Land Academy Show

Land Investing: Passive Income or Not? (CFFL 503) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit. Jill DeWit: Hi! Jack Butala: Welcome to the show today, in this episode Jill and I talk about land investing. Is it passive income, or not? Let's get to the bottom of that today. Before we get into to it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the www.landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay, Jason asked, "I'm talking with a man who owns a 3,015 acre ranch in Edwards County, Texas. Land in this area is listed for $1650 per acre." Whoa-ho-ho-ho, these are big numbers, I like these. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: "This could be a big deal, but I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm thinking about proposing an option agreement for each section of the ranch that is divided up by five different APNs-" Jack Butala: That's really good. Jill DeWit: "... and market each of the 600 acre ranches separately. I'm not sure what price will sell fast on such big properties. Any advice is appreciated." Jack Butala: These are great deals. I love these kind of deals. These are the things that, at this point in our career, Jill and I look for all the time. 3000 acres cut up into 5 APNs is a great situation to be in, especially if they are all contiguous, because you're either gonna find who wants to buy it all ... You're doubling your chances of selling this property if it's all cut up. Find somebody who wants to buy it all or maybe find somebody who wants to buy just one of the sections. A section technically is 640 acres or one mile by one mile and we're gonna assume that it's got pretty good access. In fact, I'm sure, well I'm not sure but, it's be hard to go 3000 acres without finding a county road somewhere. Jill DeWit: I'm doing the math. It's a million, by the way, each of these. Jack Butala: Yeah, so, the price per acres really widely vary based on size. So when you say an acre goes for $1650, I bet it's not the same price for one acre, five acres, twenty acres, six hundred and forty acres, or three thousand acres. In general, the larger the property the cheaper the price per acre which is what you want. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: That works in our favor. You want to get a low price per acre buying a lot of property and then subdivide it or split it down. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- And sell it for more. Jack Butala: It's called the case to bottle method, you know? If you buy a case of beer and it's, for sake of argument, it's $24. $24 in a case and you sell them for $3 a beer you're tripling your money and that's the same idea here. You need to talk to an expert about this, because you don't want to make a mistake. The real money and if this is in an unincorporated area, which I bet it is in this county, Texas state law governs that you can subdivide it. You might have to jump through some county hoops, but I'm telling ya, people retire on one deal like this. If you buy it for $300 and acre and sell it for $5000 and acre when you've got it all split down and there's roads to every property and stuff, that's millions and millions and millions of dollars. You could spend the next ten years of your life doing this deal and getting incredibly rewarded and that's one of the reasons Jill and I chose this question. We get a ton of questions and this is a really good one. Jill DeWit: Yup, I love it. If you have a question or you wanna be on the show, reach out to either one of us on www.landinvestors.com.

Land Investing Described at a Cocktail Party (CFFL 502) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about land investing as described at a cocktail party. It's harder to do than you would think. You know how we always say this is a fun show? This is a serious show, this is a fun show. Jill DeWit: Oh, yeah. 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. Jill DeWit: Okay. Luke asks, he says I bought eight properties and I have signed purchase agreements for ten more with more sellers calling everyday. Jack Butala: Congratulations Luke. Jill DeWit: Yay. I'm starting to run out of money. Jack Butala: This is not Luke Smith. Jill DeWit: Nope. Jack Butala: This is a different Luke in our group. Jill DeWit: From the research I've done doing deals without money requires one of the following and he has three things here. One, buying one an option. From what I understand the only way to do this with zero dollars is to find a company that will do a dual closing. I have been unsuccessful in doing this so far but I'm working on it, and we're going to cover all these. I'm going to finish this question. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: To assigning the contract. All the offers I send out have a clause in them allowing me to sign the contract but I have not taken advantage of this yet. Jack Butala: Brilliant. Jill DeWit: Can I advertise a property for sale with the intent of signing the contract I have on it and without yet owning it? Jack Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: Okay, and we're going to get to that. Three, finding an investor. Jack and Jill as well as other land investors talk about doing deals together. Does this entail some kind of written agreement? Is it typically one person doing the work and the other person putting the money down? Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Which one of these three do your recommend? Jack Butala: All of them. Jill DeWit: Are there more options that I am unaware of? Are you interested in doing a deal, or are any of you interested in doing a deal with me? So, I'm going to circle back around. Jack Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: Great question, Luke. Jill DeWit: I love this because we've all been here, Luke. It's great. Jack Butala: We have all been right where you are and out of money. Jill DeWit: Exactly and it's funny because I have had these conversations with people back in the day, where I literally had to say no, seriously. I understand you're excited to sell. Really, I only have X amount of money left over right now, period and if you want that you could have it but that's all I have, you know, and I'm being totally legitimate and sometimes somebody will go, okay I'll take it and I'm like, oh shoot. Now how am I going to pull this one in? You know? Jack Butala: I never have said, oh shoot the sellers find my stuff. Jill DeWit: I know, but no but it's so funny because it's like, you have so many deals I don't know what to do which is a good thing.

Spend Your Time on This, Not This (CFFL 501) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butela and Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about spend your time on this, not this. 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: That topic just sounds really funny 'cause you have to explain where you got it here in a minute. Jack Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: Okay. Savannah asked, "I found a couple of counties with giant parcels of land, like 300 to 600 acres and I looked into splitting them up. I found an article on another online community, which made it seem like I'd need to build roads for access and add utilities." Jack Butala: Hey, Savannah. Jill DeWit: This is really good. I got to say something funny about Savannah too. "Is this everyone's experience with parcel splitting or might there be a cheaper way?" Okay. Jack Butala: Oh, there's a cheaper way. Jill DeWit: Okay. First, before we address the question I want to say one thing 'cause I'm not sure ... Do you know who Savannah is? Jack Butala: No, I don't. Jill DeWit: Savannah happens to be the wife of one of our members who is doing so well she's all in and now she's asking the questions. Seriously. Jack Butala: That's awesome. Jill DeWit: This is clearly a family business now and they are doing fantastic. Jack Butala: Hey, which one's smarter, Savannah or the husband? Jill DeWit: We've had him ... Jack Butala: And it's funny that we don't know his name. Jill DeWit: Oh, I do. Jack Butala: Oh, okay. Jill DeWit: You don't know who it is? Jack Butala: Just like everyone knows Jill, but who is that guy with Jill? Jill DeWit: Oh, his first name starts with the letter 'M.' Jack Butala: Oh, okay. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: You really can't say it? Jill DeWit: Michele. Jack Butala: Oh, oh! Oh, this is Michele's wife? Jill DeWit: Yeah, see. I know that. See, right now you're thinking, "Wow look at what they're doing now." Jack Butala: That's impressive 'cause I know ... Jill DeWit: Right. Jack Butala: I talk to Michele once in a while. Jill DeWit: I know. Jack Butala: They're killing it. Jill DeWit: That's what I'm saying. You want to answer the question now? Jack Butala: Yes. With parcel splitting ... By the way we just got parcelsplit.com, which is going to explain all this at some point and make it easy for everybody. There's two ways to subdivide property. The way that she's referring to where you put roads in and you get a survey and you develop the property, you get it set up to develop it, whether you're gonna develop a strip mall, apartment building, a big massive planned community like Del Webb does out West and in Chicago ... that's the subdivision way. There's also the parcel split way and the reason that the roots of parcel splitting in this country have to do with farm land and let's say you marry your last daughter off and you give each of the kids ...

Idaho Kansas DO NOT CONTACT Laws (CFFL 500) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Good day. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. This episode, Jill and I talk about the Idaho/Kansas so-called Do Not Contact laws for sending out direct mail offers like 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. Jill DeWit: Okay. Justin asked, "Anyone use RealQuest to mail for houses? I seem to get either 10,000 lines of data or 250-ish. Looking for a good parameter set that would help narrow it down. There has been discussion on the podcast about 2018 being the year for houses." That would be us. Jack Butala: But I'm ready now. Jill DeWit: That would be us. "But I am ready to grow-" Jack Butala: Yeah Justin. Jill DeWit: "... the next layer of my business." Jack Butala: Love your attitude. Jill DeWit: "I have wholesaled and bought and sold houses in the past ..." This seems like a no-brainer ... "to get houses in our contract-" Jack Butala: It is. Jill DeWit: "... and assign them to my buyers' list." Jack Butala: It's a no-brainer. Jill DeWit: "When other wholesalers are out knocking on doors I like to have the acquisitions come to my mailbox." It's hot in Texas this time of year. I love it. "Any help is appreciated." Jack? Jack Butala: I'm so glad Justin that you asked this, because Jill and I do this all the time, and it is a total logical extension from Land. So yeah, I mean, to really get into what you're asking here about the 10,000 lines of data or 250 lines of data, I'm unfortunately sorry to report that it's some type of user error on your part because, maybe we can get to the bottom of it if you email me. I'm happy to help you at [email protected], because I love this topic. Jill DeWit: I was going to add, so Justin knows because he's playing around with it. You're just going to have, you have to keep playing around with it until you find your, exactly what you want. Jack Butala: Yeah, that is the answer. Jill DeWit: So, for example, you can do zip code, I mean you can do subdivision, you can be as broad or specific as you want. You can do three bedroom, two baths, you cannot put those criteria in if you want. You can put in no mortgage if you want. I mean, that's the beauty of this data that we have. We have so many options, so if you really, you have it all at your fingertips, Justin. You know what you're doing. Jack Butala: Well said, Jill. Play around with it, but I'll tell you what works great for us. When a subdivider, when a home builder goes to create a subdivision, they sit down with the county to get approval. Out west it's called big entitlements and one of the things that happens during that process is the assessor assigns a series of assessors' parcel numbers and nine times out of 10, well, actually for us in Arizona, 10 times out of 10 it's very, very, very predictable. That is how we send mail out. What I do is I say, "All right, it's APN scheme, one, two, three through one, two, five. Now I'm staring at a list of every single property in that subdivision. We do it by subdivision. I start removing and scrubbing the data just like we do with Land. We take out all the houses that don't have, that have mortgages. Then we take out houses that have pools. Then and on and on and on, and to price it, we take a dollar per square foot.

Land Investors Member Eric Ko and his Success Transcript: Jack Butala: Jill and I interview Land Investor member, Eric Ko. Eric Ko: Hey, Jack. Jack Butala: Hi, Eric. How are you? Good, you know you have both of us. Jill's here. She happened to be in my office, so she jumped on. Jill DeWitt: Hey, Eric. How are you? Eric Ko: I'm doing well. Jill DeWitt: Good. Thought I'd say hi and just listen in the beginning, if that's okay with you. Eric Ko: Yeah, no of course! Finally get to talk to you in person, I guess, right? Jill DeWitt: Thank you! Eric Ko: Yeah. It's good. Jill DeWitt: How's everything going? Eric Ko: Everything is good. To be honest with you, I was doing pretty okay, and I felt like I kind of lost a little momentum because I was busy. I have another business. Jill DeWitt: Okay. Eric Ko: My coffee business, so I'm starting that, too. I was a little busy doing that, and then kind of lost momentum a little bit. Now, I'm kind of back, and I wanted to move forward with it and start doing it again. Jill DeWitt: Cool! How far did you get before? Did you flip some properties? Did you- Eric Ko: Yeah. I've done about 16 deals, about five cash and 11 terms. Jill DeWitt: Wow. Eric Ko: Yeah. Jack Butala: Wow, man. Jill DeWitt: Good! Eric Ko: Yeah. Thank you. I was actually pretty surprised. To be honest, I was a little skeptical at first. I bought the [inaudible 00:01:22] and I just followed everything, and I worked. Jack Butala: Hey, can we make this a podcast? Eric Ko: Uh, yeah, you can. Jack Butala: I hope so. Eric Ko: I don't know if I'm good enough to- Jack Butala: Don't mention any county names or anything, and I'll just drill some questions. That's a fantastic story. Eric Ko: Sure. Jill DeWitt: I love it. I was going to ask you that, Eric. I was going to say, "Are you one of those guys that are like, 'Hmm, does this really work?' And then the next thing you know, you're like, 'Wow, it does work!'" Eric Ko: Yeah. It's good. I was going to get into flipping houses and stuff, and my wife's uncle, he's been doing that for the longest time. He's more specialized in the back taxes and all that kind of stuff. I've done it in a couple of counties before, and just a lot of work. I spent like 23 hours on the list, and I only got maybe one or two properties that I really wanted. It's a lot of work upfront and not so much on the return. Jill DeWitt: Yeah. You heard our people. A couple times ago, Dave V in our group, he said, "I never lost 20,000 dollars on a land deal, but start doing houses and everyone doing houses, they're not all perfect. A lot of them are really hard, and the return is ... " We did it, too. You know that, Eric. Eric Ko: We're good in the groove. Jill DeWitt: Yeah, we tried. I sat there and I really ... That was the defining moment when I really sat and added up all the hours and what I could've been doing. Jack Butala: Two dollars an hour. Eric Ko: Oh, wow. Jill DeWitt: Yeah, and I never really thought ... We had a 45-day move-in walls event, and that was my full-time job. Eric Ko: Yeah. Jill DeWitt: While I was doing that thing, I'm like, "This is really ridiculous for this little amount of money." Eric Ko: Right. I think it's kind of like what you guys were saying. It takes a certain personality. I have a couple of friends here in Las Vegas that does that for a living. I say, "Oh, this is kind of cool." I have no experience in real estate. I never was a realtor or anything, but I kind of liked the idea of [inaudible 00:03:41] investment. Always have been. I just dug a little bit deeper and found you guys. Jack Butala: Tell us, how long have you been in the business and when did you send your first mailer out? What was the response? Eric Ko: Yeah, I bought the program, I think it was in August 2016, and took me about two or three weeks to really learn about and go through the whole program,

Land Leases Feed Families for Generations (CFFL 498) Transcript: Jack: Jack Butala Jill DeWit. Jill: Hi. Jack: Welcome to our show today. This episode, Jill and I talk about land leases and how they feed families for generations. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members. On landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill: Okay. Jered asked, "I could use help from my fellow Land Academy peers. My CPA just sent over her LLC's tax return for the first year in the land business. She claims we need to pay taxes on the full profit of our term's deals up front. So if we purchase the land for $2,000 and sold it for $8,000 with payments over five years, she claims the IRS is clear that we need to pay the taxes on the $6,000, the 6k profit up front. With over 25 terms deals, that adds up to way more in taxes owed than revenue generated and would quickly put us out of the land business. We showed her the IRS tax code 453," this is smart, "with the unimproved land exemption but she claims it does not apply for certain reasons. Do any of you pay income tax on just the installment income as it comes, not all up front? Has this been approved by another CPA or am I or my CPA missing something?" Jack: Jered, this is an excellent question and all week I've been saying, we choose the hard questions for a reason. I want you to promise me and I want you to send me a note at [email protected]. Promise me that you're gonna go get a new CPA today. Jill: And that's the answer to the question? Jack: I can answer the question. I can get into this in great detail. I've gotten this question over the years. I had a former partner, Park McClusky, quite honestly who had the same problem with his tax person and he solved it by getting another one. It has to do with their- you have two choices on how you file. How you keep books. On an accrual basis and a cash basis and I'm not gonna get into it because I don't want to expose myself from a liability standpoint, but your CPA is wrong. How could you pay money that you haven't made yet? Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's what I think too 'cause what if the guy defaults on January 2? Jack: That's right. Exactly. Jill: That's not. You can't. Jack: So sometimes professional consultants like that are very, very, very academic and brainy. And they are extremely risk adverse and they have their nose in a book to the point where they don't even know what reality is. Jill: Right. Jack: A lot of professors are like that. And this person is wrong. Jill: Right. Jack: If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on landinvestors.com. Today's topic, land leases feed families for generations. I love this. Jill's got a beautiful story for us. This is the meat of the show. Jill: So we met this girl, we were at an event, where were we? I can't remember where, were we in Long Beach? I can't remember where we went. Jack: Yeah, exactly. Jill: Okay, it was a big investors group but they got all the investors from all over southern California really together. And they do this like twice a year. So I said, "Come on, Jack, let's go check it out. Let's just see who's here. See what this is all about. It's not just one group. It's all of the groups combined." Jack: I love these, I love going to these events by the way. Jill: You're being sarcastic. Jack: My answer to Jill was, "Oh my gosh, pick me. Can we go to another one of these? I love to talk to people about real estate." Jill: I know, but I drug you anyway. So that was funny. So anyway. So we arrive at this event and well it looks- well here's, this is the way Jack rolls too. So we get to the event, he's gotta eyeball it first and see if we're going in. Jack: That's right. Jill: So we're standing in line and Jack has to kind of peek in the room, do a quick little walk, check out the food and the beverage situation,

Velocity of Money in Cash & Terms Sales (CFFL 497) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt Jill DeWitt: Howdy. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about the velocity of money. Jill DeWitt: Okay. You are in big trouble now, mister. Jack Butala: I can't even get through the title. Jill DeWitt: Sorry. Go ahead. Jack Butala: The velocity of money and cash in term sales. Jill DeWitt: Okay. Jack Butala: I was avoiding my ... I was avoiding being scolded. Jill DeWitt: I just caught on from yesterday. You said yesterday the next show would not involve math. This is sounding like math. Jack Butala: It is. I'll try to make it interesting. That's the reason that we have you on the show, Jill, is so that you'll lighten everything up and make it interesting because if I just sit here, it's going to be like- Jill DeWitt: Could you imagine? Jack Butala: It's going to be like Ferris Bueller. Jill DeWitt: Wha, wha, wha, wha. What would the show be like all by yourself? Jack Butala: Anyone? Bueller? Jill DeWitt: All right. We'll make it good. Jack Butala: Right. Before we get into this, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWitt: All right. Jim asked, "I purchased a property in Archuleta County, Colorado, from a gentleman who acquired it through a tax lien situation. He provided me a warranty deed to convey the property to me, and a copy of the treasurer's deed he received when he acquired the property." This is sounding perfect right here. Jack Butala: This is a beautiful story so far. Jill DeWitt: This is perfect. Yeah. "I'm taking care of the filing and conveying the property to me. The question I have to do is do I need to file the treasurer's deed as well, or only the warranty deed? I thought it's just the warranty deed, but I want to check and be sure. Any help would be appreciated." Jack Butala: Go ahead, Jill. Jill DeWitt: You are correct, Jim, because the treasurer would have already recorded the deed. If you're not sure, look at it. Make sure there's a date, a page, and a stamp from the recorder on the treasurer's deed. It would be a fluke, freak, weird thing if there wasn't, but I'm sure there was. The treasurer would have recorded the deed themselves when they conveyed it to this gentleman. Now, your deed is the only one that needs to go in, so it's perfect. Jack Butala: Here's how a treasurer's deed gets generated. Somebody stops paying their taxes, and in this case, after a while time goes on. The taxing authority issues a lien on the property that says, "Hey, we're going to take your property if you don't pay these taxes. Now, you have a couple choices. You can pay the taxes or you can continue to blow us off. If you continue to blow us off, we're going to open this lien to be purchased by somebody, and they can foreclose on your property, and then they can own it. You can choose to pay, or you're going to lose your property." Every state's different. Every county's different, but those are the two things that happen. In this case, the guy is probably dead. Most tax liens are because people died, and their estate just doesn't care. Somebody purchased a tax lien and they went through the foreclosure process. A long time ago, a treasurer would do the deed for you. They would literally go through the whole process and the foreclosure. It's called an administrative foreclosure. They would issue you the deed when they were done. They would put notices in the newspaper and the whole thing. At the end of that, they issue a deed from the treasurer. That's why it's called a treasurer's deed. Really, in effect, what they did was quiet title the property for you for very little money. They don't do that much anymore because it's too expensive. The lawyers caught on and found out that it exposes them, and that there's all kinds of issues. Now,

ROI Expectations (CFFL 496) Transcript: Jack: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill: Hi! Jack: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about ROI, Return On Investment, expectations in the land business. Before we get in to it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill: Cool! Chad asked, "My first mailer was mailed out from LetterStream on June 12th. Today is the two week mark and there have not been any phone calls or emails coming in yet. I'm worried I may have done something wrong. How long after your mailers go out do you normally start getting calls or emails about your offers? I'm just excited and anxious to get this business off the ground. Even and angry call would make me happy right now. LOL!" Jack: Oh I can arrange that. Jill: Right. [Continues quoting Chad's question] "At least then I would know my offers made it out there to them. Any guidance or comments are much appreciated. Thanks in advance". Jack: Well Chad you nailed it, I mean you nailed it. You're gonna get an angry call any time real soon here. Like I said yesterday, we looked through a long list of questions that Jill and I get and I try to pick the toughest ones. The ones that are coming from skeptics or, you know ... we don't need a- Jill: Or just that need help. Jack: ... surround ourselves with a bunch of thank you notes, you know. So what you're feeling is very, very, very typical. It actually happened to me, it happened to Jill, it happens to everybody. You know your first time you just wonder, "What the heck", like you second-guess yourself. Right, like, "Did I do it right? Did I miss something?" Well here's the mechanics of it, and then I'll address the psychological piece of it after that, if Jill can stay awake. The mechanics is that you send your ... You get your mail merch done, probably through offers through owners, and the second that you submit it to LetterStream they either send it out that day in the mail or the next day. Now here's the catch; the post office is a government institution so it's very unpredictable and it's inconsistent. And if you send mailers out to a place like Illinois it's gonna take three times as long. If you send it out to the local county that you live in and you dropped it off at that LetterStream, put it at that post office, that local post office is gonna happen that day. So there's a big huge variance, to directly answer your questions, three weeks is not unheard of at all. Around three weeks to four weeks is when you're gonna start to get some real angry calls followed by a bunch of calls that are saying [inaudible 00:02:27] that's just kinda interesting. And then about six weeks you're gonna start getting signed offers back. If you price it right. Jill: And you send enough- Jack: Yeah. Jill: ... too. Jack: Yeah if you send 15 letters out, I will confirm your worst fear. Jill: And you hand wrote them. Jack: Right. 1500 is what you want to send out a month. Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack: So I think that answers the mechanics piece of it. The psychological piece is, you know, what your experience is ... The reason that there is a hundred thousand listeners in this show and about five hundred members, because people don't have what you have. They don't have ... Let's call it chutzpah on this rated G show. Jill: Chutzpah! Jack: They don't have the- Jill: I know. Jack: ... What is the number three [inaudible 00:03:12] call, huevos. You don't have the huevos, then don't get on the surfboard. You had the huevos to take it to this point. So you're gonna be fine. I've only- Jill: Stop. Jack: I've only had two situations, exactly two, that got back to me where people got stumped on a mailer and they called me and said, "I got stumped on a mailer. It's been six weeks, I didn't hear anything back". Or, "I got one signed offer back and I didn't wanna buy it".

Leave a Legacy Not a Liability (CFFL 495) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt. Jill Dewitt: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about leaving a legacy, not a liability. I gotta tell you Jill, this is not the most exciting topic. Jill Dewitt: Oh, it's going to be fun, I promise. Jack Butala: Before we get into it, I have a surprise for the listeners. Jill Dewitt: Uh-oh. Jack Butala: And for Jill. Jill Dewitt: Uh-oh. Jack Butala: Sitting waiting for a taco a couple of days ago and on the wall is an interview. A posted interview with questions for a local surfer here. Started to look at the questions and I said, "You know what, I should blindside Jill and ask her some of these interview questions because I think it would end up being pretty funny." Jill Dewitt: Oh, this is cool. Jack Butala: Question number one ... Jill Dewitt: Was I there? I'm like this is here's were this was. Jack Butala: No, it was before ten o'clock in the morning so you were still sleeping. Jill Dewitt: Oh, yeah. Jack Butala: Who inspires you the most Jill Dewitt? Jill Dewitt: Aw, my dad. Did you know that? Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill Dewitt: Oh, okay. Jack Butala: I knew it wasn't me. Jill Dewitt: Aw. Jack Butala: What's your greatest fear? Jill Dewitt: Oh, my children needing something and I can't be there. Jack Butala: Do you have any like ... Are you afraid of heights or water, anything of that stuff. Jill Dewitt: Oh, that kind of a fear? Jack Butala: Any of that stuff. Jill Dewitt: Oh, what's my greatest fear like that? Well, I'm not a fan of ... There's a lot of rodents and snake things that I don't like. Jack Butala: Oh, okay. Jill Dewitt: Oh, you know what? I got one, scorpions. I got stung by one once- Jack Butala: That was very specific. Jill Dewitt: And that scared the you know what out of me. Jack Butala: What's the last song you want to hear before you paddle out? Paddle out for the last time. Jill Dewitt: Everything Counts. Jack Butala: Oh, yeah. Depeche Mode ... Best Mexican restaurant? Jill Dewitt: Frank and Lupe's. Jack Butala: Awesome. Buddha or Jesus? Thinking I'd get into that. Jill Dewitt: Buddha. Jack Butala: Oh, this is a good one too. Buddha, really? Jill Dewitt: Yeah. Jack Butala: Good. Favorite piece of clothing ever owned? Jill Dewitt: Leather jacket. Jack Butala: Really? Do you still have it? Jill Dewitt: No, it didn't make the cut several years ago and I wish I still had it. Jack Butala: What's the- Jill Dewitt: It had fringe. Jack Butala: What's the farthest you've ever had to travel on foot? Jill Dewitt: Probably, on purpose, I like hiking and I've done some pretty long hikes. One by myself that I was- it was in Tucson in the foothills there. Jack Butala: So an eight of a mile. Jill Dewitt: Like seven ... No, it was going to these falls ... it was going to seven falls and it was several, several miles. It took four to five hours and I went by myself, and I didn't take a cell phone so my mom wasn't really happy with me when I got back and I told her. Jack Butala: So this is way back? Jill Dewitt: Yeah, it was way back. Jack Butala: Number of Facebook friends? Jill Dewitt: Goodness, I don't know. Jack Butala: This was designed for a surfer by the way. Like a famous surfer. Jill Dewitt: This is cool. I probably have, I don't, I probably just have a few hundred. Jack Butala: Worst tattoo you've ever seen? Jill Dewitt: Well, it was on someone's neck and it was misspelled. Jack Butala: What was it? Jill Dewitt: I want to say it was dignity or something like that, it was stupid. Yeah, It was bad. Jack Butala: Favorite Australian slang phrase? Or word? Jill Dewitt: Australian. Aussies. I don't know any Australians. They eat the ... shoot, I can't even think of the main stuff they eat.

How to Hack Your Time Management (CFFL 494) Transcript: Jack: Jack with Jill. Jill: Hey. Jack: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about how to hack your time management. What the heck is he going to talk about with this? Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill: Okay. Matt asked risks ... Oh, this is the topic of it, of this thread, which is with a question. Risks associated with letting people build an owner financed properties. Okay, so here's the question. I have a number of folks who have purchased properties from me that are coming back and asking me if they can make improvements on the properties before they pay off your loan to me. Jack: Congratulations, by the way Matt. You're doing everything right. If they want to build on a property that you sold them you're doing something right. Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack: Go ahead, Jill. Jill: Okay. I have it on all my contract that they cannot not make improvements on it until the loan is fully paid back and they have the deed for the property in hand. Some people are coming back and just wanting to clear the property of underbrush, some want to add a slave for their our RV, and others want to clear the property and build a home on it so they can move there. What risk a, I incurring if I allow folks I have on terms to do these things? Jack: Can I go first? Jill: Yeah. Jack: I can't say this ... I'm going to say it for more times probably before we're done answering this question. Congratulations for the types of property and the deals that you are doing where they want to build on it and they're visiting the property, and I love it, and they're thanking you, and they're calling you. You are doing every single thing right. The flip side of that is they go out, and see it and they hate it, and they want their money back. All right. So, that's a problem. You don't have a problem here. You have a fantastic situation for several reasons. What risks are you incurring? None, in my opinion. And I mean none. The only thing they can go wrong here is that they dump on the land, right? They put some, I don't know, a refrigerator with Freon in it or some messy environmental scenario but that's the only bad thing. So, now that we got the bad stuff out of the way, how do you win here? Let's say they don't pay the loan off. Now you own all the improvements that whatever they did to it, you own it. Jill: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love it. I'd love to have a slab on it that somebody did to drive their RV up on it. So I think that's the coolest thing on the planet. Jack: The more time they spend there, the more stuff that they do and they like it or whatever happens the higher possibility that they're going to pay the loan off. In fact, I would even venture to say this, and I've done this in the past with great success, "Oh, you know what Mr. Smith? If you really want to build a house, you want to clear the brush, an RV and you're going to use a property like you really intended, what do you say we cut a deal?" Jill: I was going to say the same thing. Yeah. Jack: How about I give you a 25% off if you just pay it off. Jill: Yep ,if you can afford to do that, then you can afford to do this. Jack: What do you say we just re-cut the deal and now you make 10 equal payments of $1000? All right, in 10 months and I'll deed it to you. Or something like that. Jill: Exactly. Jack: If you have an owner that...

Why use an Answering Service? (CFFL 493) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit! Jill DeWit: Hi! Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, which is Jill's episode, by the way, we talk about why to use an answering service. Jill DeWit: Yes. 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! Jill DeWit: All right. Justin asked, "I think I have an easy question, however, I have searched around for a bit with no luck." Thank you, Justin, for trying to solve your own problem first. I have to add that in. Jack Butala: That's the theme this week! Jill DeWit: That is the theme! He said, "What is time line to build? I see this a lot within advertisements and I'm asked by my customers, but I don't know. I'm assuming that's some type of restriction within certain HOA restrictions and I just haven't run across it yet- Jack Butala: Your assumption's right! Jill DeWit: ... thanks for any information." That's very true, so- Jack Butala: Do you want me to take this? Jill DeWit: Sure! Jack Butala: I usually see it as time limit to build. When somebody creates a master planned community, like Del Webb or Walt Disney ... literally, I'm not joking. Del Webb and Walt Disney were good friends, by the way. Jill DeWit: I didn't know that! Jack Butala: Del Webb created ... he's long gone, passed away. Jill DeWit: Were they together like in Florida or somewhere? Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Oh. Jack Butala: Yeah, Florida, Chicago, Arizona, California. Jill DeWit: That's interesting. Jack Butala: Like, Anthem is a master [inaudible 00:01:20] massive. Jill DeWit: Like did Del Webb follow him around and worry about property he build the homes? I would do that. Jack Butala: Walt Disney ... if you ever go on Netflix and watch the Walt Disney, his life story, he always had this theme park in the back of his head. He was an animator by trade, but he just had this thing in his head about a bunch of people coming and having fun and live ... and so he took it a step further, Del Webb did, took it a step further and- Jill DeWit: And said, "You should live at Disneyland," which I personally think is a great idea. Jack Butala: I'll bet you ... I bet Garden Grove is a Del Webb community. I'm gonna look this up. 'Cause which is where Jill is from, originally. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I don't know, it's a good question. Jack Butala: Anyway, that Del Webb wanted to take it a step further. "Let's just put all the retail and the fun stuff in the middle, and you can live in the suburbs, and then let's just ... by the way, let's just plot it all and let's, you know, subdivide it out all out the same ... with one stroke of the pen and throw an APN scheme there and we'll put the big houses over here with the townhouses over here, we'll put the ... " That's still in use today. "Let's put the industrial wasteland over here." That kind of thing. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: "Let's just plan it all out at once." Jill DeWit: Yeah. Jack Butala: Time limit to build is ...

How to Implement Infill Lot Offer Campaigns (CFFL 492) Transcript: Jack: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill: Good day. Jack: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to implement infill lot offer campaigns. This is, if you can't tell- Jill: It's really specific, I like it. Jack: One of my topics, not Jill's. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill: What's that supposed to mean? I wouldn't come up with something like this on my own? Jack: If it sounds like we're going to talk about something Tony Robinson talked about, I didn't come up with it. Jill: If it sounds like really- Jack: If it sounds like something Bill Gates would talk about, I probably came up with it. Jill: Okay. Fine. All right. Before we get into the HTML discussion about ... Just kidding. Okay. All right. Daniel asked, "I have tried to get a hold of the index maps from a few counties and have come up empty handed. Can anyone shed some more light on who is the best person at the County office to talk to in order to obtain these maps, or any additional information that may be helpful? Thanks." Jack: Excellent question Daniel. In fact it's topical, it's perfect to the topic today. So a lot of ... New people in counties don't understand, very frequently, what an index map is. And what an index map is, quite simply, is this. If you picture a map of a county there are certain areas ... When it got all subdivided, there are certain areas where the APN that starts with, let's say, 100 might be in the north east corner. The APN that starts with 200 might be in the south east corner. And it gets mapped out, it's a map that literally indexes the APN scheme based on the numbers. So, depending on where you are in the country, they don't call it an index map, they call it an APN map or a bunch of other stuff. Out west here they do call it index maps, which is why ... That's what we call it. But, let's say that you've talked to 19 people at the county and no one has any idea what you're talking about, here's what you do. This is really the show. This is the show. Jill: It's actually funny 'cause it's like ... You know what ... I gotta pause and interject here 'cause, you think you're ... I mean, let's be honest, they're real people. They may not have been there for a long time, they may be filling in for somebody, they may be brand new. They may just have not- Jack: They may be dizzy eating cake. Jill: They may just be in their own little world and all they do is stamp things 'cause that's all they do, and pass them to the next person. So, it's funny, you call the County and you think you're getting a wealth of information, like a formally trained librarian- Jack: Like a library, yeah. Jill: Exactly. It's not like the librarian. Sometimes you will find yourself educating the County person who answers the phone. Jack: You're interrupting them. Jill: Like this. Jack: You're interrupting their cake eating experience. Jill: Jack, would you stop that. It's not nice. 'Cause of one person. But, no it's not just one, but anyway. So, Jack. Jack: So, what do you do when no one knows what an index map is at the place where you're paying your taxes to pay their salary. Jill: Oh my gosh, here we go again. Boy. Jack: If you don't know what Redfin is,

How to Time Release an Offer Campaign Transcript: Jack B: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt. Jill D: Hi. Jack B: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about how to time release, in quotations, time release an offer campaign. Before we get into the topic, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com on-line community. It's free. Jill D: OK. Dave asked, it's regarding, do you want me to say the county? Jack B: Sure. He's put it in there. Jill D: Las Animas County, Colorado. Can't find the properties on Google Earth. I did a large mail order to Las Animas, is that right, Animas? Jack B: Yeah, you're saying it right. Jill D: And I'm receiving a huge number of accepted offers, However Las An, now he's, which I would too, does not a GIS system nor do they use GPS. So, this is just within the county, their information is what he's talking about. So you must view the legal description. Boy we've all been here. Some have the township range and section with northeast, northwest, etc. so you can find the quarter where the properties located and use the plat map to make a little better guess. However many of the properties that I have found, do not contain the township range section data. So you have to pull the county road map to find township and range. This is so good that he's doing all this, cause, man we've done this. [crosstalk 00:01:16] He's learning it. It's true. This is really, really good. Then view the plat map and maybe find the section. Still it's very hard to find the exactly the right parcel. Does anyone here who has worked with Las Animas already have any tricks that they have learned help with this? I have tried to call the assessor and ask for help, and they are clueless. No kidding. I'm thinking about driving there tomorrow, three and a half hours. Well, that's not going to help. Jack B: That's the answer. Jill D: I mean can you really stand there. How you gonna stand there and find it if you can't find it on the map? Jack B: Because you have a plat map. Jill D: But, how do you know where to drive? Jack B: So what the assessor's gonna say, this is a, book, cause it has a book and page. So every property ... Jill D: Oh driving through the county. That's true. In terms of the property, I'm like hold on ... Jack B: Let me start over. 99.8 % of the counties in the country are covered on parcelfact.com, which is one of our companies. So, and Las Animas is one of those that is not. Why is it not covered? Because the county is in the Dark Ages. Parcelfact.com and RealQuest Pro, for that matter, collect data from the county. Right? I mean they literally sometimes ... they have people walk in and collect data every month. Sometimes more than one time a month. And if the county's not willing to participate or they are so unorganized or non-computerized, then it's not included. But that's ... we always end up talking about the problem counties. Jill D: I know. Why is that? Jack B: Because, and Dave's right, you know. This is in the one-half of one percent of the counties that's not covered in the country. Which by the way, might be a reason why he's getting so many offers coming back, because nobody's [crosstalk 00:02:53] ... Jill D: This is very true. A huge number of offers cause no one is touching them. Jack B: By the way, Las An ... Jill and I have done incredibly well in Las Animas County over the years, flipping land. So what I've done in the past and I did it, this is long before parcelfact and any type of spatial product at all.

Solving Your Own Problems (CFFL 490) Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to the show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about solving your own problems. I can't wait, actually, to talk about this. Jill DeWit: Oh, I have a lot to say. Jack Butala: This is a Jill show, by the way. Jill DeWit: This is a Jill show. Jack Butala: Hey, 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. Steve wrote and asked, "Anyone have a marketing template they can share? Getting ready on my first one." Yay! "I'm under contract to close on my first deal and I want to start pre-marketing the property. It is recommended to systemize, and I'm wondering if anyone has a template that they use they'd be willing to share to speed me along and show me the best ways to organize the property data. Also was wondering if Snagit is the preferred way to do screen captures and any other recommendations on the latest tools for creating ads." Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWit: I think that the best template is the one we use in Land Pin. Jack Butala: Exactly. That's exactly how I was going to answer this. Jill DeWit: This is the reason we set that up. Steve is one of our members and users of Land Pin, so he has access to Land Pin. So Steve, follow that. That's really what you want to do. It gives you all the different things that you need to make ... When you post a property in Land Pin you have to check all the boxes and make sure that you don't forget to mention power, if there is any, and what kind of access there is and size of the property and your phone number. It's funny because we laugh. Some of these things you think are so basic, but we've all forgot them. I remember one a while back before we had Land Pin one of our members was real proud. He posted this property and he had put a note there for all his peers to say, "Hey, guys. I'm not getting any calls. Can you guys look at this and let me know what you guys think?" They said, "Yeah, you forgot your phone number." That's why he wasn't getting any calls. Seriously. It was really funny. It's like, oh, whoops. There's no way for anybody to reach you to buy your property. Anyway, it's kind of funny. That's what I would say. Then use that as a template as you post at other places until ... Do you want to explain what's coming, Jack? Until the future of Land Pin. I'll fill this in. I'll let Jack know. Just kidding. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Right now when you post on Land Pin, with the push of a button it goes to all sorts of social media. There's like five different ways there, as long as you have accounts and you link your accounts, which is really easy. Jack Butala: Super simple. Jill DeWit: It'll automatically post at all those places. Okay, check. Then, what's going to be added later on to Land Pin is all kinds of other things like do you want it on Craigslist? Do you want it on eBay? Do you want it on- Jack Butala: Land And Farm. Jill DeWit: ... Land And Farm? Jack Butala: LandWatch. Jill DeWit: All those things. Those things will be added later on. Jack Butala: If, by the way, you are not a member and you're in the business and you have property you want to sell, on Monday ... This show will air on the 23rd, Friday, June 23rd.

Time is Not on Your Side: It Kills Deals Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about time is really not on your side. It kills deals. To say it another way, time kills deals. I've been saying it for years. Before we get into it, lets take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Is that why you snatched me up so fast, Jack? Did you say, "Come with me, come with me. Don't make any decision, come with me", because you knew time would kill this deal? "Run away, run away with me." Jack Butala: Yeah, I think the acquisition of Jill DeWit probably had a lot of the same choices as buying a 40-acre property does. With lasting benefits. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Okay, here's the question ... Let's move on here. All right, Rod asks- Jack Butala: Nothing like personifying women. Women love to just ... I mean de-personifying, treating them like an object. God, I'm going to get some email for that. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: You don't want to do that ever. Women hate that. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: Do they hate it? Jill DeWit: Yes. Jack Butala: You look like a gorgeous statue. Do you hate that? Jill DeWit: Yeah, I don't want to look like a statue. Makes me think I'm cold and like, cold. Jack Butala: You're just gorgeous, and that's it. Stop right there. Jill DeWit: Yes. Leave it at that. You can never go wrong with, "You look nice in those pants." Jack Butala: Oh, okay. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Jack Butala: We should do a whole show about this- Jill DeWit: "Your ass looks perfect." Jack Butala: Oh my gosh, you can't swear on the show. Save it for [crosstalk 00:01:28] - Jill DeWit: I didn't, it's body part. Okay, moving on. Rod asks ... He's asking about finding GPS coordinates. He's like, "Okay, I read ... I know in the new member guide it says you can get GPS coordinates from TitlePro247. How does this work?" I have something even better. Here's the thing ... Yes, if you go through steps and ... A few are free, and then you have to start paying, because we pay for some for you. You can download a property report within TitlePro247- Jack Butala: Which is very laborious, and- Jill DeWit: It is. It's six pages- Jack Butala: I you're looking at ... If you're reviewing ten properties in a portfolio to buy, that's going to take [crosstalk 00:02:13]- Jill DeWit: This is not the way to do it. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Back before we had this ... What I'm going to share with you in a second ... Back before we had this other tool, it was a good resource, if you had to back-up. Here was the problem: A, it costs money, it takes time, it's not the best way to do this, you can't do ten at a time real quick, and it only gives you the settle point. Now we have something better. So, Rod, don't even bother. Move on from here, use Parcel Fact. I can sit and put in 10, 15, 20 properties ... I mean, I can whip through them, because I'm putting in county, APN. I see it, yes. County APN, I see it, no. County APN- Jack Butala: It's that fast-

Stay the Course , No Distractions. Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit. Jill Dewit: Hi there! Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about why you really need to stay on course, or stay the course, with no distractions. It's harder than it sounds. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members, on the landinvestors.com community. It's free. Jill Dewit: Okay. I love how this is worded. Brian has a head scratcher on his hands. Jack Butala: (laughs). Jill Dewit: I'm not sure if that was in success plan, or the producer added that, but I felt that was good. Jack Butala: Thank your producer. Thank your producer, Aubrey. Jill Dewit: Said, "A widower wants to sell me her property. It's a nice deal. Husband is on the title, but this is California and they were husband and wife as joint tenants. However, original title has the property equally divided between them, as man and wife, and another single man." So, where'd that third guy ... wow ... Jack Butala: So here's the thing ... Jill Dewit: Where'd that third guy come from? Jack Butala: Yeah. There's the deed that you're staring at because you want to do the deal right? That's called the vesting deed. Whatever that document says is what you deal with. You do not deal with anything before that. So if you're going to buy a car, and you're going to buy it from John Smith, whoever owned that car, in that long chain of title if its an old car, it doesn't matter. All you care about is John Smith. So it sounds to me like the husband, the dead husband and the woman own the property as joint tenants, which really means the woman owns 100 percent of the property and she can convey it. Jill Dewit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack Butala: Even though the guy's dead. That's why you do it in joint tenants; in case somebody dies, the other person gets all the power. The other person gets the equitable title, to be technical about it. So let's forget about who this other guy [crosstalk 00:01:53] or whether they were single ... it's not 1958. Jill Dewit: Right. Jack Butala: People don't take title as man and wife any longer. Jill Dewit: Exactly and another thing ... So you're talking about, you're assuming that Brian's gone back a level too far and worrying about what transactions to go? Jack Butala: That's what it sounded like to me. Jill Dewit: Okay. Jack Butala: So here's the thing about these deeding questions. They almost can all be answered with this answer: look at the vesting deed and copy it. Right? Jill Dewit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack Butala: And copy it to the deed that you're producing or make sure that, when you check the title agents work that they're copying it. There's no changes. Don't make this complicated and always, always if you have a question call the recorder. Jill Dewit: The county. Right. Jack Butala: And if they can't answer it, ask them for the name of an attorney. Jill Dewit: Well let me ... Jack Butala: They all can be answered like that. Jill Dewit: Let me explain one thing too about the assessor, what they do, because if this has been recorded and done, and its been in this way ... let's just say five years.

Land Tank: Shark Tank for Land Investors. Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today in this episode Jill and I talk about Land Tank ... it's shark tank for land investors. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on land investors dot com online community, its free! Jill DeWit: OK Chuck ask, "I just ran into this on my latest large data download. Ouch. About 90% of the results in the data set had mobile homes on the parcels with zero percent improvement identified in the filter. From now on I will be checking a few APN on the county GIS before downloading. Jack Butala: Ding, Ding, you don't get burned twice on this stuff. Jill DeWit: Yes, this is true. You should only make this once. This is the first time I have gotten stung after downloading boat loads of data from previous mailers, lesson learned. That's true. What I love is this is the beauty of success plan, a few people have chimed in here and I'm going to read some of their responses. Jack Butala: It's a forum. Jill DeWit: Uh, hum. So, Eric added "You know in most states mobile homes are treated the same as cars, not considered real estate. They are registered like cars and are not considered attached to the land thus not an improvement." Jack Butala: I'm going to repurpose a blog that I wrote a really long time ago and make it available on this pod cast ... in the notes area of this pod cast, in all 50 states how mobile homes are treated. Jill DeWit: OK Jack Butala: Because he's right, some are treated like cars, some are personal property, some are actually real estates, very few. Jill DeWit: Exactly, to me, I'm going to give a couple more comments here, Luke chimed in and said "I have seen that in some New Mexico counties. Can you start by the access value or the taxes or some other data there to see if the vacant or mostly vacant stuff comes to the surface of the data. Just skim the top of the list and mail them instead of mailing all the houses unless you are trying to buy houses." That's all another thing, too. And then the last thing he added is, "Or sort by bedrooms or square foot and cut off the ones that have house data." All good tips. Jack Butala: This is why Luke is making six digits a month doing this ... High six digits I might add, probably more. That's what he'll admit to. We see how much data he pulls and we see what he sells on land p[inaudible 00:02:28] And its staggering. Jill DeWit: Right. Jack Butala: That is exactly, 100 percent correct, Luke. You have to look at this data creatively. Just like Kathleen yesterday. Look at the data creatively and make it work to your benefit. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: You know, the first thing I would start thinking about is "Hold on a second, this county is all mobiles? And I got a mobile list? Now I have a mobile list everybody?" Jill DeWit: I'm really happy with that. [crosstalk 00:02:59] I'm like "Hold on a moment everyone. Exactly, this is not a bad thing. Jack Butala: Now I'm going to start selling some mobile homes. Jill DeWit: The same people who buy land, rule vacant land by mobile homes. Trust me, I know this from decades of experience. If you mix some of those in you are going to do great. Jack Butala: Man! Jill DeWit: I love buying and selling mobile homes.

How Much Capital Do I Need to be an Equity Partner? Transcript: Jill DeWit: Jill DeWit with Jack Butala! That's where you say hello. Jack Butala: Hello. Jill DeWit: Welcome to our show. We flipped it and Jack's like, "I don't know what to do." In this episode, Jack and I talk about how much capital you need to be an equity partner. I'm curious what you're going to say here. Jack Butala: I love talking about equity. Jill DeWit: I know. First, let's take a question, posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community. Right now, aka Success Plant, and it's free. Jack Butala: So Kathleen asks, and this is a really good question, I picked this question out of Success Plant, "In a recent RealQuest search, in which improvement percentage was set to zero", when you set your improvement value to zero, what you're looking at is land, it isn't real estate with no improvements on it, it's land, "I found parcels with definite improvements, McMansion type built improvements. Before downloading the records, I checked a few of the APNs on the counties GIS satellite images." God, Kathleen's come a long way. Jill DeWit: She's so good. Jack Butala: Excellent work. I would do exact same thing. "Satellite images found that many of these parcels had real improvements, not mobile homes, but real brick and mortar, with existing permits in place. You might remove the quote unquote 'SFR', single family residential, under the land-use criteria, I still get records showing some serious improvements: large houses with very large houses, et cetera. It seems that the 0% improvement criteria is not yielding land, only parcels. I checked eight different APNs, and they all had very nice improvements. It may just be this county, but has anyone else run across this same issue? I'm not sure why I'm getting these results." Okay. There's a reason I picked this lengthy, potentially boring ... Jill DeWit: Tell us, Jack. Jack Butala: ... question. Data, and I'm sure, by now, Kathleen has not even spent a dime on this data, she's just doing research to do a download for a potential mailer. The deal is this: RealQuest has an agreement with 3200 counties, and they all have messy data, and they all use different ways. People at RealQuest download the data each month, or more often than that, from the assessor, and they have to work within a very definite structure, a data structure. Picture Excel, with a bunch of columns, and they have to jam data in there, so the problem may be that the data is jammed in the wrong column, which is very, very unusual, or number two, that county really does do things differently. 0% doesn't mean 0%, or they have some cockamamie scheme about how it all works. Here's my advice: move on to the next county, or try to find the consistency where the land is indicated somehow in their data set, and then use it that way. Jill DeWit: And then you can be the only one that's figured out that county, and that's not a bad thing. Jack Butala: And that's the last thing I was going to say, and Jill's exactly right, so now, you're at a massive competitive advantage, because no one's going to take that extra step. Well, Kathleen always takes 19 extra steps in everything she does, and I mean that as a compliment. No one is going to hit those properties, they're not going to look that hard into it. Jill DeWit: They won't figure it out. Jack Butala: Exactly. My hat's off to you. Jill DeWit: You know, and that's ... Jack Butala: I love these challenges,

How to Survive an Inevitable Economic Downturn Transcript: Jack Batell: Jack Batell with Jill DeWitt. Jill DeWit: Good day! Jack Batell: Welcome to our show today. On this episode, Jill and I talk about how to survive the inevitable economic downturn. Can you make this show fun, Jill? Jill DeWit: You know, I would just like to point out just once again like every show, I'm here on time, happy with bells on. Jack Batell: Oh my God. Jill DeWit: Acutally, today I was on time. Jack Batell: This is the first time you've been on time ever. Jill DeWit: Well, wait a minute. Jack Batell: Actually. Jill DeWit: For you on time is early. So, that means I was early. So that ... It's only taken me how many years to figure that out about you? Jack Batell: Before we get into this, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the www.landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Allan asked, "I've got a seller who's skeptical about cashier's checks," and wants to know what kind of work work arounds aren't a lot of trouble. Especially since it's a $2,000 deal. Jack Batell: What's the view? What do you think about that? It doesn't happen to me. This is a not so infrequent. It's a very good question, by the way. And not a very infrequent problem. Jill DeWit: I don't understand why people are not comfortable with cashiers checks. Jack Batell: So for the record cashiers checks are like money, by the way. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Batell: It's green money. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Batell: It's pulled out of your account when you get it. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Jack Batell: And by the way, it says right on there it's only valid for 90 days and then it's not but that's a bunch of malarkey. Jill DeWit: Well you know what then. Jack Batell: I've deposited cashiers checks like big ones, like three years later. Jill DeWit: Oh really? Jack Batell: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Okay I recently had a check that didn't go through but we won't go there. But it was not a cashiers check though. That's probably why. Jack Batell: Really? Jill DeWit: Yeah, it's okay, it was 100 bucks. I could care less. But with a cashiers check ... Jack Batell: So good that I don't know about that. Jill DeWit: Exactly. This to me is kind of where does a guy want a money order? I mean what does a guy want? Jack Batell: Probably. Jill DeWit: I mean you could almost do green cash. I just am not comfortable sending that in the mail. Because ... Jack Batell: I wouldn't. Jill DeWit: Because you're not ... Cause LEt me back up. How would the transaction is usually played out is the person, the seller, is stand there with a notary and the deed and the seller is agreeing to sign a deep right then and there in from of the notary for the transfer of the property and at the same time, the notary's handing the seller a cashiers check. Jack Batell: The buyer. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Selling to seller. I'm talking ... It's a seller so he's buying it.

Why Debt is the Root of All Evil Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi! Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today! In this episode Jill and I talk about why debt is the root of all evil. Maybe literally. Before I get into it, let's take a question posted by one of members on the Landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Nick asked, "My initial offer was $6,500 but I paid $7,500 and all of closing." Jack Butala: For a piece of real estate. Jill DeWit: Right. It's a 20 acre piece of real estate. Now I'm in for $8,520. Love it. My sales price is $18,499. I decided I would go down to $17,000 I four buyer negotiated. Well, Nick has got an offer. The buyer offered $15,000 and they pay all closing costs, which is approximately $1,000 - $1,200. All right. Nick says, "I want to double my money, but $6,500 net is nothing to turn my nose up to." Jack Butala: No it's not. Jill DeWit: This is right. Nick, I think you kind of won. Jack Butala: I think you knocked it out of the park. Jill DeWit: I think you're fine. Are we really going to say? Oh man, I mean 85, I really want to double my money. And extra $2,000 I can say I doubled my money. But come on, I think we did just fine. This is the thing that we always talk about, on what planet and in what industry can you still get something north of 50% profit consistently. Jack Butala: Consistently. Jill DeWit: It's not the norm. Don't ... you did nothing wrong. Don't get greedy and don't hold out, don't say I'm going to pass on this offer because I'm going to hang out for 18.5 and just sit on it for six months. Don't do that. Take the money, reinvest, and do it again, and again, and again. Jack Butala: Right. So you're going to get $15,000 in a couple of weeks or lets say just 30 days. It looks like if their closing costs like that, you're going to escrow. Which I think you really can reduce by the way. $1,000 - $1,200 for closing a property like this is way too much. Should be closer to $300. Anyway, you're going to get a $15,000 check here soon. You'd better be ready and know, here's a key to really maximizing your profit. It's not about this one deal, you've just to keep using that $15,000. You make that $15,000, $20,000. And then 25, then 30, then 50, then 150, then 250. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack Butala: $250,000 is right around the corner if you keep this attitude that you have right here. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Jack Butala: And a personal preference thing. We have members that we can call all the time, Jill and I, they wouldn't do this deal they pound on their desk, my sales price is $17,000 and that's it. Then six months later, they're like, "I should have taken that $15,000 offer." Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And that's okay. What was I going to say? I love when I hear people, this situation. Even right now, he's like, "Guys, should I take this?" Heck yeah! We've had people often on our weekly member calls that are saying, "I screwed it all up with these numbers." We're like, what do you mean you screwed it all up? Hello? Let's do the math together, shall we? This is winning. You did fantastic, this is an awesome deal. Go. Jack Butala: Here's what I always say to member. Jill DeWit: Keep doing it. Jack Butala: Or people I'm talking to, I always say, "If there are 10 deals exactly like this right now, would you do the deal? Instead of $6,500 net it's $65,000 net.

How to Use an Equity Partner. Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi there. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to use an equity partner. I love this topic, Jill. 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: A.K.A success plant right now if you're looking for it. Okay. Lane, this is so funny, one of ... Lane replied to a question with a funny comment here that we wanted to share, and the topic of discussion is Don't F with Johnny Cokrin, my first hate call. This is really funny. Lane said, "I received a message today that said, 'So, you offered me ...'" This sounds like a voicemail, "' So, you offered me $3,000 for my property? If you maybe put five zeros in front of that three then maybe I'll think about it. Are you a dumb A, blank, blank?' Then, his wife said in the background, 'I think you meant put five zeros behind the three, you are the dumb A, blank, blank.'" Then, the man hung up. He said, "I wanted to send her flowers." Jack Butala: I would have sent her flowers. Jill DeWit: That was so funny! Jack Butala: You never address, send her flowers. Jill DeWit: "Put five zeros in front of that three and I'll think about it." Yeah, I'll day long. God, that is good. Jack Butala: This just goes to show you that the worst thing that can happen when you send a ton of offers out is it get some kind of comment like this. You can't pay for this kind of entertainment. I'll pay $.49 to have somebody call me and say this kind of stuff all day long. It's funny! Jill DeWit: Well, and here's the reality, we all think our asset is priceless. Let's be honest. I can't tell you the people I've talked to in this situation and then they find out nobody is going to pay $3,000,000 for it but they'll pay $3,000. They eventually, not all the time obviously, but they come around sometimes and they realize, "Yeah, I guess it is worth X. I thought it was worth something else." Jack Butala: There is such thing as priceless assets, believe me. Jill has some priceless assets, trust me. So do you, listener. Jill DeWit: Thanks. Jack Butala: With your knowledge on how to manipulate data to send offers out, that's a priceless asset that's going to return on its investment forever. But I'll tell you what a priceless asset is not, it's not a piece of real estate. A piece of real estate is only good ... the value of that real estate is only as good as what people are willing to pay. Forget about comparison values, forget about all the stuff that your parents told you, forget it. Someone's willing to pay X for a piece of real estate? That's what it's worth. This guy is off his rocker and that's why it's so funny. His wife knows it too. Jill DeWit: Well, you know what the bottom line? Well, the guy just doesn't want to sell. That's the thing and that's fine, and that's what a lot of it is. People will give you an astronomical price because they really don't want to sell, but if it's an astronomical offer, they would consider leaving their dream home kind of thing because they can create it again. Jack Butala: That's right. Jill DeWit: That's usually why they do stuff like that, and that's fine. They don't want to sell? Move on. Don't hit them with another mailer or don't beat their door, they clearly are not interested. Move on. Jack Butala: I'll tell you what, and I'm speaking for my friend Joe here, that guy is a seller, all right?

Fewer Details, More Mindset Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt. Jill DeWitt: Good day. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how fewer details, and more big picture mindset, is going to get you where you need to be. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of members on the LandInvestors.Com, online community. It's free. Jill DeWitt: This question ties in perfectly to what I'm talking about today. Pete asked, "The vesting deed reads, "Lazy KV Estates, block gg, lot 4C, $250." On the investor's website they have it written, for the legal description as, Lazy KV Estates, filing number three, block gg, lot 4C, containing 3.5 acres, rec number...You guys get the picture, FKA, frequently known as lots four, five, six." Jack Butala: Fascinating stuff. Jill DeWitt: "Any advice on which one I should use? Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered. It's my first deal," key there. "So I'm a little nervous about making a mistake." Jack Butala: All right. You get a free pass, Pete, cuz it's your first deal. Jill DeWitt: Right. So number one; don't get hung up on details. Number two; the vesting deed, to me, looks wrong because the $250. We never have dollar amounts on properties, what we paid. Jack, I know, is going to explain more on that so, do you want to jump in here first? Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWitt: All right. Jack Butala: Let's answer the question; which one should we use. Jill DeWitt: The assessors website legal description. Jack Butala: I disagree. I love when we disagree about some of this stuff. Jill DeWitt: Really? Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWitt: I'm not gonna put that 250 bucks on there. Jack Butala: Here's why. We all know, Jill's right, by the way. Jill's right. The assessor's database has a correct legal description, but the recorder, if they review it at all, is really gonna have a lot to say about the legal description not matching the vesting deed. So the answer is this. Jill and I are both right. Call the recorder, and ask them. Jill DeWitt: Make sure. Jack Butala: The right way to do it is the actual legal description from the database. But there could be some confusion depending on how the recorder feels about it. Jill DeWitt: The bottom line is Pete, whoever did that vesting deed, clearly did it wrong. Jack Butala: That's right. That's exactly right. Jill DeWitt: That's where the confusion started. Whoever did the deed, obviously it's like they made up some of their own information, and why they added the money on there is weird. You never do that. I have never in my life seen a vesting deed, or a deed of any kind, that has a dollar amount in a legal description. That's not what that's for too. The legal description is to describe where the property is. That's really what it is. It's a technical term, and sometimes legal descriptions will be like this; they'll have a size in there. They will have a subdivision name, and a lot, and that information, and sometimes they go way back to meets and bounds. Or they'll even go to; beginning at this tree on this hill, if you really want to go way back. That used to be how they described them in some situations; 40 paces to this rock, to this corner, to that. Jack Butala: In Texas, it's all based on where the railroad tracks are agrily. It's not a meets and bounds state.

How to diversify risk in real estate Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello! Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about how to diversify your risk in real estate. Before we get into that let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Brent asked, "My very first mailer is a trouble maker." Funny. "Looking for a way to find a plat map of Rancho Rio Grande, Socorro County New Mexico. The county's useless. Any thoughts?" Oh I have a lot. Jack Butala: If I had a nickel for every property that I ever purchased in Rancho Rio Grande, oh wait I do. Jill DeWit: You have more than a nickel. Jack Butala: Jill and I flipped thousands of deals and there's three subdivisions right in Socorro County. Thousands and thousands of properties we've purchased and sold. In fact one time I went there and got all the plat maps in the county. Literally all of them. This is before we- Jill DeWit: Back in the day. Jack Butala: This is before ... Jill's going to solve your problem here. But a long time ago you had to go there. Get on an airplane, go there, collect all the maps and ship them back so you could deal with it, and then take photocopies of them. This is how long ago that was. Jill DeWit: And then later on it became much, much easier where you could call them up and you could write a letter and enclose an old fashioned check. Literally, seriously, I've done that and mailed the check to them and then wait two weeks for them to mail the map back to you. Jack Butala: Now what do you do? Jill DeWit: Now it's so much easier. Well I got two ways. Well number one the reading your using ... You need a plat map traditionally is because you can't find the property. So I would first go to ParcelFact - Jack Butala: Ding ding! Jill DeWit: And look up the property. Jack Butala: Oh you're the girl for me. Jill DeWit: Thank you my guy. It's not been really advertised but I'm telling you now it's alive and well. Everybody needs to go to parcelfact.com. Jack Butala: F-A-C-T, parcel F-A-C-T .com. Jill DeWit: Yeah, and put in state county APN. Knock yourself out. Or put in the address. Jack Butala: Jill and I just spent tens of thousands of development dollars and a ton of time and why? Why would we do that for this tool? Here's why. Because for 20 years we've been struggling with exactly what Brent is talking about. Now every single property, 148 million properties with the exception of a few counties, is covered. All you do is put the APN in. The state county and the APN and there's your map. Jill DeWit: I have two more things too to add if you don't mind. Brent, if you're really dead set on having a plat map because you like to put it in your postings and look cool ... Jack Butala: He's not going to sell it any faster. Jill DeWit: I know. But it does look cool if you have the plat map and they can see that. Jack Butala: Does it look cool? Jill DeWit: Oh I think- Jack Butala: Are plat maps cool Jill? Jill DeWit: Plat maps are cool yeah. Plat maps are cool. Jack Butala: You are now officially a geek. Jill DeWit: I know. Okay so let's just say Brent,

Captain Obvious and First Mate Jill Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show this early morning. In this episode, Jill and I talk about Captain Obvious and his first mate. We have some good stories from his show that we went to. A live that we went, Real Estate show, that we went to last night. Jill DeWit: You know what, it's early for us, but it's not early for everybody listening. They don't know how early we're recording today. Jack Butala: Before we get into this Captain Obvious business. Jill DeWit: It's early. Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jonathan asked: "Do real estate transactions in South Carolina need to be supervised by an attorney?" Jack Butala: Well Jonathan, thank you for asking this question. I actually did a little bit of research to very thoroughly, and hopefully conclusively, put this topic to rest for everyone. It comes up probably once every other week. It certainly comes up on a ton of the Wednesday, er excuse me, Thursday webinars that Jill and I do every week, which you're welcome to join by the way. If you go to landinvestors.com, it shows you how. But here, I'm gonna read directly from a couple of statutes and the states in question are generally as follows: Alabama, Delaware, New York, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, which is the question, and a little bit of a version in Massachusetts. Here's the deal. Like being a real estate agent, all of these statutes are written for people who represent other people in real estate transactions, like a real estate agent. If you're representing yourself, which is really not even accurate to say. If you're doing your own deal, you do not, generally, need an attorney. Supervised by an attorney means that there's an unrelated, uh everybody's unrelated. The seller's unrelated. The buyer's unrelated. So let me read, this made it real clear for me, let me read you this sentence out of the Alabama Statute: "In Alabama, non-attorneys can conduct closings", period. Non-attorneys can conduct closings. However, there are restrictions both in Alabama Code and a case law on what activities a non-attorney can perform related to the closing. The section code, defined by the practice law, permits a non-attorney to prepare title abstracts and issue title insurance, provided the non-attorney does not prepare deeds or other legal documents unless the non-attorney has a proprietary interest, that's us, in the property. I know this is a little bit boring. It's really boring for Jill, you should see her right now. Jill DeWit: Oh my goodness. Eyes glossed over. Jack Butala: Doing your own deals every morning? Jill DeWit: Counting ceiling tiles. Jack Butala: If you're doing your own deals, you're gonna be okay. Once in a while, we get reports of rogue recorders, county recorders, saying you can't submit your own deal. That's just not true. Jill DeWit: Right. Jack Butala: Can you do it in South Carolina supervised by an, and need to be supervised by an attorney, Jonathan? Conclusively, I believe that if you walk in the county and deed a property to your brother-in-law, you're gonna be okay. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- We know it and one that you and I, that you're famous for reminding us Jack is. Jack Butala: It's Captain Obvious, by the way. Jill DeWit: It is Captain Obvious.

Never Maximize Land Sales Price Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hey there. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about why it's never a good idea to maximize your land sales price. What? Jill DeWit: What? Why would I leave money on the table, Jack? That sounds crazy. Jack Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: That's crazy talk. Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the LandInvestors.com online community, its free. Jill DeWit: Amy asked, "Okay doin' some research here, I've looked at back tax websites and lists, where do I go now?" Jack Butala: Like where do you find it? Jill DeWit: Actually, maybe that's what she's asking, that could be it. Where do I go? Jack Butala: There's a few places on the internet. Jill DeWit: Where do I get this information? Why do I need it? You what, can I make this two parts, Jack? Jack Butala: Yeah, sure. Jill DeWit: I would like to explain why the heck we even want this information, 'cause we all know we don't just mail back tax properties so, why do I even need this information? And then where do I go to get it? Jack Butala: It's always a good idea to feel out or test for reason the back tax situation in a given county, like for some reason in northern Utah and Idaho there are no back tax sales ever. It's been like that since I've been in the business in the 90s, I don't know why. Jill DeWit: I have a guess but I'm not gonna say on here. What if its- Go ahead. Jack Butala: So, in general, this may or may not be true, but in general for us, where there's no back tax issues, no back tax properties in any way, properties don't go back, there's no real opportunity for rock bottom price. The business that we're kind of in, scrapin' the bottom of the real estate market. Can you buy houses there for a lot less than they're worth, heck yes. Can you buy land there for a lot less than its worth, yeah but you can't do it in a scrape the bottom, $100 an acre fashion. What we teach is, feel out the county to see if there's a bunch of back tax, like Mohave county, Arizona's got like 48,000 back tax properties. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Jack Butala: And we do really well there. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Jack Butala: And so do some of our members. That's why its important. Jill DeWit: It's an indicator. Jack Butala: It's an indicator. Well, once again, less than one sentence. Jill DeWit: 'kay. Jack Butala: If you listened to the show yesterday- Jill's behind the bookcase right now. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Thanks a lot. "Hi, over here, its me." Jack Butala: So, where the hell do you get this information? I got tired of answering this question so, I posted it on LandAcademy permanently. If you go to the resources section on LandAcademy.com and look for back tax lists, you'll click on it and there's an XML table in there of like 24,000 lines of data- Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative) Jack Butala: For historical back tax, which counties have 'em, which counties don't. Just search for that county name and you'll see it in there, it'll indicate it. It'll help you chose a county about where to mail.

Reporting Requirements as a Private Land Partner Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today and this episode, Jill and I talk about the reporting requirements as a private land money partner. Jill DeWit: I'm going to do my best- Jack Butala: (Laughs)- Jill DeWit: to make this not boring- Jack Butala: Thank you- Jill DeWit: Just the title is boring. Jack Butala: Thank you. Jill DeWit: Hoo. Jack Butala: Thank you, thank you. Jill DeWit: That's why I'm here. Jack Butala: This is a direct request from a member. Jill DeWit: Hoo. Jack Butala: Very successful member. What do I have to do? I have a bunch of money now and I would rather, there's people coming to me and they want partner some deals with me. What are the reporting requirements? It's a good question. It's worthy of a whole episode. Jill's going to make it not boring. Jill DeWit: Sheesh. (Laughs). Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members before we get into it. On the landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: This is a very interesting question here that Robert asked, "Is it a good idea to have an accountability partner?" And my first thought is, "Is that another word for a wife?" (Laughs). Jack Butala: (Laughs). Jill DeWit: Oh baby, that's a bad idea. I'm going to hold you accountable for that. Don't do it. (Laughs). Jack Butala: Did you ever see that, there's a scene in the movie called "As Good as it Gets" with- Jill DeWit: I know the movie. Jack Butala: And he's- Jill DeWit: Helen Hunt. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: And Jack Nicholson. Jack Butala: Exactly. And he's a writer and so this woman walks up, who's read all his books, and just looking at him in awe. She says, "How do you write women so well?" And he looks at her and says, "I think of a man and I remove reason and accountability." (Laughs). Jill DeWit: I forgot that. Is that really the line? Jack Butala: That's the whole line. Jill DeWit: Oh no. Jack Butala: (Laughs). Jill DeWit: Gheeze, okay. Jack Butala: Well I can see where this show's going. Jill DeWit: Ah-ha. (Laughs). Jack Butala: (Laughs) I don't know what Robert means here. Jill DeWit: I- Jack Butala: [inaudible 00:01:45] A partner who's accountable? Jill DeWit: I think that someone that's checking all the boxes and making sure you're, and it actually ties into this show. Is it a good idea to have a partner who's making sure everything gets done correctly? And I would have to say, "Yes." Do I really want someone coming and knocking on my door because I'm not filing the right papers or not doing things the right way? No. You don't want to do it after the fact. Jack Butala: This is how I live my life. I don't ever do anything where I don't know what the outcome's going to be. Jill DeWit: Oh we are so different- Jack Butala: I know we are.

How to Predict a Real Estate Price Dip Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to predict a real estate price dip. That's a nice way to say it, price dip, versus catastrophic downturn is how I would have written it but I didn't write the title of this. Jill DeWit: Love it. 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. Jill DeWit: Okay. Kevin asks, "Do you look up the zoning before buying, or ever?" Jack Butala: 100% of the time I do. Jill DeWit: I do too. You know what, I try to do it right at the head of time too when I'm downloading the data, I'm including the zoning for the properties that I want. I'm not going to put in there any federal land or, I don't know, anything crazy in there. Industrial. I'm not going to include that in my data set when I'm downloading it. You better believe before I pull the trigger I double-check it and make sure it's residential or something like that. Jack Butala: Jill and I just released a website called parcelfact, F-A-C-T.com ,and it's literally, you type in an APN or assessor's parcel number on any property in the country, you know, the state, country APN, and it pulls up all the assessor data, including a map with the corner points and everything. And one of the things on there is zoning. Let me tell you a real quick story. If somebody signs a letter for a one acre property that you send out, signs an offer and they send it back, it's like opening a gift at Christmas for me. And then, if the zoning is like RV over like single-family residential or mobile home, then it's like that's the cherry on top of the cupcake. Because mobile homes are gold in our business. Mobile home lots and RV lots are gold in our business. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: Not only do I look it up before buying, I look it up right when we're making a decision whether or not to say, "Heck yes." Jill DeWit: It's too easy to look at that all at the same time when you're doing your due diligence. You're pulling up the zoning, you're checking where they stand on their back taxes. Jack Butala: It's too easy. Jill DeWit: Is there an HOA? All that good stuff. Are you recording me? Jack Butala: No, I believe it. Jill DeWit: I'm like "Are you making fun of me?" Jack Butala: No, you have a natural ability to make things in less than one sentence, really make sense. Jill DeWit: Oh, thank you. Jack Butala: And I have a natural ability to complicate the hell out of everything. Jill DeWit: What'd you just say? Jack Butala: It's too easy. Jill DeWit: Thank you. Jack Butala: It's too easy to just look it all up all at once and get excited or throw it away. Jill DeWit: Check all the boxes, now I'm going to get serious about it. That's what I do, Kevin. Jack Butala: If you got a question or you want to be on ... You should have a list of stuff that you look at before you buy and check it off. Jill DeWit: I do have a list. Jack Butala: I know you do. You listeners should have a list, no you, Jill. Jill DeWit: Exactly. When it's you acquisition criteria.

Best Data Driven Businesses Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Good day. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. Jill DeWit: Thank you, Jack. Jack Butala: In this episode, Jill and I talk about the best data-driven businesses and why they succeed. Turns out, we have one of them, and so do our members. 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. Matt asked, "I have the option to purchase a property that happens to be to have a small duplex on it that hasn't been used in years and is likely a tear down. Thoughts?" Jack Butala: Buy it. Jill DeWit: Goal. Score. Jack Butala: Here's why. Anything that differentiates your property from a vacant piece of land, on the Internet is going to much more likely to be an attribute versus anything else. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack Butala: We haven't talked about it in a while, but we gauge all these properties based on the four As, right, Jill? Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Jack Butala: Acreage. More is better. Affordability. Cheaper is better. Access. County road's better than a dirt road. Dirt road's better than no access. And attributes like is it close to the Grand Canyon? Does it hae an unused old duplex on it? And on and on and on. The more attributes, the better. This is a fantastic scenario. Any time, other than nuclear waste, if there's something on a property, it's almost always better. Jill DeWit: Right. Let them decide. Let your ... I would showcase that. Have some photos on there. "Look. Hey, I don't know anything about it, but there's a structure there. It could be something you could remodel and make your own." You know. It's awesome. Jack Butala: Now's a good time to, actually, Jill brings up a great point. You don't have to take responsibility with what's on your property like you do a primary residence. You can always turn it back around to the person who's interested in the property by using this sentence, and I say it a million times. "Hey, buyer. See how cheap this property is? It's because I don't know anything about it. Somebody told me that there's a structure on there, and I sent somebody out there, and here's a picture of it, but that's all I know. You should go check it out. Really, you might be a ... You might be finding the biggest piece of gold, you know, in a garage sale piece of gold. Mona Lisa in a garage sale. I don't know, but I know that I'm going to make a little bit of money on it." [crosstalk 00:02:20] Jill DeWit: Exactly, and I hope you make even more money and it's great. Jack Butala: And I hope you make more. Awesome. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: If you have a question or you want to be on the show, reach out to either one of us on landinvestors.com. Today's topic, what are the best data-driven businesses and why are they so awesome? Why do they completely remove almost all of the risk for success? This is the meat of the show. So I came up with this topic, because I was watching a news talk show in the morning a few weeks ago, and they were talking about FourSquare. Jill, tell us what FourSquare is. Jill DeWit: Okay, so FourSquare is a technology company that, I'm reading about this ... Jack Butala: It's a social media company- Jill DeWit: It is. Jack Butala: ...

Buying Property Out of the USA Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about buying property outside of the 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. Jill DeWit: Okay. Brandon S., this is is kind of a technical question. I like it. "When downloading a list from RealQuest Pro, do you download the whole list or part of the list?" We should probably back up and give a little information on what this is about. Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWit: That is our number one go-to for downloading ownership records, and that's how we generate our mailing list and things to send out offers to owners to buy their property. That's the big picture. We have tested them all, haven't we, Jack? Jack Butala: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's two major places. RealQuest Pro is a collection of every single assessor's database or tax roll in the country with very few exceptions, so you tap into a database. It's not just a list. Go ahead. Jill DeWit: That's a good point. Jack Butala: The only other one really that's worth it at all is TitlePro247 and we offer that too. We're licensed providers of both. That concludes the commercial portion of this podcast. Jill DeWit: I love it. Yeah, so what we do is we go in and it's nice because we all, in our community we log in and I pick a county and I pick a size and I can sit and pick every last little detail. This is what Brandon's asking about. We'll go in and pick the zoning. If I'm looking for vacant land I'm going to pick up assessed ... Maybe I want to do 4.9 to 5.1 acres. I'm doing that to get all the five-acre properties and I'm picking a county and I'm putting in, I want it zoned this way, I want to make sure it's residential or vacation. Dream it up. I'm going to take out all the federal stuff and I'm going to make it assessed up to a certain level and I'm going to put in improved percentage of zero which is huge. That's one reason we use this data, is because other data sets don't have that. Jack Butala: Yeah, improved percentage of value means that if there's an improvement value anything other than null or zero there's- Jill DeWit: Something on it. Jack Butala: Yeah, it's been improved and it's not land. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: That's not [crosstalk 00:02:22], unless you want to buy houses. That works too. Jill DeWit: Yeah. On the other side, just so we can share with everybody, we have access to all that too. Say I want to buy apartment buildings. I can go in and put in a ZIP code- Jack Butala: It's the same database. Jill DeWit: Yeah, I'm just doing the same thing. Instead of picking land, I'm picking apartment buildings. I'm going to put in a ZIP code and I want up to this many doors and- Jack Butala: It's literally 148 million properties. Every single piece of real estate in the country is in there. Jill DeWit: Whether it's- Jack Butala: Every single participating county, the real estate's in there. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Could be an office building, could be a bank. Jack Butala: There's a few counties that don't participate because they're in the Stone Age and you don't want to buy property there anyway. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Yeah, Brandon's question's about,

What is a Perc Test Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala, with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about perc tests, and what they actually are, and why you need to know about 'em. Before we get into this incredibly, potentially boring subject, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. I promise we'll make it fun. Jill DeWit: Okay, good. Jack Butala: I promise. It's about poop. Jill DeWit: It's about poop. Jack Butala: Poop's always fun. Jill DeWit: Oh, everybody loves to talk about poop. Alyssa asks, "If a friend asks for your help in selling his land, do you need a license to do it, whether or not you'll receive payment for him, or a percentage of the sale? Do the laws and regulations for this vary state to state?" Jack Butala: Go ahead, Jill. Jill DeWit: Great question. Jack Butala: I want to hear your answer to this. I think we're gonna have a different answer. Jill DeWit: Oh, really? Seriously? Jack Butala: I think it's more fun for me to have different answer. Jill DeWit: You know what? Jack Butala: If we just sat around and agreed with each other all the time, what fun would that be? Jill DeWit: Okay. Let's cover all the bases here. If I really wanted to cover my butt, I would have a ... I could even go so far as to create a separate LLC, technically, where we're both little investors, even though it's a small, little percentage of properties that we're gonna do, where we're both owners and I'm just doing all the work. That's how I would easily cover my rear. Jack Butala: It comes down to one word. Representation. Are you representing your friend in the purchase and sale of this property? Are you negotiating on their behalf? Here's where we see this a lot in our business. I see it with cars and stuff all the time, too. An older person wants to sell a piece of land, and they know nothing about the internet, at all. So, they call their son-in-law, who knows everything, or he thinks he does, about selling stuff on the internet. The son-in-law gets all the information, puts it on the internet. Is that guy representing the father-in-law? Because, that's where you get in trouble. If you represent somebody in the purchase and sale of real estate, you are required to have a license, by law. Does it vary from state to state? The details do, but that concept does not vary. What Jill's referring to is, make the person a partner in an LLC, and now you're owners. Jill and I own a bunch of property together, and I negotiate all the time without talking to her about it, and vice versa. Jill DeWit: That's my workaround. Jack Butala: Now, we're just business partners, and we're owners. Neither one of us have a license by the way, and never will. That's a different topic. You have to ask yourself, are you representing this person in the sale of their property. People say to us, well they used to, now, since we have this show they don't ask us anymore, "Can't you guys just take my property and roll it into the mix of whatever you have, and just sell it for me and I'll pay you?" Jill DeWit: Right. Jack Butala: No. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: That's ridiculously illegal. Jill DeWit: Yeah, and I don't want to do that.

Land Easements 101 Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWitt. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about land easements 101. We're going to define the three basic kinds of land easements and let you know what you need to know and what you don't need to know and what you don't need to know on our product type. Before we get into that, let's take a question posted by one of our members. On the land investors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jim asked, buying a property that has no deed on file with the county. But an affidavit for transfer of real property title and a copy of the will R. But I don't have a vesting deed. Is that an issue? Jack Butala: I think is a real serious issue. Jill DeWit: Yeah. That's funny. Jack Butala: So like anything in this product type, you're going to run into these crazy situations and there's good news and bad news to this Jill. I always ask on these types of questions, when there's issues to resolve with title and with ownership, what the economics are. So if you're buying a property for a thousand bucks that you know is worth $85,000, you're going to solve this issue. Jill DeWit: Oh yes. Jack Butala: Even if you have to [inaudible 00:01:13] title the whole thing. Jill DeWit: Hire a team or attorney, whatever you gotta do, you'll do it. Jack Butala: If you're spending $500 on a small piece of property really rural, and you think you can sell it for about $1500, I think I'd just close the file on this and walk away. Jill DeWit: I'd walk away, yep. Jack Butala: The answer is, is this an issue? Heck yes it's an issue. Is it solvable? Absolutely. It's going to take a bunch of time and probably two or three thousand dollars worth of resources. Depending on where it is in the country. Jill DeWit: So that's it ... Jack Butala: There are some people in our group that made this their career. And they do it very very very well. They have made a career out of buying property from dead people's children, who didn't have their estate in order. And they solve all those problems and take it off their hands for a substantial discount. So if this is your kind of thing, it's not my kind of thing, is it? I don't think it's your kind of thing either. Jill DeWit: No. Not anymore. Jack Butala: It's too easy to solve these problems by sending out more mail. Jill DeWit: Right, exactly. Jack Butala: And if you're staring at 15 deals and one of them's the one you just described Jim, and then you've got these other 14 there's no issues and you're going to make some money on them, why bother. Jill DeWit: You know I have a question about this one too. If this is the only thing too, maybe it's worth solving. But you throw something else in there, like now it's got, it may have some associated back taxes because no one's been monitoring it, no one can figure out how to transfer it, so why bother paying the taxes on it. Now you've got another issue on it, and that for me is even more reason to walk away. There's so many properties out there. This is one thing I want to make sure everybody knows, stop hitting your head against the wall. Quit picking these hard things. There's so many properties out there. Jack Butala: This is how she talks to the kids. Jill DeWit: Yeah. Why? Jack Butala: It's the exact same tone of voice.

HOAs and Breaking Their Covenants Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Good day. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about HOAs, homeowners associations, and breaking their covenants. What are the repercussions of not cutting your grass often enough? 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. This is Luke. We have Luke again. Luke asks, "Jack talks about posting Craigslist land wanted ads and says you can do this in various markets. Doesn't Craigslist not allow people to post ads in markets other than their own based on the IP address?" Jack Butala: Boy, that's not my understanding at all. Jill DeWit: I was thinking the same thing. Jack Butala: Luke, you're a bright guy. I'll tell you what they don't let you do, is replicate the same ad over and over and over again. You'll get hauled away for that. Jill DeWit: They'll take them down. You can't- Jack Butala: But if you materially change the structure of the ad but keep the sentiment the same, like, "We want to buy a property," "We want to buy a property in Minnesota," "We want to buy a property in Maricopa County, Arizona," and so forth, that's totally fine. There are software programs and services. If you go on Fiverr, you can do exactly what I said and somebody will break that message down and manage it and post it all over the Craigslist everywhere, and it's not expensive at all. Jill DeWit: Also, I was going to say, too, is that I know that there are ways to get around the IP address too. You can have your IP address pop up in Toronto if you want to. You know what I mean? Jack Butala: Wow, listen to you. Jill DeWit: I know this stuff. Jack Butala: You're smart. Jill DeWit: I am smart. Jack Butala: Like computer smart. Jill DeWit: You want to know how I know part of this? Jack Butala: Right. Just a couple minutes ago I was fixing your mouse, but ... Jill DeWit: Shh. Stop. Jack Butala: But you know where IP addresses go, how to do a Toronto IP address. Jill DeWit: No. I know where this is. You know why? Because there's a British soap opera that I like, seriously, and you can't get it unless you're in Britain. But there are services that you can have your IP address pop up that you are in Great Britain so you can watch your soap opera from LA. Hmm, [inaudible 00:02:03] I knew that stuff. Huh. I'm not just a pretty face. Just kidding. Jack Butala: Does your elbow hurt from patting yourself on the back too much? Jill DeWit: You know, sometimes I don't get enough credit over here. Thanks a lot. What did Rodney Dangerfield say? "No respect." That was one of my dad's lines, by the way. My dad would walk around saying that all the time, "No respect." Jack Butala: Yesterday you were landing an airplane at Pinal County, Arizona and now your IP address is in London. Jill DeWit: Woo! Look at me go. Jack Butala: Yeah, Luke. That's the deal. Luke's middle name, by the way, is Workaround. That's a massive workaround for doing that, and I would highly recommend it. Those of you who are members or if you've downloaded the free ebook that I put together a couple of years ago, the first thing it says is drop everything and make a posting on Craigslist and see what...

County Land Use Plans Useless or Useful Transcript: Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: I'm so happy to be here. Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our new studio. I hope you can hear the difference because it wasn't cheap. In this episode, Jill and I talk about whether county land use plans are useful or useless. 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. Jill DeWit: Thank you. You know what's funny? I'm really happy with this question. We told our staff when they put our scripts together, they go into our online community obviously and they pull out these questions and I'm like, "Come on. I want some little more meaty ones." Some of the ones are kind of ... Not that there's not a place for the detailed and different ones but this is a meaty one, and I'm looking forward to this. Luke asked, "Could I sell ... " He wants to know whether buying land helps ... Here we go. Luke wants to know whether buying land helps foreigners get visas. So, the question is, "Could I sell deals in portfolios to internationals wanting to come to the U.S. and need this to fill their visa requirement bills?" Jack Butala: Boy, I'm not an international attorney, but I don't see why not. Jill DeWit: What an interesting market to target. Jack Butala: I mean, Jill and I just help people to sell property to people from other countries all the time. Jill DeWit: All the time. They might be doing this and we wouldn't know it. Jack Butala: If you ever scrub data too in RealQuest or anywhere else, you always notice that there's some addresses of property that are international, because they don't fit properly. The international addresses don't fit properly in the database. Jill DeWit: Well, you know what? This brings up a whole nother topic because I have met people who, especially here in LA, who have visa ... Or their passports. They're nationals of other countries, but they live here. They have been told incorrectly that you cannot property here unless you're a U.S. citizen. We're here to tell you that's not true. Every time I let them know that they're like, "Really? I can buy some property?" I'm like, "Heck yeah. You can absolutely own property in the United States and not be a U.S. citizen." Many people don't know that. Jack Butala: Right. Jill DeWit: So, this is a great question and a good ... I'm curious. I'm not going to get into checking what the visa requirements and if this counts as what they need. Jack Butala: That's way beyond the scope of what we can actually answer, quite honestly. I mean, don't take our word for it on this. Please check around before you make a career out of it. Jill DeWit: Exactly. This would be get an attorney involved and find out, but ... International visa attorney, whatever, but boy, what an interesting thing. If it does solve that problem, that would be really cool. You could start pulling your land all over Africa. I don't know. Dream it up. Jack Butala: There's a website that helps people who own real estate in America, advertise their properties in China. It's been on my radar for quite some time because we all forget about it, because China's thriving economically, but they're technically a communist country and they have a lot of rules about the internet. We have a lot more freedom about stuff. Websites don't reach China. Jill DeWit: Really. Jack Butala: This is designed. It's a Chinese website run by Chinese people ...

Good Bad Ugly of Title Insurance Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

How to Uncover Agricultural Potential of Land Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

How to Overcome Environmental Concerns Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

When to Get Title Insurance Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Why Being Part of a Group is Beneficial (CFFL 466) Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

How to Not Get Hung Up on Deed Issues (CFFL 465) Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Why Sticking to Your Acquisition Criteria is So Important (CFFL 464) Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

How to Overcome Your Fear of Data (CFFL 463) Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

GPS Made Easy; Parcel Fact is Here (CFFL 462) Transcript: If you enjoyed the podcast, please review it in iTunes . Reviews are incredibly important for rankings on iTunes. My staff and I read each and every one. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to email me directly at [email protected]. www.landacademy.com www.landpin.com I would like to think it’s entertaining and informative and in the end profitable. And finally, don’t forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Laughing at the Haight (Hate) (CFFL 461) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Good day, sir. Ow, I just laughed. Jack Butala: Boy, somebody's feeling better from their surgery, I think. Jill DeWit: Thank you, although that one accent made me laugh and that hurt so I gotta be careful. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about laughing at the Haight. Jill DeWit: All right. Don't make me hurt too much. Yes. Jack Butala: Before we get into it, though. Let's take a question. As always, posted by one of our members on the landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Cool. All right. Hey, by the way, I gotta, since we laugh at this often, I gotta bring this up, Jack. When will LandInvestors not be SuccessPlant? Do we know? Jack Butala: Yeah, soon. Within 30 days. Jill DeWit: Okay, cool. Jack Butala: Actually, way less than that. Jill DeWit: So here's a tip. If you're looking for it, it's on SuccessPlant, but that's gonna change so full disclosure. Jack Butala: You can get there through LandInvestors very easily. Just click through it. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Cool. All right. So Ken asked, "Hi, there. I'm a bit confused on how I should proceed with creating my websites or site or sites. Should I start with one website to sell my properties and go from there or should I have both a buying website and a selling website?" Jack Butala: Ken, I'm so glad you asked this. I mean it. We get this question a lot and I'm glad that it got included in the show. The whole reason for you to have a website at all is to provide a place where you draw traffic, land-buying traffic back to, so that they can click on it and put their credit card information in and buy the property from you. That's it. That's the reason you have a sell side website. It doesn't mean you just post it on the site and it's over. You have to draw up traffic back there and how do you do that? You do it by listing property on Land Pen, Land and Farm, Land Watch, Trulia, Zillow, ebay, Bid 4 Assets, all the places that you can think of, Craigslist. And then, so when they bite on the, when the fish bites on the lure, you pull up the line to really sink that hook into its mouth on your website. That's the reason. So that's how you do it. You, I would highly recommend getting a developer as inexpensively as possible in the beginning to develop a woo commerce, a woo eCommerce website. And in the, we are just about done with connecting ShellPay, which is a real estate-based, it's a credit card provider just like PayPal of real estate people in the industry. So you can connect that to WooCommerce and you'll be all set. Jill DeWit: We're gonna- Jack Butala: You get the right- Jill DeWit: Are we gonna offer that? We're gonna put that altogether I hope for people, too, because I would love to be able to say to Ken, "You want someone that can do a website? We have a negotiated thing. It's a great price." Jack Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: Here's what you can do. And do you want the credit card part of it, too? Okay, great. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: They can do that, too. Jack Butala: That'll be released with ShellPay. So what'll end up happening is you'll go to a website, you'll say, "Oh, I like the way this template website looks and I like the way this [inaudible 00:03:14] looks,

How to Buy an Apartment Building (CFFL 460) Jack Butala: Jack Butala, Jill DeWitt. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to buy an apartment building, and here's a hint; it's way easier than you think. Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on Thelandinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Tom asks; how do you close on a property if the daughter is the executor of the property? What kind of documents are needed to close this purchase? Jack Butala: Go ahead. Jill DeWit: You're so fun. I love it. Well, is it in a trust and she's the executor? That's my first thought. How 'bout this? If it was done correctly, Tom-- Jack Butala: Which it never is. Jill DeWit: Exactly. But I'm gonna took the easy one first, I'll give you the hard, I'm gonna take the easy one, you get the hard one. Jack Butala: Okay. Jill DeWit: So, I'm gonna say I'm gonna assume it was done right and it's in a trust, and it's the Smith Family Trust of 1983, whatever that is, and she's the only one, and you've seen the trust, you've got an email copy of it from the daughter, cuz she's that on the ball, and it's that easy. That's what you do. So, how do I close on the property? The exact same way I do on everything else, and the only thing different I do is on the deed, I'm gonna still put the, the grantee becomes the grantor, right? Cuz they're selling it to me now, and I'm gonna use that verbatim, The Smith Family Trust of 1983, and then below I the signature you're gonna put her name, and I even defer to them, I'm gonna go real easy on this one. I'll reach out to her and say, all right, you've obviously the executor, you've been doing other things for this trust, how does your attorney have you sign your name? And she'll say, oh it's supposed to say Carol L. R. Smith as trustee for The Smith Family Trust of 1983. Great, fantastic, and I'll copy that. I took the easy way out, now you want to add the, how it could be way out? Jack Butala: You know it was exactly this related to the question from yesterday. When people have a will and the property's in the deceased owner's, it's still in their name, but they have a will, it's not like a car, there's some stuff involved. More importantly, in 1983 you were 16, Jill, right? Jill DeWit: I'm not sharing any information. Jack Butala: It just makes my heart all warm inside for some reason. Jill DeWit: What's that? Jack Butala: I wish I had known you in high school. Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh, you did not just say that, cuz I'm sure that number's way off. Jack Butala: You'll be having a birthday party, a two person birthday party, meaning you and I, in an explosive manner. Jill DeWit: I wasn't gonna share that, what number it is though, it could be a decade off. Jack Butala: Oh, right. Jill DeWit: All right, anyway so look. Jack Butala: What were you like when you were 16? Jill DeWit: That's a better question. Thank you, oh I knew it all. Jack Butala: Oh really, it was that bad? Jill DeWit: Oh, I didn't know, it wasn't that bad, but I was very independent, and very comfortable in my... first concert, I drove myself to see, here I go, now we're all gonna know how old I am, when I was 16 years old I was so darn excited, I was go drive up to LA and see Billy Idol.

How to Use Deal Data Review Insure Success (CFFL 459) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit. Jill DeWit: Hello there. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about how to use data deal review. The deal or the data review that I do every Wednesday to ensure your success. 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. Trevor asks, "Does anyone know any good ways of navigating the relatives of land-owning folks who have died? Especially in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado? From my last two mailers, it seems all I'm doing is dealing with dead peoples' estates." Boy, I've been there. Jack Butala: Yup. Jill DeWit: "I'm not worried about the small deals. But some of these are, these 40 and 80-acre deals, are worth my while if I can figure out how to handle the families." Jack Butala: Go ahead Jill, you're an expert at this. Jill DeWit: Well I'm kind of wondering if ... well there's a couple possible things that could be going on. Like handle the families as in A) I can't find all the family members, that's one issue. And then B) we're not on all the same page, that's another issue. So here's my first one. If you can't find all the family members or they're not all in the same place, I look to the holidays. Seriously. Or family events, I am not kidding. For example, Easter just happened. Were they all together for Easter? I have actually said, I can arrange a notary to come out and do it on Easter if we have to. Because you guys are all together at grandma's house. Or Mother's Day is coming. Is everybody going to be there for Mother's Day? You know, that kind of thing. I've done that. You can also split it up if you have to. Send the deed from one notary to another notary, you know? And send it around. I'm not a fan of that. But you could do stuff like that. Once you talk to people, if they're all on the same page ... assuming they're on the same page, then they're going to be pretty agreeable to that. Like 'hey, when I get it all back and signed and everything's good, I'll wire the money in five minutes' kind of thing. And that's fair. The other thing is, okay now how to handle the families. Well I guess part of it is people who have died, so he's trying to figure out too ... oh, I just thought of another piece. I think that's where you might be going. Which is, who's still alive and who's supposed to take care of this? Jack Butala: Yeah. This is very complicated. Trevor's an expert at taking a very, very, very complicated scenario, which is what this is, and making it simple. And asking a positive thing about it. So, you know ... there's about nine questions in here. Jill DeWit: Yeah there's a bunch of things you could take this with. Okay so maybe mom and dad passed on, and now he's talking of navigating the relatives could be the kids that are left. Yeah you gotta, I guess- Jack Butala: Here's the- go ahead Jill. Jill DeWit: All right. My big picture is, you gotta just make sure ... you gotta figure out, and it may take a little time, who are the rightful people who have the power to make this deal? Number one. Number two, is everybody on the same page? And then from there, I think you could figure out the details. Jack Butala: Yeah, here's the root of the problem with dead ownership. When someone passes away, let's say a husband and wife own a property, which is really usually the scenario that this is in, and they have a will. So a husband and wife own the property as joint tenants and they have a will,

You and Your Computer (CFFL 458) Jack Butala: Jack Butala, with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about, you and your computer. One of my favorite topics, after data that 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. Jill DeWit: Okay. Katrina asks, "I purchased a property from a church. The church sent me a copy of their power of attorney with all the designated signers for the church." Well that was nice. Jack Butala: Churches come up. Jill DeWit: That was nice. That's funny. I used that example yesterday. "I have to now send the deed to the county for recording. Do I have to send a copy of the power of attorney with the deed? I asked the county recorder and the assessor if they needed a copy, and the power of attorney told me, and I kid you not, 'I don't know'." So good. Jack Butala: I don't know? Jill DeWit: Oh. "Can someone please tell me if you're sending in your power of attorneys with your deeds to be recorded?" I know, I know. Pick me. Jack Butala: Yeah. Go ahead. Jill DeWit: You know what Katrina? You are not alone in this interesting dilemma. Where I have ... Where you actually know more than the person sitting in the chair at the county. That's not- Jack Butala: We talked about this yesterday. Jill DeWit: Oh my gosh. Yes. Jack Butala: And churches. Jill DeWit: The answer is, no. You don't need to send it in. Can you send it in and have it recorded that same time? Yes. It's just going to pay extra recording fees for X more pages, and they're not really needed. What I would do Katrina ... That was really nice of them to send that to you. I would hang on to that. Have it for your records, should it ever come up that maybe your seller wants to get title insurance some day and you can provide that document for them, and that'll help everybody out, and that's really nice. Jack Butala: Good advice. Jill DeWit: Thank you. No. All that's doing for you is proving to you that you're showing the names, and the proper people are signing for it, and you're going to copy from that document, probably how they're names should be written, and what their positions are with the church. I've bought properties from churches too. That was a really good question. Do you have anything to ... I just took the ball and ran. Do you have anything to add Jack? Jack Butala: No, it's great. No. I'm glad you did. I agree completely with you. I thought you were going to answer it differently quite honestly, because there was a period when you just loved to send stacks of paper to the recorder. When I was in accounting, long, long, long time ago, one of the first jobs I had actually when I was still in high school, was an internal auditor. My buddy's father owned this company and he hired us so we could learn. It was actually a pretty cool experience. I got assigned to an internal audit team, and we went out and looked at these companies that they were running and owning. I got an assignment, and I kicked ass. I mean, really. I went above and beyond what I was supposed to do. When we sat down to see the results of what I put together, the guy looked at me with my boss and said, "How about next time, you just give me what I want? Like on time. Not anything extra. Not less, not more. Just what I asked you to do, just please do it." That always stuck with me, because that's what this is here. You have to fight the completeness of the deal,

Other Creative Acquisition Pipe Lines (CFFL 457) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill Dewit. Jill DeWit: Hi. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode Jill and I talk about other creative acquisition pipelines. Not just direct mail. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jeff asked, in my last mailer I negotiated two parcels with an option to buy. While the county lists the company, how to confirm who's authorized to sell the property? Oh, that's a very good question. That's kinda like a lot of our properties. They're not in our name anymore. They used to be. So how do you know that person is the right person? Jack Butala: Go for it Jill. Jill DeWit: I look it up. So here's the funny thing, cause I just had to do this, remember you and I joked about this title company that we're dealing with right now. And man, bless her heart, even though I explained to her that she can easily google online in the state of Arizona, my business name and pull up all the documents and see that I am the managing member and see my name. It's all public information. I had to literally do that for her. Download them to PDF form and send them to her. Cause she just can't get it. It's just like, "What the heck". Is this 1975? But anyway. So I had to do that. It's almost like too like she needs a certificate from the Better Business Bureau saying I'm an A+. We don't do that anymore either. It's so funny. But so for me, first of all, for this Jeff If it's an LLC or something like that go look them up. You'll probably find them online. Jack Butala: Yeah. And now more than ever, for some reason, you really have to hold people's hands. Even the most experienced title company. Jill DeWit: Yep. Jack Butala: I mean this woman's been in the title business forever. Jill DeWit: I know. Jack Butala: And she isn't up to speed on how to do stuff. So I'm past it. You just have to do it, and smile while it's happening and that's it. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: If you philosophically get upset about this stuff it's gonna be a long hard life for you. Jill DeWit: It is. It's just too bad. Jack Butala: You know what, honestly Jill, that's one of the things I learned from you. I used to be a huge curmudgeon about all that stuff. And now it's like, "Yeah, just smile and wave." Jill DeWit: It's true. It's much easier just let it go, let it go, let it go. And then you're like, "Yeah, your right. It's over, done." Jack Butala: But then once in a while you have to stick it to somebody when they're just incompetent. Jill DeWit: And the thing is, I want to help them. I kinda want to say, "You know, you've been waiting for six hours for me to get back to you with these documents. You could've had it five hours and fifty five minutes ago yourself." And I even told her. I just don't get it. I say Jeff, Google it first of all, and then if it's not ask them. And then if you need a copy of something proving it, I'm sure they have it, and they'll be happy to send it to you. That's all common sense to me. A title would expect it to. Jack Butala: I think the first person you should ask on all this stuff is the seller. And you really can find out if they're trying to hide something. If they say, "Oh yeah sure, I'll send it over right away. I've got all that stuff lined up." Then that's a good sign. Jill DeWit: Exactly.

Never Let a Good Acquisition Go to Waste (CFFL 456) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hey. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show, today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about never letting a good acquisition go to waste. Before we get into it though, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community, it's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Ken asks, "Hi there, I'm a bit confused on how I should proceed with creating my websites. Should I start with one website, to sell my properties, and go from there, or should I have both a buying website and a selling website?" That's a good question and answer [inaudible 00:00:33]. Jack Butala: It is, and so ... If he's been through the cashflow from LandProgram, dedicational program, I know that Ken has, because he's a member. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. Jack Butala: I recognize his name. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. Jack Butala: We advocate, at some point in a career, having two websites. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. Jack Butala: And it's really a personal preference, you know. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. Jack Butala: We still have an acquisitions website and a sales website. Our sales website now is LandPin and our acquisitions website is something else, but the way the internet ... When we started doing this, the internet was not like what it is today. The first thing that everybody does when they get a letter, is they go to see, checkout on the internet, see if you're legit. So, I would recommend having one website, for sure. Jill DeWit: Mm-hmm. Jack Butala: So, do I think it's material in your success? No. To have two sites versus one, acquisition and sales? No, but we just like to do it. I don't know, for some reason, I like to have two sites. I like to have a lot of websites, in case you haven't noticed, Jill. Jill DeWit: Well, here's why we do it. Number one is, we still have offers out there from years ago, and they were sent out under one of our other entities, which is still part of us but it has grown over the years. So, I always want those people who still are hanging onto those letters, from ten years ago, to be able to go online and say, "Oh, look, they're still there. Oh, look, it's still the same phone number. Oh, look, it's still the same everything." That's really what I need that to do. Now, it's evolved now, where I just want to be transparent. I don't need them to necessarily see that, so I want it all to be transparent. Am I worried at all about somebody finding my website and seeing their property that I paid x for and I'm selling it for y? Uh-uh. It's-. Jack Butala: They don't care about that. Jill DeWit: They don't. Jack Butala: We were buying property, they know we're making money. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Jack Butala: They just want a [inaudible 00:02:30] in a problem form, they want to get out of it. Jill DeWit: Totally. And they're like, "Wow, that's cool. I hope they get that." You know, or "Boy, we could have done that, but we don't have a website. We don't have all these resources, we're not set up to do that." Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: That's it. So, is there any reason I need to hide what I'm doing or anything like that? Absolutely not. And I think that's where you ... where you're going with that, Jack, when you say personal preference. You might just have one website,

Postpartum Deal Depression (CFFL 455) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with Jill DeWit. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. In this episode, Jill and I talk about managing your postpartum deal depression. Jill DeWit: What the heck was this? Where were you thinking when you came up with this, Jack? Jack Butala: I've experienced it. Jill DeWit: Oh, boy. Jack Butala: I experienced it my whole career, and I want people to know that they're not nuts. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: That's my point. Jill DeWit: Well, I started flipping land and now I'm on Xanax. Whatever. Okay. Jack Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on a landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. [Claire 00:00:39] asked, "Is there a special way to frame offers to owners of multiple parcels in the same subdivision?" This is good. She put this in Success Planet and then she asked it on our member call the other day. Jack Butala: Frame. Jill DeWit: Yes. Jack Butala: Frame them, like frame them like criminal frame them? Jill DeWit: No, a special way to frame the offer. How to- Jack Butala: Oh, to write it. Craft it. Jill DeWit: Exactly. Frame them. Yes, I'm going to plant something on them, get them all arrested, and then buy their property. Jack Butala: So, yeah, here's what happens. What you want to do is, and this is what we do, I'll tell you exactly what we do. I answered it on a call, but I'll answer it here. When we have let's say a whole county, inevitably every single subdivision and every single county, there's people that own more than one piece of property, and those are, from a data standpoint, the exception. The norm is the single owners. So you run that normally through the mail merge, and then we run a data scenario through the, it's a small little database situation that I wrote where we sent a secondary offer out to multiple property owners. So somebody owns like 50 properties in one subdivision, and you want to buy them for a hundred bucks each, they get an offer for $5,000, and it's all added up and it does it that way. So that's how we do it, and at some point I will clean that tool up so that it's usable for anybody, and make it available probably in a higher tiered membership level. So that's how we do it. You can manually easily do it. You could, like I said, send the stuff to LetterStream for the single property owners, and those multiples you just manually do them. If it's really an intriguing situation, skip trace their phone number. It's really easy to get someone's cell phone number, really easy on the Internet. It's not free, but you can do it, and then find these guys and call them and say, "I really want to buy your property." That'll work. One out of ten times, for sure, somebody will say, "Heck, yes, I'll do that deal." Some people that's their whole business model. They just [inaudible 00:02:54] the cold call. I personally would rather stick a needle in my eye. Jill DeWit: Yeah, remember that job I had one time. I had to cold call. I lasted two days. Jack Butala: Yeah. [crosstalk 00:03:04] Jill DeWit: I was a kid. It was a long time ago. Jack Butala: I remember talking about it. Jill DeWit: Cold calling is like, oh, no, no, no. Jack Butala: The takeaway here is have a system for it.

Set Your Net Income Per Deal Parameters (CFFL 454) Jack Butala: Jack Butala with [inaudible 00:00:01]. Jill DeWit: Hi, there. I was trying to slow you down. Jack Butala: Why? Jill DeWit: I don't know. Sometimes I can barely say hello, and you're like, "Moving on." Jack Butala: Welcome to our show today. This episode is just like life. In this episode,- Jill DeWit: We also- Jack Butala: ... Jill and I talk about setting your net income per deal parameters. I figured we do a whole show on this because we talk about it a lot. We talk about it, and it's time to get into it in detail. Jill DeWit: Okay. Jack Butala: Let's take a question posted by one of our members on landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit: Okay. Michael asked, "After a recent mailing, I have a seller who wants to see me his property." Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: That's the goal. "After doing my research, I found out that the property was sold with a deed of trust 20 years ago." Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: "The owner said that they have the deed, or maybe just a copy. After further investigation, it looks like the previous seller sold the property on terms, and then sold the note to a retired couple. It was the retired couples' duty to notify the county with a release of deed when the note was paid off. The retired couple is now in their 80s, and they live in Arizona with no working phone number." Jack Butala: Oh my God. Good for them. Jill DeWit: Oh, this is great. "How do I- Jack Butala: I would love to have a non working phone. Jill DeWit: ... cleared up. Should I only buy this property by going through a title company?" Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: Yeah, that's the easiest way, too. Jack Butala: Yes. Jill DeWit: If it's that good. Jack Butala: Even then, they're gonna- Jill DeWit: That's what I'm saying. Jack Butala: So, turns out that title agents and title companies in general, they have thresholds for stuff, too. And if they get into it and find out it's just beyond their threshold to insure it, they won't close the deal. Jill DeWit: What's so funny about title companies, too, I think their threshold is really short. Because they'll dump deals really fast. I'm like, "Wait, why are we not doing this?" They're like, "Oh, because he wouldn't return my calls." All right. Well, then let's try another way. You know. Jack Butala: This sounds [crosstalk 00:01:57]. Jill DeWit: Hello. Jack Butala: This property sounds like it may have multiple liens on it that are unresolved. Jill DeWit: With this note- Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: ... and this stuff, too. So, this is one that even now, I may or may not do it. It depends on the spread because if I can't make enough money on this one, I'm not doing it. It's already, right now, a headache. Jack Butala: Yeah. Quiet title action might be appropriate here. Jill DeWit: If it's appropriate. Jack Butala: Yeah. Jill DeWit: I'm not sure. Jack Butala: The other thing, too, is that this is a great way to negotiate the pric...