Member Luke Smith Shares Success Stories (LA 971)
Transcript:
Steven Butala: Steve and Jill here.
Jill DeWit: Hello.
Steven Butala: Welcome to the Land Academy show entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala.
Jill DeWit: And I'm Jill DeWit broadcasting from sunny souther California.
Steven Butala: Today Jill and I talk with member Luke Smith and he shares his success stories about how he got here, where he's going, what he's failed at, what he's succeeding at and the whole story.
Jill DeWit: He's also in sunny souther California.
Steven Butala: Yeah, he is. Before we get into it, let's ask him this first question. How did you get here Luke? How did you get to Land Academy? How did you get to become a member? You can skip the [inaudible 00:00:37] process. Give us some background.
Luke Smith: That's a good question. My sister lives in Detroit and times were really tough in 2008. She didn't have a job she didn't have a way to put food on the table for her kids. So the houses are cheap. I said let's go by some of these houses, let's rent them out. I'll hire you. I'll pay ahead. I was making some money at the time. I sent her out to buy these cheap houses, these ghetto houses in Detroit and rented things out. Fix them out and the rent should pay for it over time. That learning curve, the cost was realtors, and dealing with the banks and the insurance companies. I was doing this from out of state. I'm in California, originally from Michigan. It was a nightmare. Nobody wanted to sell me those houses. No one wanted to help me. As soon as I got on, the rents were great. The renters were great and they worked beautifully. I wanted to buy more of them. That's how I found Land Academy. I wanted to buy more of those houses but I didn't want to pay the middle man people. I didn't want to deal with them. I didn't want to have them on board. That was the main cost of the transaction. It was all those middle man people.
Luke Smith: I went on bigger pockets and I started reading around. I saw some articles of Jacks or Steve's. He was talking about buying land. Vacant land and doing it through the mail and skipping all the middle men people. Like, oh I want to learn that. That got my interest. I think if he can do it for land, I can probably figure out how to do it for houses. Just skip through the whole process. I'll try to land. I subscribed to his stuff and I'm like I was reading all the free side. I'll do it on my own. I start testing it and it's like, I'll just mail out Mohave County. Next to Lake Havasu, that stuff looks like it sells well. 100 dollars an acre and these 1.2 acre properties. 123 dollar offers. I couldn't figure out how to print them on my printer so I was handwriting them. It's like, we'll just get them in the mail just stamp and stamps on there. Totally old school and people got back to me. I'd send a hundred of those things out and maybe 40 people would get back to me because it's handwritten and it's stupid offer. They'd yell at me and tell me how stupid I was and everything.
Luke Smith: I about fell out of my chair that the people would actually get back to me. They wrote me letters. They sent me faxes. Emails, calls, lots and lots of calls. Literally 40% response rate I got on those hundred mailer units. I didn't get any deals but I got people that got back. I said okay. I just didn't do something right like the price. This reaches people, I just didn't get the price right. Then I think it was probably Jill sent out a promo for Land Academy cash flow for land stuff. It was her style writing, not Steve's. I'm guessing Jill's. It said you get first three people that sign up get free ten acre property in [inaudible 00:03:55] Nevada.