Transcripts:
Steven Butala:
Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit:
Hello.
Steven Butala:
Welcome to The Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit:
And I'm Jill DeWit, and I don't know where we are. We've been doing this for several years. Broadcasting from sunny southern Scottsdale, Arizona.
Steven Butala:
Today, Jill and I talk about housing versus land investing in 2021. You guessed it. You should be doing a version of both.
Jill DeWit:
I'm sure you're going to tell us all about that job.
Steven Butala:
And where you should be doing it. 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:
Mitch asks ... This is a long one, I'm just ... Hello. I'm currently working on purchasing three properties from a church. The deeds that I received from the county seem to be written well, and are all in the same format. It sure seems like a nice, easy purchase. The properties are currently written to be owned by the Episcopal church in blank state. My question is: who is able to sign the new deed once it's written, since it's owned by the church, instead of an individual? I asked a representative from the church dealing with the transaction if they know who signed the original deed, but they were unsure. I'm currently a grad student, so I'm in the process of saving up to join Land Academy and have some extra capital for my actual mailers and deals when the time comes. My question is, for someone who's totally new to this, how would you recommend someone who has a couple of months to prep to make the most of their time before diving in?
Jill DeWit:
So there's two parts, one's how to handle the deal, and then some other parts here.
Steven Butala:
I'll do the first one.
Jill DeWit:
Okay. I'll finish the whole thing, and we'll go back. What's your recommend who has a couple months to prep, make the most of their time before diving in? What are some of the good resources to really map out this process, and maybe even get the feel for searching, scrubbing, and playing with some data? I'd also be super grateful to get the chance to speak with someone who's been through it to see how they learn those first few steps.
Steven Butala:
That's what I was going to say.
Jill DeWit:
In any case, it'd be a pleasure to be here and excited to start. Thank you very much and wishing everyone the best. Cheers, Julius. Cool.
Steven Butala:
Boy. What a good attitude.
Jill DeWit:
[inaudible 00:02:20] Let's go. Oh. Is it Mitch or Julius? I guess it's Julius.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Sorry.
Steven Butala:
Maybe I did it wrong.
Jill DeWit:
That's okay. Cool.
Steven Butala:
This whole business with the church thing, when any entity, other than an individual, John Smith or whatever, owns a piece of property, you need some backing to identify, and to tie into or desk audit to check to see if they are able to sign on behalf of the entity, whether it's an LLC, a trust, whatever.
Jill DeWit:
A church.
Steven Butala:
In this case, a church. All churches are by default, this is interesting, all churches by default are deemed by the IRS as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, but they don't have to fill out any paperwork and file it. They're just deemed that. There's a charter somewhere or something like that that says, "Hey, this" ... It's usually the pastor actually or-
Jill DeWit:
Or the board. Sometimes you have to be a member of a board.
Steven Butala:
It might be a board. In some cases-
Jill DeWit:
Yeah.
Steven Butala:
I doubt it.
Jill DeWit:
I've had a few where they knew, and they had the document, and they could send it to me.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
Most of them they do.
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit:
That's always been my case. Yep. Here's a copy of the document. It shows this is the primary for the board, the secondary for the board, they both sign it-
Steven Butala:
Yeah.
Jill DeWit: