Our Most Frequently Asked Questions
Jill DeWit: Welcome to the Cash Flow from Land show. In this episode, Steve and I talk about the most frequently asked questions we field about our business. Welcome, Steve.
Jack Butala: Thank you, hi.
Jill DeWit: I am excited to be doing this show with you.
Jack Butala: I'm excited you're the host of this one.
Jill DeWit: Thank you.
Jack Butala: I love when you're the host, Jill.
Jill DeWit: I like doing that too. I'm really excited, on this show in particular, because I think that we can help many individuals at 1 time.
We get several questions along the same lines, but there's always 1 that rises to the top. I want to address that first about our business. Bring it. Let's start off with a bang. What is the number 1 most frequently asked question you've received?
Jack Butala: Across the board from cocktail parties to email, to Bigger Pockets, to successplant.com, the single biggest question that I feel that it comes in very different forms is what's the catch? Come on, can you really buy property that cheap? What's wrong with it? There's got to be something. It's got to be temporary, or it's just one-off deal. What's the real deal? Basically, they're saying, "I don't believe you."
Jill DeWit: Or, "Is it too good to be true?"
Jack Butala: Yeah, that's the sentiment exactly.
Jill DeWit: How do you answer it?
Jack Butala: I say it's a very little-known real estate niche. It's so little known that we actually started a company called Land Academy to teach other people how to do it. If you don't believe me, go to successplant.com. All those people are out there which is our Web site. All those people are out there buying and selling property for next to nothing and selling it for a lot more.
Jill DeWit: Exactly.
Jack Butala: It's hard to explain. I've been struggling with it honestly for 15 years, telling people what we do. Their first reaction is it's just I think it's hokey and silly that you buy property for $100 or $1,000, or 5,000 and sell it for 10. They always think there's a catch and there's not.
The catch is we're buying it from people who just don't want it anymore. We're paying a lot less for it. Here's a thing. I'm glad we're doing this show. Here's the thing. Buying property that's undervalued, real estate that's undervalued is the basis of every type of real estate from Donald Trump to Sally Duplex. That is the key to being successful in real estate.
Whether you're buying unwanted vacant land like we do, or you're buying houses and flipping them, or renovating them, or wholesaling them, or apartment buildings, or strip malls, everybody wins, everybody when you buy it under its value. We just happen to do an extreme version of that. It's hard to communicate to people. They think there's some catch.
Jill DeWit: That's true. What I find is interesting that people think that you have to improve it to make money on it. For me, I think that's almost a second question. Sometimes when people can wrap their head around, "Okay, you buy it, right. That's great, but what do you do to it to make it valuable for the next guy?" When I say, "Nothing." They're like, "What?" They don't really get it.
You almost have to go, "Okay, let's go back to step 1 again. I bought it right so I didn't have to do anything."
Jack Butala: I used to have a plaque on my desk. You know this, but I'm saying so that listeners, because you're the host and I'm the guest and I can say stuff like this. I used to have a plaque on my desk that said, "Good acquisitions solve all problems."