butala:New York. [crosstalk 00:02:34] Jill DeWit:Yeah. Jill DeWit:That require an attorney basically to oversee the transaction. And, usually there's an attorney at the title company that's overseeing it all. And I've had some transactions like this, where in other states they still have an attorney overlook their transactions, even though it's not required. It's just kind of an extra layer of insurance for them. So that's what that means. Jill DeWit:"Number two, I've also heard it's faster with a real estate attorney" And I'm partially the problem myself here for this one, because I really promote this. "Can I ditch my title company in Texas and do everything with an attorney?" Steven Jack Butala:Hell yes. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:And I would encourage you to do that. Jill DeWit:That's it. Jill DeWit:So for number two, that's my now new way of getting deals done. First I'm going to try to find attorney nearby,

Confidence in Your Success AND Failure (LA 1618) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Well, hello. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. It's entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today Jill and I talk about confidence and your success and your failure. I think this came from Jill's binge watching PBS biographies. Jill DeWit: Specials. Might have been. Exactly. Are we going to hear a football coach story? Steven Jack Butala: Oh, I don't know. It's only so many times I can tell these football coach stories. Jill DeWit: I was just going to say, we've kind of all heard it. Steven Jack Butala: I think we'll leave it alone. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Okay. Thank you. I was saying that to save you, listener. Steven Jack Butala: If you're brand new, the whole gist of it is- Jill DeWit: Uh oh. Steven Jack Butala: Celebrate your failure. Jill DeWit: There we go. Okay. Steven Jack Butala: Make the best of it. Jill DeWit: We'll get into that. Steven Jack Butala: Because you're on your way to success. Before we get into this though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: [Erin 00:01:07] wrote, "Has anyone mailed Hawaii? Wondering if there is anything weird, different, or just anything to know or avoid? For example, lava zones. I don't want to buy a [foreign language 00:01:23]-" Steven Jack Butala: I think it's [foreign language 00:01:25], yeah. Jill DeWit: "Or something and find out that the locals don't approve. I see there is a HARPTA withholding for non-residents of 7.5%." Steven Jack Butala: Same thing in California. Jill DeWit: But it looks like you can apply to get that back. Sounds like Canadian stuff too. Also, that seems to be two land systems will require some reading up on. Steven Jack Butala: That's all true. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven Jack Butala: We have another member who piped in here who's got a lot of experience in Hawaii and I included this question in here because this is the kind of typical thing that happens in Discord. Jill DeWit: I love it. Steven Jack Butala: They all help each other. Jill DeWit: Help each other out. So, Steven, a different Steven wrote, "Hey Erin. There are unique things to Hawaii like other states. I've done a number of deals there in the lower price points on the Big Island, and I'm now working on a larger deal so it's possible. Avoid lava zones one and two, lower Puna. Demand is generally not high for most areas on the Big Island as supply is high and the weather is poor. The land court system isn't a big deal if you close through title companies. Title companies in general are more expensive and slower. Hit me up if you get stuck." That's so cool. Steven Jack Butala: There's several subdivisions that are very much non developed on the Big Island where I purchased property in the past. I actually took a trip there a lot of years ago and met in Honolulu, met with everybody, met with the state people about tax properties and back tax properties and I was met with nothing except roadblocks for a lot of reasons, so... Jill DeWit: Is it because you're from the mainland? Steven Jack Butala: Probably. Jill DeWit: Ah, okay. Steven Jack Butala: That was definitely part of it. There's no doubt about it, so... I'm used to a system here out in the Southwest, in Southern California, in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, where tax sales are part of life and they happen in some cases, in Texas's case, weekly. So, that's just not the case there. In fact, every time I read about Hawaii and real estate, they're off out in the Pacific Ocean on their own. They make their own rules. Everything's slower. The state is forever caught up in this, "Yeah,

When is it Okay to Buy Land From Another Investor (LA 1617) Transcript: Transcribing in progress. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in Apple Podcasts . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on Apple Podcasts. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. The BuWit Family of Companies include: https://BuWit.com https://offers2owners.com https://landinvestors.com https://landacademy.com https://landpin.com https://parcelfact.com https://countywise.com https://deedperfect.com https://ownersdata.com https://houseacademy.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 Apple Podcasts.

Land Academy Deal Funding Explained (LA 1616) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. 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 land, the Land Academy Deal Funding Explained. Jill DeWit: Yup. I gotta ask, too, by the way. I did a little adjusting my hair here before. Did you keep that in the video? Did you keep that rolling? Steven Butala: No. Jill DeWit: Okay, God. I was making sure that wasn't gonna make final cut here or not. Steven Butala: No. I should have though. Jill DeWit: Sorry about that. I had to take a moment and, to have a hair moment. Steven Butala: It seems like we're talking about Deal Funding a lot lately. And we are. And because it's just been a smash hit. Jill DeWit: It is. Steven Butala: If people are using it the way it's intended to be used, I think people are making a ton of money. If you submit a deal to us and for whatever reason, it doesn't fit our criteria, we're developing now a network of people, other people, that are funding deals in our community, that will get it done. Jill DeWit: Exactly, yup. Steven Butala: So [inaudible 00:01:03] on, I'm excited as heck about when stuff works. Jill DeWit: Me too. I have more to say, but I'll save it. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Abby asked, "Hi guys, I received a couple of signed offers for properties that have no access. Even though I priced them right and they're pretty cheap, I'm still hesitant to buy them. Does anyone have success at selling landlocked property? How do you market them? Obviously, I don't intend to hide anything in my property listing. Thanks." Steven Butala: Yeah. I mean, we have a whole long history of success selling those types of property, and you'd be shocked at how many people love to buy property that doesn't have physical and/or legal access for a bunch of reasons. Jill DeWit: And a lot of them are legal. Steven Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Legit, not just running from the law. Steven Butala: One of the reasons, and I think one of the best reasons, is to buy property because it's so cheap. But then they don't get access. Jill DeWit: That's true. Steven Butala: Maybe a neighboring property owner has the means to give access to this landlocked property. They're rezoned property already. So it's a huge bargain for him. And then he gets it accessed, so. There's a whole business model in getting access to properties that don't already have it. And a lot of our members do that. Steven Butala: Number two, you'd be shocked and amazed at how many people use the property, and they don't want it to have access. Jill DeWit: Yeah, they don't want to drive up road. They like to be out there bidding a little bit. They want the privacy. Steven Butala: But you nailed it. Actually, if you know their property doesn't have any access, you don't want to pretend that it just doesn't exist. You want to disclose that. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Steven Butala: The way that we disclose it, we don't personally buy property without access any longer. We work on very large, much larger dollar-wise deals. But there's, again, you just want to make sure that you're clear about it. And the way that we would deal with it in a posting on the internet is, "Please confirm access. Here's a phone number to the county." Have a talk about it. Jill DeWit: Well, and you're gonna have accurate photos of it, showing where it is. Everyone can see that. And the accurate GPS coordinates so they can look it up, and they see, and they know it. And if they ask, you're just gonna say, "Yeah, that's right. And that's why it's priced this way." Steven Butala: Yup, exactly. Jill DeWit: And that's it.

Property Data Quality Then and Now (LA 1615) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. 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 property data quality, then and now. It's Data Week this week. Jill DeWit: It is. Steven Butala: In case you haven't noticed. Yeah. Jill DeWit: Do you know what's funny? Is it just me, or do we have six Data Weeks a year? Maybe it's 10. I can't remember, but it's a pretty high number. Steven Butala: I wonder ... I haven't checked our ... You know, I used to obsess- Jill DeWit: It's Data Week again. Steven Butala: We get feedback on how many people listen to the show daily, and a number. I haven't checked, because it keeps going up really well. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: I stopped checking, and if I wonder if it just dramatically drops during Data Week. Jill DeWit: Oh, we shouldn't advertise that. Just slide it in there. Steven Butala: Here's the truth, Jill and I constantly go back and forth just like should we be a teacher or should be we be an entertainer? And you decide. Jill DeWit: Yeah, because we're probably good at one, and we probably stink at the other one, and you know. We'd love to know. You should- Steven Butala: In fact- Jill DeWit: Tell us- Steven Butala: We're probably saying- Jill DeWit: Please tell us. Steven Butala: We're saying to people who don't listen to the show any longer. Jill DeWit: No. Steven Butala: They don't even know that- Jill DeWit: They're not here. Steven Butala: They're not hearing that sentence. Jill DeWit: There we go. Steven Butala: When you guys figure it out, let me know. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: Today's topic ... Well, no before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven asks, "For those of you regularly using Zillow, do you put all of the normal listing information like you would on your website, or is it beneficial to leave some information off, like the cash purchase price, if you can post a low per month terms payment instead? I know some like to put minimal information in a Craigslist post, so I'm wondering if any benefit when doing Zillow ads." This is clearly a part ... I'm about to- Steven Butala: Oh, an online sneeze. Jill DeWit: Excuse me. I sneezed. Steven Butala: How's that for reality of telling the truth? I will not edit that out. Jill DeWit: Sorry about that. Steven Butala: By the way, is it healthy to just not let ... to let that out? Jill DeWit: Here we go. I'm not- Steven Butala: Since the day I met Jill- Jill DeWit: We don't agree on sneezes. Steven Butala: This little internal sneeze really concerns me. I say let it out of there. Jill DeWit: Yeah, I know. That's why I walk around with wipes, and I wipe things down where you've been. Steven Butala: I'm not criticizing you. Jill DeWit: Kidding. Steven Butala: I just don't want you to hurt yourself. Jill DeWit: It's not going to do any damage. Steven Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: I'm positive. Steven Butala: I bet it is. Jill DeWit: No, I think it's better than spraying your sneeze. Steven Butala: I'm not saying ... okay. Jill DeWit: You're supposed to [crosstalk 00:02:38]- Steven Butala: I'm not saying spray. Jill DeWit: You're supposed to put it in your arm, but I wasn't going to do that on the show. Steven Butala: Is that right? Jill DeWit: There we go. I could have gone like this. It would've been funny. Steven Butala: You know what you can do next time, is just ... Jill DeWit: I could have done- Steven Butala: I'm your man for a reason. You can sneeze right into me. Jill DeWit: You know what? That's what I should have done. I should have ... people who are listening and not watching, I should turned to my right,

Learn More About House Academy Here House Wholesaling Explained (HA 1279) Transcript: Steven Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hi. Steven Butala:Welcome to The House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala- Jill DeWit:That's a mouthful, and I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about wholesaling houses explained. Jill DeWit:That's a lot [crosstalk 00:00:20]- Steven Butala:Wow. Jill DeWit:That was a lot. Steven Butala:This seems like such a basic topic. Like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, you wholesale a house. You buy it for cheap, you sell it for more. Get out of there. Go do it again." Jill DeWit:Do you think you use this term when you describe yourself anymore because I thought- Steven Butala:No, heck no! Jill DeWit:Yeah, isn't it funny? I used to say it, it used to mean something. And it used to mean something good. And you know what, there's always one bad one that ruins it for the rest of us! Jill DeWit:I'm just kidding. But people have got confused by what wholesaling is, and then some people are, I think, not doing it right and now we have to describe what we do a different way and let them run with that. Steven Butala:There's a lot of meat in these deals and because of that, there's a lot of people who have no shame and no real respect for real estate or money and the process and have come in and really- Steven Butala:They haven't even put a dent in the industry, but they just get a lot of notary because they're not doing it responsibly, so- Steven Butala:Here's a prelude to the rest of the show. What we really are, are acquisition experts for people who own a lot of property. Whether they're landlords or house flippers or whatever. So if you walk into an big company that's real estate driven, like a McDonald's or a banks with bank branches, they have buildings. Or a home-builder, they have buildings full of an acquisitions staff that help them buy an expense property that fits their acquisition criteria. And I cut my teeth in that corporate environment and now we do it for ourselves. Steven Butala:So what the show really should be called is "How to Set Up an Outsourced Acquisition Department for Landlords." But if we call it that, you will be the only person who's listening to this show. Jill DeWit:Could you imagine! That would be awesome! "Hey you gotta check out this show!" "What's it called?" "It's great! Little hard to find, because if you misspell one of the words, and there's a lot of them, you'll never find it." Steven Butala:So then I went to a podcast national event onetime, and we had a show like that. And everybody's like looking cross-eyed at us. Jill DeWit:Like what Steven Butala:Why are you, why do you call it that? What the heck are you talking about! You lost me at the third word. You lost me at acquisitions. Jill DeWit:That's my favorite! Steven Butala:Before we get into the topic, lets take a question posted by one of our members on the houseacademy.com online community...it's free. Jill DeWit:Jeff asks, "I just flipped a property in Kansas City and I made twelve thousand dollars. I know I left a bunch of money on the table. How do you deal with this?" Jill DeWit:Move on. Steven Butala:You know...I'll tell you what. Jill DeWit:Well you surely can't call back and say "Hey, oops, by the way..." Steven Butala:Well I think what he's saying is "You guys", meaning Jill and I, "what you teach or what you explain on how you do it is to make 10 or 15 or 20 grand on the thing and just keep moving." Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Butala:And that's right. So how do I deal with leaving money on the table? Because Jill and I leave money on the table on every single deal. And land deals too. That's part of the business model. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Butala:You need your buyers to just beat your door down Jill DeWit:And now they will. Steven Butala:And yeah! Jill DeWit:Congratulations! That fire won't-

Why Land Resellers Buy from Us (LA 1614) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. 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 why land resellers buy from us. We have a whole website called LandStay.com and the slogan is, "Land acquisitions for resellers", and it's been this way for years and years and years and this was not intentional. Jill DeWit: Let's just cut to the chase. It's me. Steven Butala: It's The Jill Show. Jill DeWit: Come on. No, no, I'm just saying, why do they buy from us? Because they get to talk to me. Steven Butala: Oh my gosh, Jill. Jill DeWit: I'm just kidding. Steven Butala: That's hilarious. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Steven Butala: You know it's probably not completely not true. Jill DeWit: It doesn't hurt. Steven Butala: There's probably some truth to that. Jill DeWit: I got to tell you, people call and there's a woman on the other line it's like, "oh okay." Sometimes it's hard to get them off the phone. Steven Butala: Here's a one reason, it's cheap. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Isn't that funny? Steven Butala: It's cheap. Jill DeWit: It's hilarious. That's one thing that I'll never get tired of that question, "What's wrong with it?" I'm like, "Nope, nothing wrong with it." Steven Butala: Yeah. Just nope? Jill DeWit: Yeah. No, I seriously, it's like it's nothing wrong with it. If you would like me to add more to the price so it really is more in line with all the competition, I am happy to. Steven Butala: We have a- Jill DeWit: And then they're like, "oh no, no, no. Caught it." Steven Butala: Over the last lot of years, Jill and I have developed a lot of one liners about the top six or seven questions that we get... Jill DeWit: From the buyers Steven Butala: ... from people. And we only get them once because that put it's all to rest and you know what, we'll answer them in just a minute here. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members. On the LandInvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Jason asks, "I'm very frustrated. Is there a simple video tutorial that someone has made that will walk you through the simple formulas and steps it takes to work with data that we are using in the business. I've edited my data down by going through and looking for government owned properties, Indian land, non-taxable land etc. I've done this manually. I know there's a better way. I've tried to watch the video to keep up with Jack. As he goes through adding a column, I can do that and then adding a reference number and a column for each row of data, but it bounces back and forth between him and the slides. I'm having a hard time following. OMG. Is there a better way? I've never had to use Excel and I can "guaran-dang-tee" you that my kids will learn to use this. I'd scream and kick the dog if I thought it'd help." Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, that's hilarious. Steven Butala: Okay. Well this takes me right back to 2014. Jill DeWit: This is here, Steven. Everyone breathe, breathe, breathe. Steven Butala: And, I'm not picking on this writer at all. There's two red flags here for me. "I've never had to use Excel" and these are direct quotes. "and my kids will learn to use this." So, the very, very nucleus of how we buy and sell real estate is data driven and there's only really, in my experience, two ways to manipulate data to your benefit to get offers to owners. Whether you're doing direct mail, [inaudible 00:03:19], there's a million ways to get offers to owners. Steven Butala: Not a million, there's about four really good ones. Jill DeWit: That's awesome. Steven Butala: I really believe that you have to have and be comfortable with and I mean born-with comfort at manipulating data either using Excel or through the ma...

Real Deal on Land Education Courses (LA 1613) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I’m Steven Jack Butala. Jill Dewitt: And Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the real deal on land education courses. Jill Dewitt: Okay, this is a direct response. You know who you are, Anthony. Steven Butala: That’s the question there. Jill Dewitt: Oh is it really? Oh you put, oh- Steven Butala: Yeah. I put the actual question here. Jill Dewitt: Oh, so it’s all going to be one big molded, melded together thing. Steven Butala: Yeah. Yeah. Jill Dewitt: All right, so, all right, so let me just explain this real quick. So this is from a soon to be member, if he’s not already a member, because he’s asking everywhere this question, which I’ll read in a moment. I answered it. It was so funny. He put it in Facebook. I just happened to be trolling the Land Academy Facebook. And I was like, “Oh, there’s a message there.” And he was asked this question. I’m like, “All right, so I’ll write this message. My team’s really busy. I’ll write a message.” So I’m sitting here crafting my response, and then before I could hit the little send button, my team put a message. I’m like, “Oh, all right. Well now I got to go back and say okay, PS it looks like my team beat me to it, but I’m still going to give you my answer here.” So I put it in there. And now I’ve seen him ask this in our online community, which I’m really, really glad because I’m dying to see what our members, well actually I know what they’re going to say, but I’m glad you’re asking the community. Yeah. Steven Butala: We encourage people in our group and not in our group. Our listeners go into landinvestors.com or these, our team just to put together these Facebook groups, are very specific to all the lines that we have, companies, and ask questions like, “What the heck? Is this real?” “This doesn’t make sense to me. Are you having success with it?” “Are these guys a fluke?” “Is it temporary or is this really actually work?” “These guys say a lot of stuff on the podcast. I wonder if any of it’s true at all.” Jill Dewitt: Right. Steven Butala: And so that’s what we encourage and that’s what this question is. Jill Dewitt: And we encourage openness, and you know what we have never ever, ever, and if you’re in bigger pockets, you know this is the opposite, we have never filtered anything. Steven Butala: Yeah. Jill Dewitt: What goes in there, stays in there, short of spam and junk. We kick that, kind of like buy these sunglasses, that thing, you know what I mean. But we don’t filter any of the responses. We really encourage, and that’s just who we are anyway, we encourage openness and transparency. And if it’s great, share it. If it’s not great, share it. We still need to know. Steven Butala: That’s what this episode is about. It’s our, because this is a real source of humor, off the camera for Jill and I. What, how other Land Academy members, and other people in the land business, handle education, where they get education, and probably 80% of it’s wrong. Probably 90%, now that I’m thinking about it. That’s what we’re going to talk about. Jill Dewitt: Okay. Cool. Steven Butala: Before we get in to it though, let’s take a question posted by one of our members. The question we just talked about on thelandinvestors.com online community, it’s free. Jill Dewitt: Okay, so Anthony, I knew your name already.

Jill Friday - 3 Relationships You Need in Your Land Business (LA 1612) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to talk about the three relationships that you really should have, or that you need in your land business. Jill DeWit: They're not husbands, it's not children, it's not boss, it's not accountant. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And please don't forget to subscribe to the land academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Ian wrote, hey everyone, I have a property owner I'm talking to who owns a piece of property that has a dilapidated trailer on it. The property is pretty far back from a highway, but there appears to be a lengthy dirt road that goes through several pieces of property. Looks like there are a few other homes back down this road. Does anyone have any recommendations for determining legal access to the property? The sellers don't know much about it as they inherited it. There's nothing in writing that they know of. They told me they use the road to get to the property, but like I said, the trailer needs to be torn down and they really go back there. Is this an implied easement situation? Any input is appreciated. Steven Jack Butala: It's a very good question and just like yesterday, it's a question that I directly got involved in on discord. All these things start with a plat map. A plat map is one of those... It's black and white. It's some type of a surveyor or way back in the day before even surveyors, there are people that would hand write maps based on the stuff that they found from the measurements that they took. And it's the most basic map you can get. We don't use them a lot anymore because of Google earth and things like that and data tree, but a plat map will have in when it was subdivided the legal roads. Nine times out of 10, way more than that actually probably. And they're identified by dotted lines, not straight lines. Straight lines are property lines, dotted lines are roads or easements if they're involved in other properties. Steven Jack Butala: So you'll start with that and you'll see it. If it goes along people's property lines and there are no properties between it, that's just a driveway and you won't see that on a plat map. Think about your own driveway or a driveway in a subdivision or even a parking lot in an apartment building. You won't see that in a plat map, you'll just see the property line and that's it and here's the dirt. And so this is going to take some digging into and it's worth it because I love these kinds of deals, by the way. If there's an old mobile home and it's way back somewhere off the road and it... You started to tell the story about the sales story here. Jill DeWit: Right? Steven Jack Butala: So I'd definitely get to the end of it. In a rare case if they find out, there's no easement at all. It sounds like the property is being used that way, or it has been used that way. So if you just talk to the neighbors and say, "Hey, do you mind if we make this official? I'm going to call my lawyer and we'll just redraft this stuff. The guys can sign some stuff so I can use it. That'd be great." Jill DeWit: Right? Steven Jack Butala: That happens a lot with us because she's on the phone doing it and she's talking nice to these neighbors. Flies with honey kind of thing. Jill DeWit: Thank you, sweetheart. Steven Jack Butala: Today's Jill Friday. She's going to talk about the three relationships you need in your land business. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: So there aren't three individual people because every transaction is differ...

Jack Thursday - We Now Control Most Aspects of Our Own Lives (LA 1611) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hey. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt. And we are broadcasting from the Valley of The Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today is Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about how we now control and I mean, all of us, all, almost all aspects of our own lives. And I'll tell what, when we were kids, Jill and I wasn't like that at all. Jill DeWit: Yeah. I'm excited to talk about this. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And please don't forget to subscribe on the land academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Jessica wrote, "What points of failure do you think new land investors should be looking out for? As a one person show, I don't want to use my limited energy to create redundancy for the sake of redundancy, but there's bound to be ways we can mitigate the typical points of failure experienced by those at this stage of our careers." Steven Jack Butala: So Jessica and I in Discord, went back and forth on this. And then a lot of people came back in. I'm not in there every day or constantly or anything, but this is a topic that... A single point of failure is a topic that really sings to me because I was on the Brent end of that concept between around 2009 and 2011. Steven Jack Butala: Really until Jill and I had joined forces to get back in it, really get land investing back on track, or there was a recession then. And a lot of it was because of the single point of failure. We had a single point of failure sales channel. All we were doing was buying some property and selling them on eBay. It was great. I made millions and tens of millions of dollars doing it actually. Jill DeWit: It was great until it wasn't. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Until it turned off. And I looked around and said, "Well, it's off like the electricity. And what can I do about it? Pretty much nothing." And so I never want that to happen again. So Jessica and I were going back and forth on Discord. I said, you can't have a single point of failure in your sales channel. This came up because Facebook and Instagram were down for two days this week. Jill DeWit: Oh yeah, that's true. Steven Jack Butala: That's why she was asking this. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Jack Butala: She's, "I don't want to get caught up in this." Jill DeWit: Whatif Facebook marketplace is the only place I seem to sell property? Steven Jack Butala: Yeah. That's where she [crosstalk 00:02:21]. Jill DeWit: Well, then don't let that happen. Steven Jack Butala: Really what she asked. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Jack Butala: Here's another place that I've been burned on a single point of failure, recently, very, very recently. When you rely too heavily on a single important employee, it's going to bite you at some point. Now, Jill and I cross-train everybody. We don't go in there and say, "Hey, we're cross-training you." What ends up happening is somebody makes some time off, another person steps in. They learn how to run some stuff or whatever division it is. They work at 020 for a couple of weeks, they go over to data, the neighbor scoop for a week or whatever. So it ends up being a inadvertent cross-training. Steven Jack Butala: Everybody's in it together kind of thing. You can't do that with everybody. There's a lot of perfect personalities, you just want to do one thing and that's it. And I get that, and that's fine. To some degree, I'm like that. I just want to do one thing. And so you can't put too much stock in one employee, in one area. If you start to do mailers and you concentrate and you only use one way and you never do any type of review. And you bring your head back up from your desk three years...

Learn More About House Academy Here Housing Market is Back and so is House Academy (HA XYZ) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala:Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit:Hello. Steven Jack Butala:Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. Well, it's really the House Academy Show today. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:Hi, I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala:Today, Jill and I talk about how the housing market is back or is coming back. And then, so is House Academy. In the background for years and years and years before I met Jill, she was buying and selling houses and so was I. We met and we really focused on land because that's always been my primary focus and I think I kind of introduced it to her, but she always knew about buying, selling houses and we never stopped until COVID. We stopped because I thought initially it was going to crash like it did in 2010, the exact opposite happened to every economists and the planets dismay or amazement. Including us. Some of these markets got so hot, we just decided, you know what? We're not going to- Jill DeWit:Plan up. Steven Jack Butala:We're no... I don't want to swim with sharks. I want to swim with goldfish and have not a lot of competition. So we've been watching patiently. If you're in the group, you know we talk about this on that Thursday call all the time, in the Land Academy group. And it's statistics now, and I'll talk about this in a minute, are showing serious signs of, yep, let's get back in here and do it. Jill DeWit:Agreed, I'm excited. Steven Jack Butala:Before we get into it. Let's take a question meets you posted on the one by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit:I think we're going to have a house channel on the Land Academy Channel. I don't know, look around. We're going to come up with some more good house stuff for you. I'm just tying back to how- Steven Jack Butala:On the Land Academy YouTube Channel. Jill DeWit:Yeah. Steven Jack Butala:We will have a House Academy playlist very, very soon. If not, by the time that you listened to this. In the past, forget about the past. We had its own separate House Academy Channel. So we're moving all that content over. Jill DeWit:It's going to be cool. Steven Jack Butala:So it's going to roll it all up into one kind of thing. Jill DeWit:Totally. Jill DeWit:Charlie wrote, "What tricks do you have to help buyers get a survey completed in a timely manner? I'm going on three weeks since we opened escrow. Title could have closed last week and we're still waiting on the survey with no estimated date of completion. At this point, I'm willing to do anything before my buyer decides to walk." I hate the situation. It's happening. You're not alone. Charlie. It's frustrating. There's a lot of things that are behind, your Amazon deliveries behind not kidding. I mean, I've like not so much Amazon, but they've moved things around a little bit, but I'll tell you FedEx and UPS and other services are behind. My bigger point is, I think people are having a hard time finding workers and there's a transportation issue and just people to show up. So, that could be going on. Maybe this poor guy went out and did his stuff and it's waiting on the office staff to finally put the paperwork together to get you his survey. Steven Jack Butala:Why are we doing a survey? Jill DeWit:That too. Well, there are very, very infrequent. Let me go back to this. You're right, overall, don't do a survey. Steven Jack Butala:Like 99.999% of the deals you will do in your career will not require survey. Jill DeWit:Correct. Jill DeWit:1% of the time you have something like a, what did I need it for? Steven Jack Butala:I think it's way less than it was- Jill DeWit:It was like a forest station plan.

Beginners Guide to Doing Land Deals (LA 1610) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. Steven Jack Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Stephen Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I, we're going to talk about a beginner's guide to doing land deals. Jill DeWit: I broke it down in a couple of steps from zero to 30, I should say. Steven Jack Butala: Jill and I often have different takes on what these shows should be about. And today is no exception. Jill DeWit: Exactly. We often have different takes on everything from parenting to where we're going to dinner tonight. Steven Jack Butala: We do not have different takes on the following: getting rich together. Jill DeWit: Yes.Getting in An RV. Steven Jack Butala: When that should happen. Jill DeWit: True. Steven Jack Butala: How to run our staff, for the most part. Jill DeWit: Right. Leaving town. Steven Jack Butala: I think we're almost on, well, we're not on the same page about parenting, right? But I don't think you should be. I think you need two of them going at it. Jill DeWit: We're on the same page about vehicles in the garage and toys. We're pretty good about that because no one will say no. It's pretty much a,"Yeah, we should get one of those." Steven Jack Butala: We're on the same page about how much real estate we should own and not own and where. Jill DeWit: That's true. Steven Jack Butala: That's a pretty big deal. Jill DeWit: I can agree with that. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on thelandinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Victor wrote: What does it mean when a property's co-owned with an "or" instead of an "and"? And I'm putting in quotes here, "Jane Smith and John Smith," instead of, "Jane Smith or John Smith." Both are deceased and the daughter wants to sell. Jill DeWit: It means absolutely nothing. Steven Jack Butala: This is incorrect. And it's a great question. Whoever did this vesting deed before you, or before them, didn't do it right. Here's how you do it. Jane Smith and John Smith own this property as joint tenants with rights of survivorship. One of them dies, the other one owns it all, at the moment that that person passes, without any paperwork. It's a beautiful thing, actually. But eventually, John's going to die too. And that's what goes on here. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Any deed you come up with, you might even find still some tenants in common. Whatever it is "or" doesn't mean anything "Or" doesn't count. What counts are the words after it. Steven Jack Butala: Yes, well said. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Steven Jack Butala: What also accounts is that they're both dead. And so to answer that, depending on the state, that's really easy to undo, or really hard. Arizona's very hard. California's very easy. So, [crosstalk 00:02:52]. And it always changes, or else I would directly answer it. Steven Jack Butala: California requires an affidavit of death, and Arizona requires a whole new... In a lot of cases it's just not worth it, a new estate settlement. Or it means nothing. That's the takeaway from there. Jill DeWit: That's it. Steven Jack Butala: Today's topic: this is a beginner's guide to doing land deals. This is why you're listening. Jill DeWit: Do you want to start? Steven Jack Butala: Sure. If you want me to. Jill DeWit: I'll start. You want me to start? I thought you would have something to say. Usually you dive right in. Steven Jack Butala: At the risk of sounding like your father, your mind, your head's got to be into this. I told somebody at recently, Jill and I were lucky enough to have dinner with some people that organized a live event near our house. They're all members.

Working From Home on Your Land Business (LA 1609) Transcript: Steven Jack Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Jack 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 the valley of the sun. Steven Jack Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about working from home on your land business. Jill DeWit: Pretty hot topic. Steven Jack Butala: It is. I saw that actually, I saw it, it ranked high... It falls under something I thought we all would've known and how this works but I get it though. Jill DeWit: Do you know what's so funny? It used to be, working from home on X, right? Meaning, you would have a second job, whatever gig, and now everybody's working from home. So, it's like, what do you happen to be working from home on? Does that make sense? Are you're working from home? No kidding. Is it your day job? You know what I mean? I'm just curious, so is the planet. Steven Jack Butala: It wasn't that long ago when someone said, she's working from home today? Jill DeWit: Right. Steven Jack Butala: And everybody would say, oh, she's getting nothing done and took the day off. Jill DeWit: Totally. Steven Jack Butala: It's just not the case at all- [crosstalk 00:00:59] Jill DeWit: She's doing laundry and she's watching movies- [crosstalk 00:01:01]. Steven Jack Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jill DeWit: And everything. Now, it has a whole new different meaning now, it's true. Steven Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community is free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: I've got to add one little thing here too, by the way, home schooling has a whole new meaning now too. Steven Jack Butala: It's going to be interesting how this episode goes. Jill DeWit: Yeah. I know. Steven Jack Butala: Two cynical people talk about working from home. Jill DeWit: I know. Okay. All right. Back to the topic. Jeff wrote, I've been an instructor since 2008. Steven Jack Butala: Flight instructor. Jill DeWit: Okay. I thought of making flying an expense and probably would have been viable in the years before drones existed. I think you could do as an expense but be very costly compared to the low cost of getting the same photos from a drone. If you could expense the travel but it would be more expensive than the airlines. I think you could expense the travel but it'd be more expensive than the airlines, got it. So, Kevin, our moderator wrote, you can make anything an expense. Steven Jack Butala: Yep. Jill DeWit: Get the right CPA. That's true. When he interviewed my CPA he asked an important question, how far do you want me to push the tax laws? I tell him I'm going to push it right up to the limit of the law. Steven Jack Butala: Me too. Jill DeWit: I don't care if I'm audited, as long as we document everything. He said, no problem, I know what to do. I think that flying over land that you have an interest in, you can define what an interest means, will be deductible. You will probably get audited but make sure it's documented and handled correctly on the tax returns. I have done this with a trip in the car to another state, I drove by some parcels while I was the and noted the APNs. Totally, totally on the same page. Steven Jack Butala: So, I agree with just about everything that Kevin said but he left a couple of really important key phrases out. Is it ordinary and necessary for you to get your pilot license to fly over an airplane and get good footage? That depends on what type of business you have. If you are a pilot that specializes in land, in fact, we actually have a person in our group who buys vacant land in these airplane communities. Where you land on your own airstrip, taxi into the hangar that is attached to your house and you live there. So,

Jill Friday - I'm Going to Have a Good Day Damn It (LA 1608) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. And she's going to do a show called I'm going to have a good day damn it. Jill DeWit: So this, I started mentioning it yesterday. This is when we sat down. This topic came up as we sat down and in the morning. And we're thinking about a couple of days ago, what our topics are going to be for this week. And Steven very lovingly said, well, how's your day going to which I said, it's going to be a great day because I'm going to make it a great day. That was the whole point. So the title morphed into I'm going to have a good day damn it. So, because there's a lot in your control and that's what we're going to talk about. Steven Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Shannon wrote as a newbie, I'm getting a little overwhelmed by the amount of response we are receiving. This method works. If you work it, not sure if it's because tax time is coming or what, but as a newbie, it feels we have dove into the deep end. LOL. I don't know who else says the mail is dead. It's alive and well, and people are opening up their letters. The hate calls are comical are also LOL what's the... Yeah go ahead. Steven Butala: All right. So here's the thing. This happened to me the first time I sent mail out. So I didn't know what I was doing. This is a lot of years ago, and this is long after I had a very successful tax deed tax auction business. I just tried to just send out a [mailer 00:02:00] Just to see what was going to happen. I sent a mailer out to very specific number of properties in a specific county, Mojave county, Arizona for a straight $500. Just trying to get to see if people didn't want the property anymore. Steven Butala: We got a massive response, as you can imagine. No one's ever... There's tens of probably 45,000 properties in that county. No one ever received a letter or an offer ever. And so we had a massive response and I screwed up everything, everything. If I could go back and do that, now we would probably do a thousand deals. But the whole time I did it with a smile on my face because I knew now it's possible. I knew, all right, on the next mail we'll solve this. And this is without Jill. This is with somebody like me answering the phone, which is not the best choice or answering the phone at all. Jill DeWit: Well, you did what you had to do with what you have to work with. That was it. Steven Butala: This person, what I love about this and why I put this in here, Shannon doesn't care what she's not saying, "Well, they're not doing this. And the salary's not doing this. And everyone hates. There's all this hate and everywhere. I can't believe. I never knew that these words existed." Let alone, has anyone ever said that. She's not saying any of that, what's she saying is, "Oh my God, can you imagine what's going to happen after I land three of these?" That's all she's focusing on Shannon you're going to be amazing at this. I'm sure of it. It requires that attitude. Jill DeWit: It's perfect for today. Steven Butala: Today's Jill Friday. I'm going to have a good day damn it. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: So I was thinking about I've talked to people that are new to land investing, and they're like, "How do I start? How do I, what do I do?" And everything. And they feel there's at some point to get the education, there's, going to be a ceremony. And now I can put investor on my business card. I'm like, "No, there's not. It's right up here."

Jack Thursday - What's Possible What's Fair (LA 1607) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and today I'm going to talk about what's possible and what's fair. Jill DeWit: I'm excited. Steven Butala: I'm fascinated with what's possible. And after doing this for years now, which I thoroughly enjoy, by the way, I like teaching. I had no idea. If somebody told me you would like teaching 10, 15 years ago, I would've said, "Why would I ever teach anything? Everything's fine." Jill DeWit: Because it involves people. Steven Butala: I'm sitting here doing these real estate deals. Jill and I are doing great. We don't have any debt. kids are doing fine. Jill DeWit: She takes care of all the people now. I don't have to talk to anybody. Steven Butala: And then we go ahead and do this. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: Complicate our lives. Jill DeWit: And now you love it. Oh, come on. You softy, you love people. Steven Butala: I actually, truth is I like teaching. Jill DeWit: You like smart people. Steven Butala: But there's a lot of different sides to teaching, and some of them are good, some are bad, like everything. And there's a lot of different types of people that you can attract who want to be taught or don't want to be taught. So what's possible is the portion of what I love to talk about. And we'll talk about it in a minute. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Steven wrote, "I was having a conversation about what I'm doing in this business with an old timer who made a lot of money flipping land early in his career. He asked what if it has toxic waste on it? I said we do a full title report and lots of due diligence and that if we can't find it and don't know about it, it isn't our fiduciary to convey that info. He said it wouldn't come up in the title report and that you would need a phase one environmental report to find out. Thoughts?" Sheesh. Go ahead. Steven Butala: The old timer's exactly right. The title report does only this. Bring it back to the eighth grade level here for a minute, and then I'll answer the question. The reason that you go to an escrow agent who requests a title report or title plan, depending on the state that you're in, to request that to get it done and then you take a look at it, is to get an insurance policy against the following, whatever they find. Jill DeWit: This is my favorite. Steven Butala: So all kidding aside for a second, the title report allows property basically to be finance-able in the future. It's kind of a insurance scam. Jill DeWit: It is. Steven Butala: So nothing's going to come up in that title report, except this. And you won't read it like this. I often think to myself, it would be great to have a graphic in a title report of a timeline. So 1830 happened and Joe Smith and Sally Smith, his wife, and their 18 children who never went to school because they were all farm hands, homesteaded the property in 1830. In 1840, the first child was old enough so we split off the property, some of it to him. In 1850, the second kid. And on and on. So you see that figuratively seeing this timeline up to when you buy it. That's all the title report's going to theoretically do. And it's only going to go back 30 years anyway, right? Jill DeWit: Traditionally. Steven Butala: Is it 30 or 20? Jill DeWit: 30. Traditionally, it's around 30 years. Steven Butala: A titled agent, they're just putting all the paperwork together. The escrow agent is putting the paperwork together, including the title report,

Land Funding with Integrity (LA 1606) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about land funding with integrity. Jill DeWit: Why is that funny? Steven Butala: I'm just looking at you, waiting. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: I'll start. Jill DeWit: Well, do we really need to talk about this? But I guess we do. There's a lot ... It's in everything. Steven Butala: We created what I think ... And I've been thinking about this lately, because I'm trying to figure out, like everybody, what to do with the rest of my life, and this is a good thing. This land thing is a good thing. We've created an environment, a total full-blown, pure supply and demand, laissez-faire environment, called Land Academy. And one of the unintended consequences of that, which is really what laissez-faire is, is just let the market solve itself, is personal land funding. And so new people come in, they don't have a lot of money. They're starting out. It's totally normal and ordinary, and there's older people in the group that have less energy and a lot more money because they've had success. They want to fund and help the young people, which I think is amazing consequence. Jill DeWit: I love it. Steven Butala: But like everything, it comes with a little bit of responsibility and ultimately integrity. And it's starting to show signs of, oh, there's not such fair play going on. Look, we all want the unfair advantage, all of us. This is kind of the show now, but we do have some responsibility to do it correctly, so we'll talk about that. Before that's- Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Okay, let me just pause for just a moment here. Sometimes you're like, "Can't you be a little more agreeable? Can't you just kind of say 'Okay'? Do you have to comment on everything?" This is actually in our personal life, not really on this environment. Steven Butala: Well, it's not personal anymore. Jill DeWit: Yeah, I know. I'm sharing this. So, maybe, I don't know, 10 minutes ago ... So anyway, so then I sit down and I do it and he's like, "What's wrong?" Like, "Hold on a moment." Steven Butala: I just wonder if you're still breathing if you don't have any snide comments about stuff that I'm saying even on or off the camera. Jill DeWit: Oh. Oh yeah. I'll save them for off. Just kidding. Oh. Steven Butala: You know, if you've ever lived with somebody for a number of years consecutively, that's a show. That's a call-in show. Jill DeWit: Ah, ha, that's really funny. Okay. Jill DeWit: Ty wrote, "First potential deal. Just how risky is doing a notary close on a larger deal? I have a seller who needs their money faster or it's a deal breaker." He says, like, "three or four days. It's a 10-acre buy at $28,000 deal to sell for $80,000ish. Very confident on the numbers, county-verified ownership and no tax issues, legal access via gravel road to the property. I guess I'm asking how bad can it be? Anybody ever just roll the dice? Thinking a warranty deed would cover me, and I'm sure he would have no issues with this. Seller owns his main residence and is not giving any signs of being sketchy. By the way, the $28,000 wouldn't kill me to lose, but I'd prefer to avoid it if possible. Basically if the consensus is there's less than 10% chance of this going sideways, I think I would risk it." Jill DeWit: I know what I would do. Steven Butala: I do too. I bet it's the same thing. Jill DeWit: Okay. Wait. We're going to give our answer and it's going to be either, "Buy it," or "Not.

When to Do Your Own Work (LA 1605) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. 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 the sweet valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today. Jill and I talk about. Jill DeWit: When to do your own work. Steven Butala: Thank you. Jill DeWit: You're welcome. Steven Butala: Script is wrong. Jill DeWit: It's okay. I got you. I got your back. We're all good. Steven Butala: Guess who did the script? Jill DeWit: It's okay. Steven Butala: It's perfect for this topic. I do all the pre-production. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven Butala: I do the scripts. I do the questions and all of that. Jill DeWit: This is good. Steven Butala: And I didn't do it right. Jill DeWit: When to do you your own work and when not to do your own work? Steven Butala: Maybe not do your own work when you're getting so old that he's not doing the right work correctly. Jill DeWit: Yeah, or you can't see. Steven Butala: The name of the show is When to do Your Own Work. Jill DeWit: Yeah. There we go. All right, we're going to talk about this. So I have made some notes here. I've just, my first note is "sheesh" everyone. There's a lot of people that aren't doing their own work, and we will explain. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our land investors or land members on our land investors online community it's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "After watching a title company struggle for weeks now to get a very senior citizen seller to sign, notarize a deed themselves, and then mail it back, I'm starting to think mobile notary services can be worth the money." Jill DeWit: Yeah. Hello? Hilarious. So, this sounds to me like, because I've had some of these folks that. Steven Butala: I know you have. Jill DeWit: They're not that mobile or they just don't like to go out. So, this notary that couldn't even send a mobile notary out to them. I've had this too where they... We sent a notary out and they needed to sign on the back on the trunk of a car. They wanted to be outside and had the fresh air. And, they're just little, probably still concerned health-wise and so I get it. I get it. And you know, so you work with them. So, I guess this person is saying, "Why am I having them do that?" Because, which is true. "So, I'm paying the title company, how much money to do this work. I could have done that." Steven Butala: And, they're not getting it done. And, who knows what's going on here? Maybe the town of the company or the town that where they live is so small, that they're very used to going into town and signing everything. Jill DeWit: True. Steven Butala: And, so maybe this person's elderly and that's just not an option, or we don't really know what's going on, but the fact is this, and I'm very sure of this. You, as an investor, Aaron have a better shot of getting people to do what you want them to do over the title agent. Jill DeWit: True. You have that relationship with them. They're selling to you because of you. Steven Butala: Here's the thing and this is my opinion now. This world that we live in is becoming more increasingly the lines of everybody's responsibility and the hierarchy of things, I'm going to get a ton of emails for this. All right, is getting blurred. Ever since this COVID thing started and is now we're in it like it or not, we're post COVID or we're in it in some stage. People's responsibilities and I got my first experience with it was going to Home Depot, buying some stuff. This is in California, in Los Angeles and being standing there with somebody and they might as well have had a swastika on their arm. Steven Butala: Telling everybody where to stand, what to do, how it's going to go.

Real Estate Business Niches Inside of Land Niches (LA 1604) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. 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 the sweet valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about the real estate business niches that are inside land niches. Jill DeWit: Niches inside of niches. Steven Butala: Niches inside of niches. Jill DeWit: That's cool. Steven Butala: That is the most popular question in Discord right now among- Jill DeWit: Is it really? Steven Butala: Well, it's not phrased like this, but... Jill DeWit: They don't know they're asking it? Steven Butala: Yeah. Everybody wants a secret path for some reason. Jill DeWit: That's interesting. I- Steven Butala: And so... Go ahead. Jill DeWit: I didn't know we were talking about this. I just know that we talk about this and we naturally fall into this, which is a good... This is all good, positive stuff. Why are you laughing at you? Steven Butala: I'm not laughing. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven Butala: I'm just smiling in the camera because this is a good topic. Jill DeWit: It is. Hey, you know what's kind of funny? Steven Butala: Why are you laughing at me? Jill DeWit: Totally. Steven Butala: Why are you having a good time? Jill DeWit: Well, you're laughing at me, not that you don't laugh at me, and that's okay. I laugh at me. That's totally fine. Speaking of laughing at each other, do you know what's so great? I woke up today thinking about... I think the next time we go out in the RV in a couple of weeks, we might start running into some colder weather and maybe snow, and I'm like, "That makes me happy." I love when we're outdoors, camping, and we're around a fire because we need a fire. Steven Butala: I love that too and Jill's referring to cold weather in California where she's from. Jill DeWit: Yeah, like 60. Steven Butala: I'm from Michigan and being out in an RV in snow? That's a sleepless night for me. Sorry. Jill DeWit: I kind of love it. I remember one time whatever day we had to come back- Steven Butala: Sleepless because of my responsibility as a man, not- Jill DeWit: I know. It was April. It was April this year we had to come home and I was like, "Man, we missed the snow. Darn it." It was like one day. If we'd stayed one more day in wherever we were, we would've got snow, and I was very sad, and you're like, "Thank God." Steven Butala: Once in a while it's fine, if it's a light California kind of thing, but 10 degrees below in an RV, no one's happy. Jill DeWit: No, I'm not doing that. No, no. We're talking a comfy 40 with snow on the ground. Steven Butala: Oh yeah, just over freezing. Jill DeWit: Yeah, yeah. Steven Butala: 40 for the night and 70 during the day. Jill DeWit: Yeah, something like that. Steven Butala: That's California winter. Jill DeWit: There we go. Yeah, in the mountains. That's true. Steven Butala: As if we even remember what the topic is. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Jen wrote, "Have..." Oh, this is good. "Have any of you ever been asked to sign a termination of restrictions for an area you own land in? Evidently this is for a city subdivision. It's not an HOA or POA that had restrictions put in place about 50 years ago to prevent new construction. If they get enough site insurers, they can terminate those restrictions and build new housing. I don't see a downside since it's to help with growth, but maybe there's something I'm missing." Steven Butala: I don't see a downside either, as long as you read the fine print, and Jen's been with us for a while and she's very active in Discord and thank you for that.

Jill Friday - What She Really Does in Her Office All Day (LA 1603) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven, Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and we're going to find out what she really does in her office all day. Jill K DeWit: All right, let me back this up. As you know yesterday, Thursday, was Jack's work-life-money balance talk. And earlier this week we talked about the September third quarter, wrapping up the year financial review. So he's obviously looking at life, looking at big picture, looking at everything. Jill K DeWit: And he was getting concerned because he's thinking I'm overworked. He's like, he gets frustrated by me being in my office. Especially one night this week I was in my office until six or seven o'clock at night, whatever it was. And he was really thinking, "What the um?" You're looking at all this big picture life stuff and thinking I'm over there, doing it all wrong. And I had to say, "Hold on a moment." Steven J Butala: You're not doing it all wrong. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: I think she's spending too much time doing real estate deals. Jill K DeWit: Word. Right. And I said- Steven J Butala: Specifically that. Jill K DeWit: Right. He's thinking that that's it. This ties into so much this week. We talked about the 80/20, and one of the things I brought up was I thought he was coming after me about 80% of your work is on 20% of the stuff that makes money. And so the whole point of this is, and this whole week is for me, you actually think I'm working in there? Steven J Butala: I guess we're [crosstalk 00:01:39] together, listener, going to find out. What Jill does at work all day. Jill K DeWit: Let me explain what really goes on in my office all day, then no one will ever be concerned about me again. Go ahead. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Aaron wrote, "I've had a few local land barons call to tell me how stupid I am, but then they end up on my buyers list by the end of the call." Jill K DeWit: I've totally had this. I've even had people write me back about that and call me specifically to say, "Okay, you guys are nuts, but if you can really make this happen, I want to buy from you." I'm like, "And yes I can." Steven J Butala: Those are real land people. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, uh-huh (affirmative). Steven J Butala: Today's Jill Friday. We're going to find out what she really does in her office all day. This is the meat of the show. Jill K DeWit: Let me tell you what goes on in my office and let me first paint the picture. I love my office. You may have seen some of my videos. It's white, it's bright, it's pretty. And this is my home office by the way, this is my primary office, period. It's off on my own wing. I have my own door. It's all windows. Steven J Butala: Multiple doors with locks I've noticed. Jill K DeWit: Yes, I've tried multiple door with locks, that's very true. I can lock people out, I can let people in. I have a courtyard off my office. I have a fountain going off my office. And just this morning, as a matter of fact, I was sitting there mesmerized by all the quail. Steven J Butala: I saw that too. Jill K DeWit: There are fat quail running around here right now. Steven J Butala: All over the yard. Jill K DeWit: There was, I swear, 20 of them in my courtyard. Steven J Butala: I noticed that today too. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I'm like, "This is-" Steven J Butala: And they're healthy. Jill K DeWit: They're [inaudible 00:03:35], they're fat and healthy. And I saw a couple of them getting into it,

Jack Thursday - Work Life Money Balance (LA 1602) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today's Jack Thursday, and I'm going to talk about work, life and money balance. Jill K DeWit: That is so celebrate your life of you. Steven J Butala: Is it? Jill K DeWit: Yes. I noticed you have one of my [Deepak 00:00:27] books on your bookshelf. Steven J Butala: I'm sure that was collected from you. Jill K DeWit: That makes me happy. Yes, it is. And if you look inside, it might be signed because I think it was Metahuman. That's right. Steven J Butala: Actually, that's a recent one. Jill K DeWit: I went to the, yeah, I went to the ... It was in Manhattan Beach. I went to the, no, it was [inaudible 00:00:47]. I don't remember what it was, but a bunch of us went to hear him speak at a high school campus. And it was, yeah, it was [inaudible 00:00:55]. It was really cool. And I got the book there and got to see him. It was neat. Steven J Butala: Did you meet him? Jill K DeWit: Well not, I mean, didn't like shake his hand, but I mean, I guess. Steven J Butala: I'm a big Deepak fan. I think a lot of that, well, over the years it changes genes. Sometimes it's new age. Sometimes it's self-help. But I think he's the real deal. Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah. He's awesome. Steven J Butala: I think there's three or four people in that space that are really worth listening to and write well and are very smart. Jill K DeWit: He's awesome. Someday I'm going to go to one of his retreats. I've been thinking about it. So, yeah. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Jill K DeWit: Ty wrote, "Does anyone use the last sold dollar amount or praised dollar amount versus offer when scrubbing, when available, of course." I just did an analysis on my last mailer and found some as crazy as 3%. These, of course, were anomalies, but I found that more than 20% of my offers were below the 10% range of offer to last sold. Sending an offer for $20,000 on a property that lasts over $500,000, no matter how long ago, minus 2009, seems a bit ridiculous and something I should just scrub or adjust. Thoughts?" Steven J Butala: This is a very, very intelligent question. Here's what happens. You download it, you do everything that you're supposed to do according to the education and you download a dataset and you're staring at this dataset, you manipulate it and you're getting ready to price. You go away far over to the right of the data set and you see how much this person on this one line item paid for the property and when they paid. So if they bought a property for $30,000 in 1995, and you go back over to the left where your pricing column and you price everything out, and they paid $30,000, plus all this appreciation of how many years, and you're actually offering them $8,000, you start to question yourself. This is a very, very intelligent question. Jill K DeWit: This is true. Steven J Butala: Does it matter? Should you look at that? Should you do a mailer based on what people have, not just casting a wide net, but based on and offer that person a little bit more than what they paid and just see. Absolutely not. I've done this and I've tried it. We had a person in our most recent career path that built a company based on individually pricing very expensive properties. And at the end of career path, he messaged me and said, "I realize now we've been doing this wrong." Steven J Butala: You can't, you can try this, but what you're doing by using this methodology is removing the possibility of hitting a home run.

Occupations that are Going Away (LA 1601) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit. And we are broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about occupations that we think are going away. Jill K DeWit: I want to even add just, not just, the big picture concerns about what's coming. It's so interesting. So I've read some interesting articles this morning. I'm going to, I have some notes to share. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, comment on the shows you liked. Jill K DeWit: Anthony wrote, a couple of topic suggestions, using the 80/20 rule, which is the Pareto principle in the land business. "I read this book a few years ago, and I applied the advice in it to a business I was running at the time. The results were shocking improvements in profitability. I moved on and forgot about this until last week when I heard it mentioned in a video, and I remembered how it helped. Identifying those 20% of things that produce 80% of the results. And then..." Is this for me? Steven J Butala: No. Jill K DeWit: Oh, okay. Steven J Butala: No. It's for our listeners. If you get something out of it, then that's up to you. Jill K DeWit: All right, thank you. "And then putting your focus on those things can result in big improvements. It's hard sometimes though, to be ruthless about applying the rule, an example, what characteristics do the people who accept your most profitable offers, like the 20% that make the 80% of the profit have in common?" Oh, this is a little out there, but yeah. "Are they out of state owners? Are they behind on taxes? Are they married age? How many homes do they have? Income? The idea would be to build a profile and find ways to target those people in that data." I took this as something else. I just took this as 80/20, like what am I doing every day that takes up 80% of my time. Steven J Butala: Yeah, this is, I mean, we can talk about that in a minute too, but really if you're just buying and selling land full time, every one of us has one or two deals every year, where we say, "Oh my gosh, this is the greatest deal ever. If I could do just 10 of these, instead of all these other 50 deals, where I only made five, $10,000 or $15,000. But this one I made $150,000 on. All I need to do is 10 of these, where I make a million bucks a year." And so that's the 80/20, there're all kinds of, it's a tremendous number of examples. So the idea is to sit yourself down, and think about it. In my case, I'll take a piece of paper or, a tablet, or whatever with a pen. And I'm just brainstorming about why that deal was so good. Steven J Butala: And the flip side is, why some deals just didn't work out. And so it's not so much, like he says here in the question, the profile of the person that you're buying from, because I don't believe in that. I believe in sending everybody an offer and just, well, they'll find you. Jill K DeWit: I agree. Steven J Butala: You send out 25,000 offers, that five people or 10 people in there that are just dying to sell that day are going to find you. They're going to respond to your offer and say, "Yes, I want to do the deal." The question is, if I send out 25,000 offers, and I do it for only the property profile, and the pricing profile, where I made that $150,000 net, I'm going to do, it's not going to be 80/20 anymore. Jill K DeWit: That's the key. Steven J Butala: It's going to be, it's going to be 50/50, or 60/40 in your favor. Jill K DeWit: Right, I'm going to find more properties, priced this way, in this area, and with this attribute, because those fly off the shelves. Steven J Butala: Yep.

Your September Financial Review (LA 1600) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steven Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I am Jill D... or Jill dimwit, apparently. Steven J Butala: Oh my gosh. That's awful. Jill K DeWit: I know. I got all kinds of good... It's funny. Who cares? I say this because I want people to know it's, who cares? Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: Some people get these letters back and they're like, "Oh no." Like, so what? Throw it away. Steven J Butala: It's part of it. Jill K DeWit: And the person who wrote the letter, they've already forgotten about it too, so it doesn't really matter. Anyway, I am Jill DeWit and I am broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about your September financial review. I'll tell you, it's based off of my September financial review. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Jill K DeWit: Tony wrote, "I have a property that is an escrow for an attorney close. They are doing the title insurance and handling all the closing details. Can I assume it's safe to say I could officially, and legally begin marketing this property for sale?" Hold on Tony. You don't own it yet. I want you to get all ready to do this. You may or may not agree with me. We'll see what you say. Steven J Butala: I'm not going to agree. Jill K DeWit: Oh. Steven J Butala: I'm not just being difficult. I'm not going to agree, but go ahead. I'll tell you why, because there are probably six people that piped in on this real hard. Jill K DeWit: Some do. Steven J Butala: And they said, "No, no, absolutely not. Don't do it. Don't do it. And don't do it." Jill K DeWit: And you say, "Yes." Steven J Butala: And I say, "Yes." Jill K DeWit: Okay. What's the... I mean, you could cover your butt and ask for permission. Steven J Butala: Ask who? Jill K DeWit: The seller. And then no one will ever get mad if the seller's on board with it. Steven J Butala: When you have a property that is in escrow, lawyers closing it, and lawyer's telling you... Usually lawyer closes are way faster than title insurance. Jill K DeWit: This is true. Steven J Butala: So you're going to be, let's say, it's safe to say, inside of two weeks. It's going to take you several days to get the property prepped anyway, pictures of it. Jill K DeWit: So you are agreeing with me. Steven J Butala: Start with all that. And I would start. I'd put it on Craigslist, Zillow, everywhere. I would not execute a listing agreement with a... If you're going that route, with a real estate agent until you have a book and page number, it's stamped on the deed. Jill K DeWit: So we are kind of on the same page. Steven J Butala: But I would ease into it. I wouldn't just not do it. Jill K DeWit: Right. So my thing, have it all ready, ready to push the button. I mean, you could start making some calls to neighbors and things like that. Steven J Butala: I would do all that. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. See, we're on the same page more than you think. Steven J Butala: I just wouldn't list it. That's all. Jill K DeWit: There you go. I had one too where they were like ahead of the game, like, "I can't sign this yet you guys." Steven J Butala: Yeah. I've had that too. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I'm like, "I love that you're that ready." But I'm like, "I can't sign the listing-" [crosstalk 00:03:12] Steven J Butala: You guys don't own it yet. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. I can't... Steven J Butala: I've had that happen multiple times. Jill K DeWit: Yeah, I don't want to get anybody in trouble. I don't want to get the agent in trouble, because then they're going to get pissed at me. Steven J Butala: Zillow doesn't care.

Top Performing Members are Outsourcing to Concierge Mailer (LA 1599) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how our top performing members are outsourcing to Concierge Mailer. Jill K DeWit: And we'll explain all of this. Don't worry. Okay with that. I got the top performing member part, I know what outsourcing is. So who's this Concierge thing that you guys are doing? What is this thing? And we'll fill you all in. We are talking about this today because I found this out from our staff last week and I'm like, "What do you mean they're using it?" They're like, "Yeah, they got some people that you know in the advanced group that are seeing this as a time-saving thing too and a very valuable product." Steven J Butala: Just like every product we've introduced, including Land Academy, I've been using it for years. I've been using this product for years to outsource my data mailer, and I check it at the end, and it turns out everybody else wants to use it too. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know what this is too? It's all in the name of being more efficient. Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill K DeWit: And taking- Steven J Butala: Faster, better, cheaper. Jill K DeWit: Yeah. There you go. We'll talk more. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Todd wrote, "Is anyone scrubbing out owners that purchased their properties in the last year?" This is good, and I have another comment that continues this discussion. Aaron answered, "Wondering how often deals come from owners that just purchased though. I have done only handful of deals, but for these owners, mostly purchased decades ago," or the owner inherited it a decade-plus ago and has no idea why they are still paying the taxes. Jill K DeWit: I could see a more recent inheritance turning into a deal, but would that show up as a recent sale? Not that it matters, but some of the most pissed off people seem to have purchase recently and maybe just built a home. Oh, that happens. We have that going on with one of our mailers right now, too as a matter of fact. We sent out a very specific zoning type mailer, and this particular area is moving so quickly that people did build a bunch of homes. And so they're getting offers for land, and it's not just land anymore. And they think that it's us. And I'm like, "Eh, no, it's actually the data is not caught up with what you just did." And it's comical. I don't know if you saw me open the mail the other day, but that was a lot of the love mail that I got. Steven J Butala: Are you being satirical? Jill K DeWit: Totally being satirical. So I made a video of me opening the mail and it was funny. I have some new names. It's great. Steven J Butala: Four-letter names. Jill K DeWit: I do. I do. No, they made a great play on words on my last name, and our names combined, the BuWit name, and it's just wonderful. Steven J Butala: That was new for me. Jill K DeWit: In warms my heart. I don't care. Steven J Butala: So it turns out that BuWit rhymes with dimwit. Jill K DeWit: Oh, yeah, and dumb wit. I didn't know that. Yeah, I did. And it's so funny because the people that... I find it comical when people take the time to write a mean letter back, spend more postage than I did, and then even one of them was typed up. They had their poor secretary do this and make this label to mail it back to me. I'm like, "Okay, how much did that cost you? You could have just thrown it away." Okay, so back to the question, do you want to talk about scrubbing out recent stuff?

Jill Friday - Jack Reeled Me In on a Few Land Deals (LA 1598) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show. Entertaining land investment talk, I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she talks about how Jack reeled her in on a few land deals. I can't wait to hear what this topic is about because I honestly don't know. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Let me pause for just a second here about this topic today. It will come back to you because you got frustrated and you were correct. And I'm going to explain a little bit about what goes on. Okay. Back to the question. Chip wrote, "Does anyone have any tools or applications to decipher old deeds and retrieve the legal descriptions? I'm looking for actual meets and bounds legal, not the abstract. I'm using the deed check slash Subdivide 21 software application to map large properties and subdivide them, but finding legible legal descriptions for many of these properties has been challenging. Thanks in advance for any suggestions." Steven J Butala: This is a very intelligent question, a very advanced question. I'll try to put it in terms that everybody can describe. When you do a deed or when a title agent does a deed, there is what's called the legal description, or the deed legal description, and then elsewhere in our title abstract, this is especially for agricultural property and larger properties, there's a meets and bounds description that's a lot longer and a lot more complicated. And it's used for subdividing and a lot of other things. So vast majority of us aren't going to need to know this, but I've included this question in this episode because I want you to know that there are two. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven J Butala: And Jill's famous for saying, and she's right, when you go to do a deed, copy the vesting deed, the deed right before it and the chain of title, verbatim, even if there's errors. That's what you need to know. And so Chip's going to do some subdividing here, and I'm going to follow up with him eventually and see how this went, because it's very difficult. Jill K DeWit: Hmm. Well, here's an easy example. So what are you guys talking about? Well, you know what, like a legal description might say Anderson Acres block three lot two. Well, that's great. How am I going to find that? I can't just Google Anderson Acres kind of thing and find it. So there's a real description somewhere else that tells you. Steven J Butala: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jill K DeWit: And it might be a section, town, [inaudible 00:02:52] ship, township range, and then the Northwest 10 of the Southeast whatever, you have to read it all. There's that kind of descriptions, these are meets and bounds, and then also there's other, well, what they are, they're real ways for you to actually stand somewhere and find the property. Steven J Butala: That's correct. Jill K DeWit: You can go somewhere. For example, we just came back on a vacation. If you saw us on my Facebook stuff on Land Academy Facebook. You saw we were standing at Four Corners, right? Where Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and- Steven J Butala: Utah. Jill K DeWit: ... Utah meet. There's actually a spot. People don't realize there's a marker on the ground. So when you're in these sections of property, there's a place to go. There is baseline Meridian. This is back to YouTube if you really want to get into it. This stuff's not arbitrary, and there are places that you can really go and stand and be there. And like in Arizona, there's a place down on baseline where you can find where it start. Steven J Butala:

Jack Thursday - Concept of Capital (LA 1597) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I am Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk about the concept of capital. Jill K DeWit: You know what I know? I love capital. Steven J Butala: You do? Jill K DeWit: Yeah. The concept of capital by Jill, more is better. Steven J Butala: I don't mean the big city in a state. That's the capital of the state. I don't mean capital letters. I mean the economic concept of capital. Everybody thinks it's money, but it's not. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Chuck wrote, "I just read the thread about useless, useless college degrees." I love this. "I have a slightly different take. I graduated with a degree in English literature and a minor in chemistry, really just because I liked those subjects. After graduation, I entered the Navy Pilot Training Program and spent six years as a Naval carrier pilot followed by a career as an airline pilot. My degree got me in the door for the Navy flight training. It didn't matter what it was, as long as I passed the entry exams and extensive physical. Now, I buy and sell land. So my point is, unless one is going into a highly-specialized field, such as medicine or engineering, the degree can serve as a door opener to other worlds, but it isn't necessary to be successful in life." I like [crosstalk 00:01:42]. I love that. Steven J Butala: Well said. Chuck was in our last Career Path, I think. I think that that's exactly right. I think that the more resources we have, which is really in my talk about capital today, I can't imagine a life without YouTube. I just can't. Jill K DeWit: Like a YouTube college degree? Steven J Butala: No, I just mean, like when I have a question about something there's a YouTube video on how to do it. I don't care if it's to change a light bulb or economic theories, there's going to be somebody who's going to explain it all. We just never had that. Formal education hasn't really improved at all. It hasn't changed, materially changed, at all since the 1700s. Why is that, when all these other resources in the last 20 years have completely changed? I'm pretty vocally critical about formal education and why it's becoming obsolete. If they would just improve it and improve the experience, then I think it would be great. Jill K DeWit: Well, here's what it does. It does tell you that people can stick through something and follow through, because there's a lot of obstacles to getting a college degree. So I get that. That's good. It does, I like to think, give you a broad, I hope, a broad experience nowadays to a lot of different possibilities, opportunities, different careers and really figure out what you're good at, not good at. What you like. What you don't like. There's nothing wrong with going and picking a major and changing your major. I think that's the greatest thing on the planet, by the way. If you realize, ooh, now I got into it, I don't like this and I'm not good at it. I realize my forte is over here kind of thing. I think that's great. But I do wish they would do a little more... I wish they could meld a little more of, like technical schools, that kind of a thing, with a college degree, if that makes sense. Steven J Butala: It makes great sense, actually. Jill K DeWit: And I don't like just sitting in a classroom. I want some real-world experience and not hearing someone talk about their real-world experience, you out there doing it. Steven J Butala: Whenever this topic comes up, the question it becomes, is it worth it?

When Its Too Late to Change Your Career (LA 1596) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hello. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about when is it too late to change your career? Jill K DeWit: So I put some thought into this. We've been talking about this for a while because people come to us at all different ages. We have people in their sixties, we have people in their twenties and even teens, even middle school, Caitlin, high school. Caitlin's in high school and was in career path. So what's interesting is ... it's not necessarily, I think, the age, obviously. I don't think it's a number, especially because I'm a woman. I don't believe in numbers. Steven J Butala: You don't believe in numbers? Jill K DeWit: But it comes with age. Steven J Butala: I believe in numbers. Jill K DeWit: Age or the scale, I don't believe in numbers, but I do believe that there are things about a person that will make a difference and I'll share. I have two concerns for people of all ages that are starting another career. Steven J Butala: So this is largely circumstantial for me, so we're going to come at this a little bit differently, [crosstalk 00:01:18] which is good. Jill K DeWit: I like that. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Okay. Luke wrote, "So at what point should or would you consider entitlements? I was watching a recent interview with Seth Williams and Mike Marshall about this topic. Mike did a good job breaking down the idea and, for example, how it's different from rezoning. But at what point would a land investor decide to go further into development into entitlements for a particular parcel? Seems like a great topic of discussion." Steven J Butala: Mike Marshall and Seth Williams are both former Land Academy members, and [inaudible 00:02:05] have a ton of respect for those guys. Jill K DeWit: Yes. Steven J Butala: Mike's just an expert in this specific topic, both in [crosstalk 00:02:12] California and Texas, so he's got both perspectives. When should I or Jill or let's say [crosstalk 00:02:23] yeah, you, or a land academy member could start down or go down the path of entitling real estate? And the answer is never. Jill K DeWit: Please explain [crosstalk 00:02:32] what it is, if you don't mind. Steven J Butala: Entitlements are when a large company, let's say like Shea Homes or Toll Brothers or any developer, could be even just a regular person like us, wants to take a piece of property, let's say a five acre property, or in a larger case, maybe a 40 acre property, and create a subdivision. Or entitle the property so that it can be developed into separate APNs. On the east coast, it's called creating a subdivision. On the west coast, it's called entitling real estate. There's tons and tons of different ways to do this. It is extremely time consuming and expensive and frustrating as hell, and our whole Land Academy model. And rightfully so, we've been proving this over and over, and now hundreds of members are proving it with us and for us. Buy a piece of property as is, sell it as is for more. That's the model. Steven J Butala: Entitlements, it's real easy to get into a spreadsheet and say, I'm going to pay $25,000 for this 40 acre property. And for sake of argument, if I had 41 acre properties, I could sell them all for $5,000 each, I don't need to do the math on that. It's incredibly profitable. It's also frustrating as heck if you don't know what you're doing. And can you hire consultants to do it? Yeah, but it's going to take you a year to two years later.

How Much Work Really Goes into Our Land Deals (LA 1595) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about how much work really goes into these land deals. This is a very timely topic for me personally, because as I get older, I get more frustrated, and my patience in general for a lot of stuff just gets shorter. I don't think it's specific to me. I just think it's something that happens. Jill K DeWit: Oh, you're glossing right over that. Steven J Butala: It might be gender specific too. I'm not sure. Jill K DeWit: Maybe. As I get older, my patience grows thinner. Yeah. So here's what I did. I gave you- Steven J Butala: Well, hold ... Oh my gosh. Jill K DeWit: I made notes. Steven J Butala: Okay, yeah. Go ahead. Jill K DeWit: Let tell you. I'm just going to give you a little snippet of what we're going to talk about. I listed things that you spend time on, things that you don't spend time on, and things you outsource. Steven J Butala: Oh, great. Jill K DeWit: Thank you. I did some homework. Steven J Butala: I can't wait to hear this because- Jill K DeWit: I came prepared. Steven J Butala: ... there are times that I really believe that the efficiency in which Jill and I do land deals together lacks a dramatic. It's not efficient. I don't know how else to say this. Jill K DeWit: You know what happens? I'll tell you right now, because we each go down different rabbit holes. You go down a rabbit hole. I go down a rabbit hole, as soon as I'm like, "Okay, yeah." It just happens. We'll get to it. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question. We might get into it today, I can tell. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel. Jill K DeWit: And comment on the shows you love. Jill K DeWit: We got this. Shannon wrote, "So it happened. Boy, did I attract this to myself, LOL. We have a great buyer, but she went to the county website and she saw that our records haven't been updated to our name yet. So I got the email of why it says it's owned in someone else's name. I told her they're slow to record. But still what happens if we sold it before the county records and reflects the new owners?" This happens all the time. Especially now with COVID, they're not working on a regular schedule, they're behind. Some counties on purpose do them all at one time, like the end of the year. And it just often happens. Think about getting even a new plate at the DMV. How long does it take to get the plate to you in the mail? You can explain it to them just like that. It's not immediate, and by the way, XYZ county is behind, but if you really want to see it, here's the deed in showing it recorded. Here's the book and page showing that I have it, so you know. And that should be like game over. Steven J Butala: Let's take a step back. What she's talking about is that she bought a property and she did everything that we do here at Land Academy. She immediately posted it for sale and sold it. Everything went great. Well, the county recorder, especially in these rural counties, and the assessor, they're in different buildings and in different departments. They're completely different functions. So when she bought it, she sent in the deed and typically there's some type of affidavit that goes with the deed. The affidavit goes to the assessor when it gets sent, and the deed goes to the recorder. The recorder records it immediately and it goes into the system. Well, the system doesn't automatically get updated, especially in these rural counties. So in some cases it could take a year. It can take a whole year for Shannon's deed to,

Our Land Business on the Road (LA 1594) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here- Jill K DeWit: Hi. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land, investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill K DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about our land business, on the road. Jill K DeWit: I would like to start by saying, here's what happened. We are doing our show, our land business on the road goes great, but our podcast recording on the show, not so great. So we were supposed to record these on the road last week, but from the campsite, which was a beautiful lofty goal for us, but totally, totally failed. So it didn't, it just didn't work. It's like you can't. So we're going to talk about that. What the, my point I want to make today is, and I'll just to give you insight and we'll explain more, is your land business can just be seamless on the road, I promise.and I'll fill you in how, but if you have a podcast or you do weekly zoom calls or some big webinars or things like that, no, that, no, you can't be seamless from a campground or a boondocking. Steven J Butala: Well I'm working on that- Jill K DeWit: Okay well- Steven J Butala: Star Lynx coming, and it's not available. Jill K DeWit: It's not there yet. That's my point. So... Steven J Butala: What she's specifically referring to is the internet connection- Jill K DeWit: Right. Steven J Butala: Everything else with the equipment from the, oh, that's great. Jill K DeWit: Well, and I can get in enough to do the land business- Steven J Butala: Yeah- Jill K DeWit: So I'm going to, I'll fill you in. Steven J Butala: Yep. Jill K DeWit: Thanks. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill K DeWit: Shannon wrote: Is it common when people are buying a mobile /manufactured home, to put the land that the mobile home company offers, to pay off the loan and then roll it into the balance of the manufactured home they're buying? [inaudible 00:02:06] Put it, put on the land that they're doing. Okay. Got it. Steven J Butala: So I think what you're getting at is, well, let me kind of rephrase the question as I understand it. There's a mobile homes that are installed on land that you own, and we're in a land business. So we love that. Let's say it's an acre, acre and a half somewhere. And there's mobile homes in a mobile home park that somebody else owns. A mobile home park. And so in that case, you owe the person who lives there, owns the mobile home itself, but not the land under it, and they usually pay land rep. Lenders love the first type and so to we. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven J Butala: Where you actually own the land, and it really, really helps to get a loan successfully done, especially on our newer mobile homes. So, there's two different types of mobile home scenarios. It's a lot harder, although it's very possible and plausible to get a mobile home loan just on the mobile itself, the way you would get a car loan, it's personal property, but our way is way better. In fact, in my experience in doing land and mobile home scenarios, they've been, the way that we have it priced, no one's ever been turned down for a loan under, when it's combined land and mobile home. Jill K DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). It's amazing to me now, by the way, what people are getting loans on. We just have it, we have an offer right now, that's going through, it was a buy for 25, sell for 65. The guy is borrowing $52,000 and he's paying the rest cash and he's already pre-qualified- Steven J Butala: Wow. Jill K DeWit: And it's just rural vacant land, not mobile, but so, it's just getting easier and easier by the way, for these people to get financing and all kinds of t...

Jill Friday - Stop Walking Away from Good Deals (LA 1593) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about, well, it's Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about stop walking away from good deals. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Steven J Butala: Not even I know what she means. Jill DeWit: Oh. That's funny. Steven J Butala: Can you give us a little peak? Jill DeWit: No. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe to the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like, and maybe on the shows you don't like so we actually can gauge future topics. Jill DeWit: The backgrounds you like you don't like, the outfits, the hairstyles, please let us know. Just kidding. All right. James wrote "The recommendation for number of letters to send seems to be greater than or equal to 1,500. Does this mean to send at least 1,500 letters for one acreage, like two to five, a mix of acre, just like two to five, six to 10 or multiple counties. Assume that the minimum of 1,500 is meant to maximize your chance of getting a deal and should be sent to one acreage and one county. For example, if I were mailing to counties then I would set 3,000 units." All right this is all you. Steven J Butala: This is a very technical question. Jill DeWit: It's a good question. Steven J Butala: And I can tell James, you're reasonably new. And I also can tell you're going to be very, very good at this because you're breaking it down. You're deconstructing what we're saying to do, asking a couple further questions and it's yeah, I can tell you're on the edge of the seat to let it out. Let the mail out. The rules of diversification and investment here apply in full force. It's better to take $100, split it into $50 each and buy two shares of stock instead of one. Well, the same thing applies here. If you're going to sign 1,500 units, split it up into two counties, or split it up into two zip codes and price it differently. This is what we teach in land academy 3.0. It's better to send variances in acreage than it is just all one acre property, 1,500 units in one zip code. Steven J Butala: So break it up as much as you can. And here's my final way to answer this question. Unlike a lot of laws in the universe, physics or not, more is better here. More is always better. It's always better to send more mail. It's also more expensive. So you've got to gauge that for yourself. Jill DeWit: What if he can afford 3,000? Steven J Butala: Oh, then send it. Jill DeWit: Okay. So the answer to the question is how much can you afford? What's your budget? You should have a budget for mail. Then whether it's 1,500 or 3,000, put a couple different things in there. Steven J Butala: Here's what I don't- Jill DeWit: Maybe it's 10,000 units. Steven J Butala: Yes, Jill. Exactly. Jill DeWit: Have four counties in there. Steven J Butala: Now you're- Jill DeWit: And have two different sizes. Steven J Butala: Now you're really setting yourself up to succeed. Jill DeWit: There you go. Steven J Butala: What I don't want to do, and I haven't seen this in discord lately at all. And I mean, within the last several months, is air quotes, test a mailer. Test a location. Jill DeWit: I hate that. Steven J Butala: I'm going to send out 300 units. Jill DeWit: Or 30. Steven J Butala: And I'm going to see if this actually works. It is absolutely the fastest way besides not sending anything at all, that's the fastest way to fail at this. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven J Butala: Think of gambling. It's all percentages. The more hands of Blackjack you play and stick to the actual rules of the book,

Jack Thursday - How to Calculate your Cash Return on a Land Deal (LA 1592) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven J 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'm going to talk to you about how to calculate your cash-on-cash return on a given land deal. Jill DeWit: Isn't it just like, you buy it for 10, you sell it for 30? Or, is there more to it than that? Steven J Butala: There is a little more to it than that, but that's the basic. Jill DeWit: Okay, cool. Steven J Butala: And so, well, let's use your example. You buy for 10. You sell for 20. What's your cash return? Jill DeWit: Hundred percent. Steven J Butala: Right. You've been hanging around me too long. Buy for 10. Sell for 30. What's your return? Jill DeWit: Even better. Steven J Butala: It's 200%. Jill DeWit: Jill numbers. Steven J Butala: If you buy for 10, and this is a- Jill DeWit: Keep going. Steven J Butala: This is a giveaway. You buy for 10. You use deal funding. You sell for 20. You get $5,000 back. What's your cash-on-cash return? Jill DeWit: 50%. Steven J Butala: You can't calculate it. Jill DeWit: Why? Steven J Butala: Because you didn't put any money in. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven J Butala: So if you want an infinite cash-on-cash return just use [crosstalk 00:01:14]- Jill DeWit: Okay. Well, there's the show, everyone! Steven J Butala: That's not all. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. It's very interesting that whenever these shows are about numbers and technical stuff, Jill jokes around. Jill DeWit: Hmm. Victor wrote, "Maybe-" Steven J Butala: Just, hmm! Jill DeWit: I know, I know. "Good morning, everybody. I have spent many days researching individual counties, days on market and price by zip code. And I've sent two mailers for the first time yesterday. I have three other counties that I want to send to that are going to average $2,500 an acre on the buy side. But I'm worried that if I don't get accepted offers back, I won't have money. Meaning, that since I'm new-" Steven J Butala: I'm worried that I do get accepted offers back. Jill DeWit: [crosstalk 00:02:11] do. Sorry. I won't have the money. Steven J Butala: I won't have the cash. Jill DeWit: Yeah. "Meaning that since I'm new, I feel like funding partners would not be interested. Any thoughts?" Well, that's not true. I just had a conversation with somebody about this. We have someone that we have done a handful of deals with. She wrote me a book of questions the other day, which I'm still responding to, but I hope by the time this airs, I've hit the reply button. But anyway, she's like, "Do you have a bottom? Is there a bottom here that you're willing to work with?" And I'm like, "The deal stands for itself. The deal should stand for itself. So I guess the answer is, yes and no. So don't be afraid." Steven J Butala: I can answer that. In some capacity, I've been involved in acquisitions since the minute I got out of college. I don't know why, it's just that career chose me. I will tell you, throughout my career, it has shocked me that every single person has a different acquisition criteria. Everybody wants to make money, let's start there. Some people love cashflow. They love to buy property and sell notes. So that type of acquisition is different for them. It's drive right up to it. Potentially use it right away. And because they know they can sell it really quickly, they'll pay a little bit more for it to have those amenities or attributes. Steven J Butala: In the long-term care business, there was a certain bed number for each facility that we love to buy,

Glamping and How Some Members Cash Flow with it (LA 1591) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. Steven J 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 the Valley Of The Sun. Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about glamping and how some of our members are cash flowing with it. This is a huge mile long topic, and rightfully so in Discord, and everybody chimed in. I can tell when it's a good topic in Discord, because people that are just lurking, they start piping in like, oh yeah, this is there's people in there. And so this is why I joined Land Academy. And then they're giving us as an example that five miles down the road this is what this person is doing in their unused cow pasture. Jill DeWit: Do you think what we do is a version of glamping? Steven J Butala: No, not at all. Oh yeah. I think it can be, but I'll explain it. Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it. Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Jill DeWit: Erin wrote, "Airbnb, VRBO, glamping. Anyone here ever released their land to Airbnb campsite operators getting $135 a night for a tent with a composting toilet and an outdoor shower? I've been watching some YouTube videos about people buying or leasing lands near natural attractions for these style campsites. I have some lots that could be used for this. Any thoughts?" Jill DeWit: Oh, sorry. Nelly wrote, "I've been looking at these for a while. $40,000 canvas tents. Yikes. You can rent out campsites on your property with Hip Camp. Also, been thinking about doing that on a three acre lot that I live on, cleaning up an area near the pond to run out to campers. Maybe do a Deliverance experience for Halloween." That's kind of funny. Steven J Butala: I have to tell you, Nelly, if you've ever seen Deliverance, nobody's going to pay for a Deliverance experience. Most of you who are my age know exactly what I'm talking about and you're laughing in your cereal right now. Jill DeWit: I don't. Steven J Butala: I know. Jill DeWit: I have not seen Deliverance deliberately. Steven J Butala: Yeah. Deliverance is not for you. Jill DeWit: That's what I [crosstalk 00:02:13]. Steven J Butala: There's no singing and dancing or anything like that. Jill DeWit: No happy ending. Like who's still alive, basically, at the end. Steven J Butala: So I put this question in here. It's not really not even a question. I mean, I think the real question is, has anybody thought about this? And everybody responded and said, not only have I thought about it, it's happening down the street and all of that. So because it is a topic, we'll just get right into it. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: Today's topic glamping how some of our members are cash flowing with it. This is the meat of the show. Steven J Butala: Glamping is the combination of two words, glamor and camping. So, it really depends on who you talk to and where they're coming from in life. But there are some people in, I used to be one of these people, I think Jill did too, were look, I just want to stay in a five-star hotel and order some room service and jump in the pool. [crosstalk 00:03:01] any part of camping. Jill DeWit: I still have those days. Like today. Steven J Butala: And so I've slept, probably, unless there's grandchildren in my distant future, this way distant future, I've spent my last night in a tent. You know, this is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about pitching a tent, like a soldier and an eating an MRE and downing a half pint of whiskey and go to sleep. That's not what I mean. I'm talking about glamping, which is these... I mean, picture of a fully produced movie from the eighties or nineties where the...

Public Records and Your Next Land Deal (LA 1590) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven J 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 the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about public records and your next land deal. So Jill, I had described it yesterday at the end of the show, but I'll describe it again. Jill and I are famous for driving around wherever we go. Not intentionally, but every single time we get in a car, I'm usually sitting shotgun, calling off real estate values around town or wherever we happen to be. And as I'm pulling these up, saying this property is for sale for $4 million or $2 million, Jill's first question is, what did they pay for it and when? And it's usually like, well, they bought it five years ago for a lot less than they're selling it for now. And Jill, I realized recently, usually on a Thursday call, this is important for her for some reason, when she makes a decision about negotiating when we go to buy the property. Jill DeWit: And value. It helps me determine the value, like, is it going up? How drastically is it going up? What do they think's going on? That kind of a thing. Steven J Butala: So the question is, how lucky are we that we have all this public record information that we can make these decisions? Well, this show is not so much about the fact that we have it because we all know that it's out there. How much does it matter when we're sending out these offer campaigns? Do people look at this stuff? And the answer is hell no, because they're not in the real estate business like we are. But we'll get into that in a second here. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com, online community. It's free. And don't forget please to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you liked. Jill DeWit: Shannon wrote, "How do you handle the public record of what you purchased the land for versus how much you're listing it? We are set to close on our first five acres, and I'm wondering how people will view it when they see what we bought it for versus what we're asking. Any input is appreciated. Just wondering what has been your experience in this type of scenario. Thanks in advance." This I know ties into all of this. I'm going to say most people don't look and they don't know. Steven J Butala: The truth is, and this is the question that was the inspiration for this entire- Jill DeWit: Very rare. Steven J Butala: ... was the inspiration for this entire show. So first of all, you need to know that public record is what this whole information system in our country from a real estate data standpoint is built on. For whatever reason, who set up this real estate system, and I'm actually researching that pretty heavily right now about how this all came about very heavily, so I can put it in the Land Academy 3.0. I'm researching how this all came about that whoever put the system together, and it goes back to our founding fathers of this country, really, who sat around and said, "Everyone needs to know who owns everyone else's land," because it's the exact opposite in our entire world. No one wants anyone to know what they own. Jill DeWit: You know what's funny about that? We know a lot of what we did came from England, correct, when England is especially the exact opposite. That is private information. It is not public, who owns a house. Steven J Butala: I'll tell you, if I was setting the system up, I would lean toward the England way. Wouldn't you? Jill DeWit: Yeah, I would. Steven J Butala: I wouldn't want everybody to know everything. Jill DeWit: I know. So we'll talk about that too. Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: So the answer to your question is I don't worry about it. It very rarely comes up. I've had it like, oh my gosh,

Land Business Can Be Your Legacy (LA 1589) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land and investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven J Butala: Today Jill and I talk about how your land business can be your legacy. This is Jill's idea, and I think it's actually pretty brilliant. It's something that she and I talk about all the time personally, but I think it's worth it's episode worthy. Jill DeWit: It is. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I have to pause and just share. Is this what goes on in your world? Here's what my partner just told me: "You sound like crap." Steven J Butala: And I'm trying to help her though. Jill DeWit: I know. Steven J Butala: I'm trying to find some DayQuil. [crosstalk 00:00:39] Jill DeWit: "Do you know you sound like crap?". Yeah, I do know I sound like crap. Cause I feel like crap, but that's okay. Steven J Butala: Jill's not feeling well. Jill DeWit: I'm Professional. Steven J Butala: She's showing up for it though. Jill DeWit: I am. Steven J Butala: I'll carry you if I need to. Jill DeWit: Thanks. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy, YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Victor wrote "not sure this would fall under general or resource sharing, but does anyone, anybody recommend a credit card? That'd be great for our business type. It seems like the most expensive operating costs would be mail and online subscriptions. I have checked most business credit cards and none offer more than 1% of cash back for shipping or online services. This is something I never go there." Steven J Butala: This is a very, very long discord. Jill DeWit: I don't have any advice. Steven J Butala: Very long discord. There are a lot of comments. I refrain from commenting but somebody. Jill DeWit: Until now. Steven J Butala: Well yeah, that's exactly right. Somebody did quote Dave Ramsey and I agree with this and pretty much everything he says, nobody ever got rich on credit card rewards. I can tell you from personal experience, Jill and I have an American Express Platinum business card, and it gives you a tremendous number of points back and for a lot of years, not a lot of years, for a couple of years, until we wised up, we would travel all around and use the points and stay in hotels for free and on and on and on until we realized... until we talked to a main vendor. We have a bunch of other companies that are non land related, where we have to buy cost to consult. Steven J Butala: And we were using the American express card to the tune of maybe a $100,000 - $150,000 a month. And we added all the numbers up and so I went to two vendors specifically and said, "Hey, if we stop using this American express card and we actually start wiring you money for all, for this material- Jill DeWit: how much will it save?" Steven J Butala: He said, "Oh yeah, well, we can knock off, you know, Jill DeWit: X percent. Steven J Butala: 2% in one case in 3% in the other." and we fell out of our chairs, that's $3,000 to $5,000 a month per vendor. So if we add that up, it's real money. So, and then everybody went in Discord and talked about this. So here's my advice: forget about all that stuff. Just get a debit card. Or if you actually need a credit card, forget about the cash back and the points and all that. It's just a distraction. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven J Butala: And in the end, you're, you're getting charged for it somewhere. It's not free. Jill DeWit: Good point. Steven J Butala: Sarah. You're not feeling well. Jill DeWit: No, it's okay. No, you have, I'm going to let you run with that. Cause like I don't want to. Steven J Butala: I mean,

Jill Friday - Nowhere in the World (LA 1588) Transcript: Jill DeWit: Not me. Steven Butala: Steve and Jill, here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewit, broadcasting from the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today is Jill Friday. She's going to talk about nowhere in the world is it possible to do what we do. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. It's free. And don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Charlie wrote a response to this sentence. I'm going to mix in a failure and success just to keep things in perspective. This is cute. So here we go, hashtag fail. "I was going through Irritable and saw a call from a mailer that had kept getting pushed down and pushed down on my list. So I was going through the deal again. I offered $30,000. He accepted. And the comps were around $90,000, which is a great deal if I hadn't seen it. But life happened and I checked out the land business while we had a kid and stuff." Oh, I checked out of the land business. Got it. "While looking into the property on Redfin, I see that after this guy got my letter and called, the property was listed and sold twice, once for $39,000 and then for $95,000. It made me sick to know that there were $60,000 sitting in my computer that I didn't act on. Shucks!" Steven Butala: Darn. Jill DeWit: You know what? That happens. Steven Butala: This is a great life experience. Jill DeWit: Totally. What was happening is the offer came in. He didn't act on it. Life got in the way. He went back and said, "Oh, maybe I'll do this deal," and found out somebody else did the deal. Steven Butala: They had a baby. That happens. Jill DeWit: It's okay. But hashtag win. He's got something. "But also during that time, I bought a lot for a hundred dollars in a subdivision with a terrible dirt road and no utilities. I started to list it on eBay multiple times. Never got all the way through it. I finally, decided Saturday," excuse me, "I finally decided it sat in my inventory long enough. So I called a realtor I've worked with before in the area and got it listed. He went and looked at it and told me what I already know, dirt road, no utilities, hard to sell, et cetera, and asked what I wanted to get out of it. There's only one for sale in that subdivision and it's at $6,000. So I told him I just wanted it gone. But 3,000 looks right to me." Jill DeWit: "What I didn't take into account was that the subdivision, once you read over, has blown up in the last year. So he suggested we list it for $15,000. Normally, I would dial him back a bit, but we worked together and he knows that I'm shooting for speed here, not top dollar. And by the way, I have a hundred dollars into this property, so I don't really care if it sits for a month before a buyer comes along. This business is great and can forever change your family's lives if you put in the work." That's great. Oh, I wonder what he did sell it for. Steven Butala: What's the moral of the story here? I have a takeaway. What do you think you should really take away from this? Jill DeWit: Well, there's a couple of things. If you can keep from stopping and keep going, that's my first choice. But pick up where you left off and just move on. That's the moral of my story, because we all make mistakes. We start diets. We don't follow through. We join gyms. We don't follow through. It doesn't mean you never go back. You say, "Well, I tried that workout thing to me once when I was 20, and again when I was 30, and one more time when I was 50. It's not my thing. I am never doing it. Ship has sailed." That's not true. You can always start it and just pick up where you left off. That's my moral. Steven Butala: This person's kicking themselves a little bit,

Jack Thursday - Land Investor Dictionary 101 - Equity (LA 1587) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. 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 the Valley of the Sun. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about ... Well, it's Jack Thursday, and it's Land Investor Dictionary 101. This is going to be a thing now. Every Thursday I'm going to talk about helping new people understand the terminology, the basic terminology of land investing. Today is equity. Jill DeWit: Did I hear you say we're making an online version of this, too? Steven Butala: Yeah. So, our team is actually putting together a separate landing page or website with all the terminologies that we talk about here. It's underway. It's not going to happen overnight, certainly, but when we get the dot-com I'll report it. Jill DeWit: Cool. I have to tell you, when I heard about this the other day, I had a few things that I wanted to throw in the dictionary. Steven Butala: Oh, good. Jill DeWit: So I have some of our own terminology that we have created- Steven Butala: Like Jillify it? Jill DeWit: Exactly. I'll tell you right now, I have Jillify that's going to go in there, BaJillian, that's going to go in there. I also told Aaron lickety-split should go in there. Lickety-split, the definition is going to be something like how fast your property should sell. Steven Butala: These are good things. Jill DeWit: Right, you like this? So when you see it, I'm going to put side-hustle in there, and a way overused term, wholesale. Steven Butala: Yeah. What are some good, silly terms that are silly? Jill DeWit: That's a bunch that I just have. Yeah, lickety- Steven Butala: W-2 job, things like that. Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Steven Butala: 1099 job. Jill DeWit: W-2 job ... How about the 4:00 AM club? Steven Butala: Yeah, like Land Academy stuff. Jill DeWit: So yeah, they're all legitimate definitions. Some we have just made up. Some words and terms we have just made up that you need to know about and we throw around. Like in my world ... I confused you the other day. In our world, you're like, "What does that mean?" Steven Butala: Shotgun closing. Jill DeWit: Oh yeah. Steven Butala: Like shotgun wedding, but shotgun closing. Jill DeWit: We could come up with some good ones that you need to know. We'll give you a chance that you could submit some, too. Like, "I heard you talking about X. What the hell is ... " Steven Butala: Like the haight. Jill DeWit: Oh, the haight. Steven Butala: H-A-I-G-H-T. Jill DeWit: Oh, I've got a whole list here. Steven Butala: There's a whole Land Academy of vocabulary we can cover. Jill DeWit: This is good. This is going to be funny. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. Jill DeWit: Is it first initial, Burton? Steven Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay, E. Burton wrote, "Besides the LandTank and Facebook, what are other ways to get deals funded? I'm trying to keep my options open, and be open-minded and creative." Is there more to that? No. Okay, cool. Steven Butala: I'm not aware of Facebook, and LandTank honestly is coming down soon. Here's why: It's never been easier to get a deal funded, ever. I've never seen an environment in my entire career where people are throwing money out ... In a positive way, throwing money in, I should say, to get a good deal done. So if you're brand new and you're good at finding good deals, forget about the money. You're going to find so much money being dumped in your lap, it's silly. Steven Butala: Go to landfunding.com. It's a website we just started. There's all kinds of products for you. If it's really,

Creating an Easement by Being Nice to your Neighbors (LA 1586) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven Butala: Welcome to the land academy show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt broadcasting from the valley of the sun today. Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk about creating an easement by simply being nice to your neighbors. Jill DeWit: Okay. This is confusing. An easement means I have access, preferably legal and physical, to go somewhere. An easement means it's the legal paperwork, as necessary, to access a property. Steven Butala: So I'll give a full-blown examples in the mid of the show, but this solves a landlocked property. Jill DeWit: I just have to ask. I'm so confused. I'm not confused. I'm just saying that- Steven Butala: Oh, you're asking for everybody- Jill DeWit: No. Yeah. Steven Butala: If you have a landlocked piece of property and there's a neighbor's property on the road, on a county road, let's say, and some of your [inaudible 00:01:00] sends it back to you and says, "Heck yes, I will sell you my incredibly valuable property for a tiny small amount of money, because I know there's no access." Steven Butala: And I'll explain how you can get access by baking a cake and showing up at somebody's store. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows you like. Jill DeWit: Aaron wrote, "Has anyone figured out how to integrate their website with an e-signature service to automate purchase agreement signing? Use case looks like receive letter. He puts like the little terminology in there without- Steven Butala: This is a code- Jill DeWit: Website URL. Steven Butala: His case looks like receive letter. Go to website URL in letter, enter reference number, digitally sign their PA, just trying to think about how to reduce the friction of signing and sending back a purchase agreement. Jill DeWit: This is kind of cool. This is a really good idea. Steven Butala: Well, I think it's a brilliant idea. It'll never work. Jill DeWit: Why? Steven Butala: So let's talk about this for a second. I want to make a kind of a big deal about this. There's a lot of technical people in our group, me included. I'm a very technical person and I'm hugely interested in making things easier and faster and more profitable. And one of the ways that you do that now, maybe the way, is through tech and technology improvements in databases and all this. And so Aaron obviously has a tech background or just knows about it. And so there's a lot of ways you can automate this and make this easy. And there's a lot of people who have come and gone in our group from a tech background, there's a lot of people in our group right now that have a core tech background in their W2 jobs, very successful, walking into this environment saying, "Oh no, we're going to make this whole thing an app. We're going to automate the entire system and we're going to take control over US land." Steven Butala: And so that's the extreme and Aaron, I'm not picking on you at all. I think this is a brilliant idea. I'm serious. But what you're missing here and what I think a lot of tech people miss, again, it's not a criticism at all. It's not like I'm talking about California right now. This is not a criticism. It's a backwards compliment. I'm not sure that you understand this customer. Do you think that most of the people that you sell property to, or buy property from, I'm sorry, are going to go onto a website, click on some stuff and sign it that way? Jill DeWit: No, that's true. Steven Butala: So Jill's right. They're not tech savvy. They're not set up for that. They want you to do it for them. They're asking you- Jill DeWit: kind of the point- Steven Butala:

Income Taxes and Your Land Business (LA 1585) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from the valley of the sun. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about income taxes and your land business. Jill DeWit: Yay. I tell you I was losing sleep over this. I am so excited, it's one of my favorite topics. Steven Butala: Kidding aside, you don't have to lose sleep over it, because I do. And it turns out a lot of Land Academy members do, too. And so this is a big topic. We just completed the most recent Land Academy career path program, this was a big topic at the end. And so I did a whole presentation. So I figured I'd do a five, ten minute synopsis here. And really, my whole point being, and we'll get into it in detail here in a minute, you can't just let this happen. You can't let taxes happen to you, like I did when I had a W2 position forever. It's a completely different scenario. You just let taxes happen to you when you have a job. Jill DeWit: I know, because someone else dictates how it's going to go, kind of thing. You get to say what percentage you want withheld, but that's about it. Steven Butala: Now that you have your own entity, however it's structured, you have a lot of choices and a lot of control. Jill DeWit: I understand. It's a funny progression with our members like, "Oh my gosh, holy cow, I made so much money." And then at the end of the year you're like, "Holy cow, I made so much money." Steven Butala: I made a ton of money and I got to give 50% of it away. Jill DeWit: Shoot. What do I do? How do I plan for this? Uh-oh. Steven Butala: That's what we'll talk about. This is prompted by Jill sitting on the floor, Indian style- Jill DeWit: Crying. Steven Butala: ... in a puddle, writing checks a couple of years ago. We didn't have to do that last year, fortunately, because of good planning. But two years ago there were crocodile tears. Jill DeWit: There were some tears. Steven Butala: And I hate that. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Steven Butala: I don't want to see you cry ever. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free, and don't forget to subscribe on the Land Academy YouTube channel, and comment on the shows that you like. Jill DeWit: Eburton wrote, "Newbs. How do you know you have a good deal? Like, how?" Steven Butala: I love this question. Jill DeWit: I do too. You want to go first? Steven Butala: Nope. Jill DeWit: Oh. Steven Butala: I have a lot to say. Jill DeWit: How do I know I have a good deal? It comes in, I hang up the phone, I pull up the map and I glance at my five A's on the sticky note that's on my monitor. Access. Yep, it has that. Acreage. Yeah, wow. It's exactly what I wanted. Attribute. Oh my gosh, look how close it is to the water. Alive. Yeah. I just talked to the guy, now I'm confirming it's him. This is his name. And here he is, he's the only one on here. And then affordability. He's signing this thing and sending it back. Oh. And then, I take it one step further, because I'm assuming I did all my work going into it right on my pricing. I'm going to keep going with this here. Steven Butala: Yeah, you should. Jill DeWit: And then, now I'm going to go, "I'm going to go double check. Okay. This is all going too well right now." Now I'm starting to, like, I can feel the butterflies. I'm sweating, my pulse is racing a little bit. Did I screw something up? Now I'm going to jump into some land selling sites, even just Zillow, and look around on the MLS postings and see, all right, what are the other five acres selling for? And then I pull it up and I see, and I'm like, "Okay, don't get excited yet. Let's see what's sold. Holy cow. I can't find anything wrong with this. I need to get this in.

Why Satellite Internet Providers Tell us Where to Send Mail (LA 1584) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from The Valley of the Sun. You like that? Steven Butala: I like it. Today, Jill and I talk about why satellite internet providers are continuously telling us where to send mail. This is a good thing. Jill DeWit: I wrote down a different reason as to why we care about this. And I'll share that when we get into the meat of the show, but I got to tell you, I was struggling, "Do I say Scottsdale? Do I say Phoenix? Where do I say we are?" And I forgot that this was always called The Valley of the Sun. Isn't that interesting? Steven Butala: I think there's more than one Valley of the Sun. Everybody thinks they're The Valley of the Sun. Jill DeWit: When you Google Valley of the Sun, though, Phoenix comes up. Steven Butala: Really? Jill DeWit: I made sure. I'm like, seriously. Steven Butala: Do you Google stuff, Jill? Jill DeWit: All the time. I Google you. I Google... I'm just kidding. Of course. Steven Butala: I read recently that Google, as a product, it is the single most used product for a consumer in the history of all products. Jill DeWit: Really? What did you say Google was supposed to be? Remember you said that- Steven Butala: It's misspelled. It's supposed to be G-O-O G-E-L. And it's some type of cipher God. It's some type of scientific something. Jill DeWit: Really G-E-L and then- Steven Butala: Scientific measurement or something. Jill DeWit: But it didn't look right. Somebody just like- Steven Butala: They misspelled it right from the beginning and it just stuck, which is probably kind of cool because now it's obviously an incredible brand. Jill DeWit: It's a verb. It's a noun. It's all kinds of things. Okay. Steven Butala: Before we get into it, though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Land Investors.com online community. It's free and don't forget to subscribe on The Land Academy YouTube channel and comment on the shows that you like. You don't have to comment on the shows that you hate. If you comment on the shows that you like, then we do more content about stuff you like. Jill DeWit: That's really good. The shows you love, please just go for it. Steven Butala: All kidding aside, it really does help us develop an algorithm to create content that people want to hear about. Like, maybe you're not interested in hearing me rant about California. Jill DeWit: Or this show at all. That's so funny. I couldn't tell you the day... Since now we're off topic... We're on Clubhouse [crosstalk 00:02:32]. So, we're on Clubhouse the other day and there was that guy... I can't tell if he was trying to break into our show. Steven Butala: Yeah. He totally was. Jill DeWit: Oh, was he? Okay. Or if he was like yelling at somebody on the street. Steven Butala: No, no. I think he was breaking in. He broke into our show. Jill DeWit: And just was cussing. Steven Butala: This is the world now. Jill DeWit: That was funny. So, my team got him off there, to quote you, "Lickedy split." Steven Butala: I just read a thing about this whole thing about the internet culture, how it's developing. I'm old enough to know when there was no internet at all. And so... Jill DeWit: You're older than me. Steven Butala: Right. And my parents would say stuff like, "Keep your opinions to yourself." That was just the world that I grew up in. And that's just not the way it is now. Everybody's really encouraged to have an opinion and be real loud about it with filthy language and everything. That's just like a norm. That's a normal state of the internet. Jill DeWit: I don't get it. Steven Butala: I don't either. Jill DeWit: Anyway, let's get back to the show. Ty wrote, "Anyone else getting first mailer jitters?" Oh,

Jill Friday - Showing up for Work (LA 1583) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Happy Friday. Steven J Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show. Entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I am Jill Dewitt broadcasting from sunny Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she talks about showing up for work, no matter where you work. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. If you're already a member, join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: Land Academy member that is. Yep. Kevin responds to this post, which says called do neighbor letters work? So I guess this is the post? Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay. Is this Kevin's thing or this the post and then comes Kevin's thing? Steven J Butala: This is Kevin. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: Kevin our awesome moderator in Discord. Jill DeWit: Okay. So Kevin's saying, "Look, I have used neighbor letters with good success. I don't always use it, a neighbor letter, but I have sold several properties using neighbor letters. I don't call them the neighbors. I send letters. My letter's very brief. I offer the property at a good price and let the recipient know that I will be putting it on the market at a higher price. I include a large aerial view showing the parcel so that they know where it is in relationship to their land. I have sold landlocked parcels and other vacant land this way." Good stuff. Just like a little tip. Is that what the point was here? Steven J Butala: I have an entire business operation where I only sell property to the neighbors. Neighbors letters are awesome. And they're really, really inexpensive. What do you send out? Maybe 600 letters, sometimes. Maybe 300 letters. Jill DeWit: God, maybe- Steven J Butala: When you buy a piece of property- Jill DeWit: ... maybe a hundred. Steven J Butala: You buy a piece of property, you send out 100, 200, 300, maybe 500 letters to all the people who own property around there, that quite simply says, "Hey, I know you have property here and I just, I've got an off-market property. It's probably a lot less than you spent to buy the one that you have, and if you're interested, give me a call. I'll sell it to you off market. We can get the deal done really easy. No financing, no real estate agents. None of that stuff. I just closed on it with escrow, so we can use the same agent. It's only going to take a few days." Jill DeWit: Cool. Steven J Butala: What's going on? Jill DeWit: I don't know. You're just running. I'm just letting you go. It's easier. Steven J Butala: Let's let Jill talk. Jill DeWit: This is my goal in life. Just going to pick the easiest path, especially today. Steven J Butala: Today is Jill Friday, and she's going to talk about showing up for work. This is the meat of the show. Jill DeWit: Yes. Whatever you do, this kind of ties into what you talked about this week, which I thought was really interesting, the millionaire thing. Because you talked about having a plan. And I think for a lot of people having a plan might involve a job. It might involve a W2. It might involve a paycheck. And one of the things about... And I hope that you realize if that's your life and you have that job, you're getting a paycheck, that it can and should fit into your plan. You are still in control. You should be there because you want to be there. You picked it. You're not trapped. Trust me. I know this. It's really interesting, too, that whole mindset. You brought that up earlier. I worked at a job. I kind of, I started to fall into that. You can get a little brainwashed thinking that you're trapped somewhere and it's oh, good and you'll never find anything better. Jill DeWit: Because people tell you that. And it's really your coworkers around you that are just in a little trap and little hamster wheel.

Jack Thursday - Rather be Dead in Arizona than Alive in California (LA 1582) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven J 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 Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today is Jack Thursday and I'd rather be dead in Arizona than alive in California. Jill DeWit: That was from the banana stand, Arrested Development. Steven J Butala: Yep. Jill DeWit: I love that show. Such a good show. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, actually it was in reverse though, on the show. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: Before- Jill DeWit: Rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona? Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Okay, got it. Steven J Butala: Like a lot of states, where we're adjacent and we're not big fans of each other. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, a Land Academy member, join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: Actually, I have something funny to share about that real quick. I talked to our insurance guy today, our former insurance guy in California. He informed me that he recently got ... He got his certification or license or whatever, for all the states. All his people are moving too out of California. He says, "I've gotten Nevada, I've got Arizona." Steven J Butala: Texas. Jill DeWit: "I've got Texas." Steven J Butala: Florida. Jill DeWit: Exactly. He's rolling them off. He's like, "So I can help you in Arizona now." And I'm like, "Oh, this is funny, I didn't know that." He's like, "Yeah, because all my clients were leaving." So anyway. Jill DeWit: Ty wrote, "I am new and working through the steps so take this with a grain of salt. I hired a full-time customer service specialist off Online Jobs. I made-" Steven J Butala: Onlinejobs.ph, for the Philippines. Jill DeWit: Okay, interesting. "I made sure to include data specialist in the post and I got about 20 resumes. In my post I requested a video introduction, which I understand can limit replies, but [inaudible 00:01:50] that important to find someone outgoing and personable." Steven J Butala: Outstanding. Jill DeWit: "Took the best five and did one-on-one interviews. Hired the best of those for a one-week working interview. Made Jason team member number one," ah, "an offer today and he accepted." Jill DeWit: I am stoked at the level of communication, knowledge of data systems, ability to handle tasks without hand-holding, overall professionalism, zero accent by the way. I can not be happier, but it's only been a week. He'll be working my time zone too, by the way, important since I want him to answer all incoming calls and data collection." This is huge. Steven J Butala: This is the best news ever. Jill DeWit: Wow. Steven J Butala: And I can tell, Ty, how you're writing this, and I can just tell how it's successful you're going to be at this. Jill DeWit: Wow. That's so good. Steven J Butala: I'm really happy for you. And I think we've had nothing but positive experiences with the Philippines in general. Jill DeWit: That's really good. Steven J Butala: We have a lot of people working for us in the Philippines. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Steven J Butala: And they all report to our department heads here in the States. Jill DeWit: It's really cool. Steven J Butala: Today's topic, it's Jack Thursday and I'd rather be dead in Arizona than alive in California. This is why you're listening. Jill DeWit: All right. So you turned that all around, why? Steven J Butala: What's the problem with California? Really, I ask myself this all the time. And I'll start off by saying this very positively, it's a shame what's happened to California. It's a shame what's happened to Detroit. So I grew up in Detroit and I watched it deteri...

LandFunding.com is Live (LA 1581) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Howdy. Steven J 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, Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about landfunding.com and how it's now live. Jill DeWit: I'm excited. This is so cool. Steven J Butala: You do not need money to be a successful land investor. Jill DeWit: What? Isn't that amazing. So many people, that's it. Getting into real estate of any kind, the barrier to entry for some people is like, I just don't have the money. I guess, I can't do it. I can't be like those cool HGTV people. Are you cool Land Academy people. Steven J Butala: People ask me, why would you ever start something like Land Academy and share all these secrets, when you had this perfectly awesome scenario going, and you guys are just traveling down, making millions of dollars a month? Here's why, limitless capital. And that's what Land Academy has provided, not only for us, now for everyone. Steven J Butala: Money people come out of the woodwork, including us and fund our stuff, and so we are those people. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: James wrote, "I have a dilemma that I'd like to get feedback on. Try to be brief and concise. I listed a small value property with an agent about a month ago. He expects it to sell in three to six months at a net profit that I'm happy with. Much longer timeframe than I like now, but he's an old school cowboy, who has worked vacant land in this area for decades. Ultimately, I bring him volume, then move on to the next deal, wait for the money to return, and it frees up a lot of my time since he takes on the sales and the marketing." Jill DeWit: "Communications so far has been, meh, but looking over his track record, I'm inclined to believe him. Received an offer today that I'm happy to take, but was from a pre-agent listing. And I would have to get the agent to cancel the contract." I don't know what that is. So someone today or long-term relationship to sell more at a slower pace. Oh, I see what it was. He listed it with somebody else and now he has this guy. Steven J Butala: Now, he's got the cowboy. Jill DeWit: So then the old guy found one. Oh, okay. Okay. "I'm not sure if I'm being patient or practical. Thank you for advance. Need to get this out of my head and get different perspectives." Steven J Butala: You go first. Jill DeWit: Okay. Wait. So I'm trying to understand this. Steven J Butala: He had it listed with somebody with a beehive hairdo from the 50s and little cat eyeglasses. Jill DeWit: And that expired. Steven J Butala: That expired. Jill DeWit: And now he found a new guy. Steven J Butala: They dropped the ball. He got the right guy, the cowboy. Okay. And the beehive hairdo person produced an offer. Jill DeWit: Oh, well, the right thing to do is, shoot. The right thing to do is, the guy that he has a contract with now. The beehive doesn't really have a leg to stand on. You got to do the right thing. Steven J Butala: I know what I would do. Jill DeWit: And I wouldn't want to risk. Steven J Butala: I would never cut this cowboy out. Jill DeWit: Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't want to risk that guy, losing him. Steven J Butala: Yep, me too. Long-term, I choose B, long-term relationship. Jill DeWit: You need to talk to him and come and say, what do you guys usually do in this situation? That's what I would say. You knew that I had it with somebody else. That contract expired. Here we are. What's the protocol? Steven J Butala: I'm pretty sure if he'd just contractually read it, everyone needs to get paid. Jill DeWit: And then they'd probably have to split it.

Top 5 Habits of Successful Millionaires (LA 1580) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven J 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 Scottsdale Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the top five habits of successful millionaires. Recently Credit Suisse, not recently last year in 2020 did a pretty extensive survey. We were not included. Jill DeWit: Who did this? Steven J Butala: Credit Suisse. Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you. Steven J Butala: Of 10,000 voluntary millionaires. Jill DeWit: Sounds like you're so adamant. Credit Suisse. Okay. Steven J Butala: And... Jill DeWit: Are they a bank? Steven J Butala: Yeah. It's a- Jill DeWit: Isn't it a bank? Steven J Butala: They're a full bank, an investment bank and all of that. Jill DeWit: Okay, all right. Steven J Butala: Before we get into- Jill DeWit: Are they American millionaires or they're just European millionaires? Steven J Butala: They're all American. Jill DeWit: Oh, okay. I just have some questions. I'm curious. Thank you. Steven J Butala: Before we get in, there's 20 million millionaires in the country. Jill DeWit: Okay. Steven J Butala: In this country and there's a lot less multi-millionaires. And I don't know the exact number, but it's dramatically less. Jill DeWit: So it's just, if you have one million, you're a million. Steven J Butala: Yeah. And it's a net worth thing. Jill DeWit: There's a lot of people. Steven J Butala: It's a net worth. So it could be stock, it could... most houses are worth- Jill DeWit: Your retirement. Steven J Butala: Equity, and your house is more than a million, so. Jill DeWit: That's true. That's all of Southern California. Steven J Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: They didn't start out that way, but they are there now. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, there's a show coming up later this Jack Thursday where I'm going to talk all about California. Jill DeWit: Oh, goodie. I can't wait for that one. I will have a helmet on. no kidding. Steven J Butala: Thursays become a rant. Jill DeWit: I think I'm going to go put my helmet on. Steven J Butala: Thursday just become, we should just call it Jack rant Thursday. Jill DeWit: Yeah, pretty much. Steven J Butala: You know what the problem is? People are emailing me saying this is my favorite- Jill DeWit: Sweetie. Steven J Butala: My favorite podcast is Thursday when you go off on all this stuff. Jill DeWit: Because they're poking the bear. Steven J Butala: You think? Jill DeWit: Yeah. It doesn't take much. Steven J Butala: I never went to my parents and said, "I really love when you yell at me." Jill DeWit: Say renovation, renovation. Watch what happens. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: Danielle wrote, "Do we need to build a buyers list if we're going after bigger deals that will be handled by an agent? I'm spending all this money doing Facebook ads. And although they're going to my website and submitting their email, I feel like majority of these leads are tire kickers. The general inquiry about my marketplace ads is about the ability to camp or put a mobile on the property. So far, it feels like a waste." What was the beginning of the question? I'm sorry. I would mail the buyers list. Yeah, no, I don't think anything of this is bad at all. Why are you looking at me like I'm nuts? Steven J Butala: Well, because I don't think that. Jill DeWit: I think it's great. Steven J Butala: I don't necessarily... We have a five buyers in a very specific area where I buy and sell a ton of property. I have my stuff and Jill has her stuff. Jill DeWit: But you never know. Steven J Butala:

The Basics of the Land Business (LA 1579) Transcript: Steven J Butala: Steve and Jill, here. Jill DeWit: Hi. Steven J 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 sweet Scottsdale, Arizona. Steven J Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the basics of the land business. This whole topic came from a discussion on Discord, which I just thought was brilliant and so we'll talk all about ... Every business comes down to a few simple things. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven J Butala: Like when you think about Amazon or Walmart, there's one or two sentences you can describe the whole thing. Jill DeWit: Cheap. Steven J Butala: Cheap, fast. Jill DeWit: Fast. Steven J Butala: Easy. Jill DeWit: Let's see. Costco ... Steven J Butala: Abundant. Jill DeWit: ... is quality. Steven J Butala: Quality. Yep. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Nordstrom is customer service. Steven J Butala: Is it? Jill DeWit: I think so. It is for me. Steven J Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on TheLandInvestors.com online community. It's free and if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: I like to add ... We're going to rewrite our things here, too. Even though I'm interrupting all this to insert one more thing, I'm going to insert one more thing because our team asked me to and I need to fix this. We mentioned the Discord. Have I mentioned Clubhouse lately? Every Thursday at one o'clock Pacific Time you can find us on Clubhouse. Check it out. Go to the group or the club called Land ... Shoot, I think it's called Land Investors. How funny is that? Get to know your own stuff. I don't know. And by the way, too, don't forget you can also find us all over the heck on YouTube on Land Academy. Thank you. Jill DeWit: So, Chuck wrote, "I'm finding huge differences for properties on the market between LandWatch, Redfin, Zillow and Realtor. For example, in one county I'm looking at LandWatch and it shows 1,883 properties. Redfin shows 334 properties." These are all for sale, I'm assuming. "Realtor shows 959 and Zillow 346. Zillow's six months old shows 651. Redfin shows 389. The Zillow for sale/sold ratio is good but the others not so much. This makes it weird trying to evaluate what's really going on. Using the largest for sale, which is LandWatch and the most six month sales, which is Zillow, results in an undesirable ratio. This contradicts the fair ratio in Zillow for sale/sold. I'm coming to the conclusion that I should find another county." This is hilarious. "But ..." Steven J Butala: I'm coming to that conclusion, too. Jill DeWit: "... I want to see if anyone else has this issue and how it's dealt with. Thank you." Steven J Butala: Here's ... Jill DeWit: That's a tough one. You got to do apples to apples, not apples to oranges and oranges to pineapple, which is, it sounds like, what's going on. Steven J Butala: Jill's exactly right. Whatever you do for the red, green, yellow test you need to do it if you're going to look at Zillow active versus sold ... You need to look Zillow/Zillow. Jill DeWit: Right. Steven J Butala: Redfin/Redfin. Here's the deal. Realtor.com only lists properties that are listed with an active real estate agent. Period. It's the national MLS. Redfin has a very vested interest in listing properties that are with their agents or agents that comply with their business model, and so if you need to learn more about Redfin, which I'm pretty impressed with ... Redfin's kind of taking an ... This is an off-shoot comment/opinion of mine. Redfin has taken a terrible ... Jill DeWit: Alert, alert. Steven J Butala: ... A terrible situation, which is this damn MLS, and made something good out of it. And so, they're only in certain places, in urban areas, not rural. But we're in the business of rural land so Redfin, we don't use it that much.

Jill Friday - When is the Right Time to Leave Your Job (LA 1578) Transcript: Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here. Jill DeWit: Hello. Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill Dewitt, broadcasting from pretty Phoenix, Arizona. Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk, well, it's Jill Friday. And Jill talks about when is the right time to leave your job. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. And if you're already a Land Academy member, please join us on Discord. Jill DeWit: Stephen wrote. Steven Butala: I really think it's Stephan. With an A here. Jill DeWit: Okay. Excuse me. Did you just correct me on that? Steven Butala: It's an offshoot. Jill DeWit: What if it is Stephen? Steven Butala: It's an offshoot of- Jill DeWit: What the heck was that? Steven Butala: The name Jill. Jill says. Jill DeWit: What the heck? Steven Butala: I'm just horsing around. Jill DeWit: Stefan. There's no- Steven Butala: It might be Stephan. Jill DeWit: There's no dots or anything above the A. Should we clarify this? What the heck is that? Steven Butala: The root of all this is that I have one of the most silly common name there ever was, so when there's just a slight off shoot on it, I'm happy. Anyway. Jill DeWit: All right. Steven Butala: Whatever. Jill DeWit: You know who you are wrote, and please, as I read this question, and you identify that it's you, would you please be so kind as to send him an email, or please put it in Discord, or somewhere. Steven Butala: Yeah. Please don't [crosstalk 00:01:41]. Jill DeWit: The correct pronunciation of your name. Steven Butala: Please don't send me emails. Jill DeWit: Okay. Because this one apparently would like to know and make sure we get it right. Because okay, are we done now? Steven Butala: Yep. Jill DeWit: Okay. It reads, "Pro tip. If you use the first search function on Land Academy, it will also search podcast transcripts. I recently found a great paralegal for handling a probate issue by searching the word heirship. Come to think of it, jill says the words, 'neighbor letters,' at the end of every podcast, since Neighbor Scoop was released, so it might not work for this." That's funny. That's cool. So, on our website, you can just search, and then all that stuff comes up. That's good. Steven Butala: There's some amazing search tools on Discord, and all kinds of places for all kinds of information, to get really, I mean, it's one of the, that's why I put this in here. We should talk about it more. There's thousands and thousands and thousands- Jill DeWit: Of hours. Steven Butala: Of pages of content. Jill DeWit: Of content. Steven Butala: And there's transcripts for, beginning from Episode 0. And we were on, this is Episode 1578. And the transcripts are all in there, every single one. So, if you do have a specific question about, I mean, I'm betting, we probably talked about it just about everything. Jill DeWit: So, someone right now is listening going, "You mean I don't have to listen to this? I can just read it?" Steven Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: "Oh, my life just improved. I can skim the cliff notes and not have to go through this torture?" Yes, that's true. Steven Butala: Because I'd rather be listening to Led Zeppelin anyway. Jill DeWit: Oh, my goodness. All right. Moving on. Today is Jill Friday. When is the right time to leave your job? This is the meat of the show. Okay. One of the things that I do is, still do, not very often. It's really a part of Career Path. We've gotten busy, in case you didn't know. So, us and our normal consulting is not readily available, but it is inside of Career Path. So, I did a consulting recently for a person inside of Career Path, and this was the gist of the conversation. This person is in a wonderful position. I mean, great job, W-2,