3 Biggest Challenges of Our Land Careers (LA 905)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: I'm Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven Butala: Today, Jill and I talk about the three biggest challenges of our land careers. Finally, we get to talk about some regular topics again.
Jill DeWit: I know. I can't wait to hear yours.
Steven Butala: We've been talking about releasing Land Academy 1.0 and all this stuff about the new year, but it's what, the end of January now? We get back into buying and selling land. We don't talk about the real stuff. We have literally generated a million dollars of equity so far this year. It's what? Twenty-six days or seven days-
Jill DeWit: Something like that [crosstalk]-
Steven Butala: Into this, 28 days.
Jill DeWit: 29? 29.
Steven Butala: With 1.2 million. With members. That's not our deals. That's the members ... Deals we're funding for our members.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Steven Butala: Anyway, let's get back to these challenges.
Jill DeWit: Cool.
Steven Butala: Before we get into it, let's take a question, posted by one of our members on TheLandInvestors.com online community, it's free.
Jill DeWit: Dustin asks, "I need some guidance. I just got a signed offer back from a seller for their two-acre parcel of vacant land. The husband signed it and mailed it back with the death certificate for his wife. They're both on a warranty deed from 1993."
Steven Butala: So far so good.
Jill DeWit: Right. "The county records online say no improvements exist on the property, but I look it up on Google Earth and ParcelFact there's clearly a house on the property. I went back to 1995, the earliest satellite images available on Google Earth, and the house was on the property. My offer, just shy of $2,400. The only property taxes due are for 2018 for $187. Is this deal a good or bad thing?" I think it's a [crosstalk].
Steven Butala: I think you have-
Jill DeWit: This is awesome [crosstalk]-
Steven Butala: I think you actually won the lottery.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "If the county doesn't know there is a house on the property, then I'm assuming no permits were pulled to build it. Am I opening a can of worms here or is this a home run of a deal?"
Steven Butala: Home run.
Jill DeWit: Yeah. "What about the title issue of the wife being deceased and not being able to sign the deed?" Thank you.
Steven Butala: Well, that's a different matter entirely.
Jill DeWit: Yes. Fingers crossed, it says, "Joint tenants with rights to survivorship." I can't go anything further without knowing what it is. If it says that, you're home free-
Steven Butala: Take a couple of steps back-
Jill DeWit: On the title part.
Steven Butala: When people take title to real estate, they have lots of options. In the end what really happens is the title agent decides and tells no one, and 99% of the time they choose right. In fact, if you're new in this business, if you just stick to this, joint tenants with rights to survivorship, when there's two people, two entities, 20 entities, if you just take title in like, "Jill and Steve as joint tenants with rights to survivorship, also know as JTROS, and one of us croaks-