If You Can’t Flip After This Episode We’ve Got Nothing Left For You (HA 016)
If You Can’t Flip After This Episode We’ve Got Nothing Left For You (HA 016)
Transcript:
Steven: Steve and Jill here.
Jill: Hi.
Steven: Welcome to the House Academy Show, entertaining real estate investment talk. I’m Steven jack Butala.
Jill: And I’m Jill DeWitt, broadcasting from sunny Southern California.
Steven: Today Jill and I talk about if you can’t flip after this episode we’ve got nothing left for you.
Jill: You think that you know someone after many, many, many years and many transactions and all the things that we do together, but now and then you come up with things, and I even take a step back and go did not see that coming. Where did you get this?
Steven: I actually got this title idea from another house flipping podcast, because I think it’s the funniest thing ever.
Jill: This is good.
Steven: You know why, here’s why, because Jill and I walked around the face of this planet wondering and looking at ourselves going I’m not sure why this is so complicated or why it’s being made to be so complicated. Whoever we’re talking about we ask about it, and they’re like oh it is that easy?
Jill: Yeah, that’s my whole thing. I look at it like why is nobody doing this? That’s reality, we all know the value, we all know what’s possible. Especially in some states like where we are right now in California, everybody has a story. Everybody knows someone that made money in real estate. I’m like why doesn’t everybody do it then?
Steven: Before we get into the topic let’s take a question posted by one of our members on HouseAcademy.com online community, it’s free.
Jill: Jack asks how many properties do you guys flip a month? So I’m sure that was just a generic question out there?
Steven: I don’t know, I think maybe it was just for us.
Jill: Oh I’m not sure, it could be like in there hey community do you guys doing? I hope that’s how it was taken, I hope everybody weighed in and said what they’re doing. You know what’s nice about this, once you get the boots on the ground, in place, then it’s like you can do many a month. Because you have people out there doing the work for you and you’re just sitting back watching. It’s like you’re watching the dashboard and seeing them open and close. You can monitor what’s going on. The way we do it now with full time in house transaction coordinator that’s actually not one of us. Which is a huge step in the right direction. That makes it very easy to even do more deals.
Steven: We do about one transaction a week per MSA, Metropolitan Statistical Area. Like Phoenix metro area is one, and it turns on and off based on how busy the boots on the ground are in that location. Or if we need to add one and all of that. We’re spending a tremendous amount of time updating our old rickety CRM to accommodate more transactions. That’s the only reason we’re not pulling out the stops, it’s from 2004. It’s a [inaudible 00:03:22] database, and I’m spending a lot of time changing it.
Jill: I’m going to sound like you for a second here. Hey listener, remember always having that computer on the other side of the office or in your office. Or maybe it was your computer that we could all hear, just because it’s so old and the fan’s just working so hard and everything. So we’re upgrading from that.
Steven: It’s true.
Jill: It’s really what it is. To in the cloud.
Steven: It’s a server, it sounds like it has respiratory issues.
Jill: Every day it’s like as you’re using it’s like please don’t die, please don’t die. There’s so much on there please don’t die.
Steven: It’s a little more complicated than that, but it’s interesting to hear your perception on that Jill.
Jill: Thank you.
Steven: Today’s topic, if you can’t flip after this episode we’ve got nothing for you. This is why you’re listening. Here’s what I mean by this.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: There’s people in this planet who, for whatever reason, prefer to put obstacles in front of themselves, so they don’t have to do stuff or don’t have to really see it all the way through or whatever.
Jill: Those are also called commitment issues too.
Steven: Yes, I’m not a psychologist. I don’t know, there’s a lot of things, a lot of reasons why people do stuff. I don’t pretend to even understand it, I do know this: that if you have it in your mind that you want to buy and sell houses and you’re not a renovator and you’re not a landlord. I’m describing myself right now. This is how you do it, you send a bunch of offers out to owners that are priced correctly and are very predictable and consistent number are going to come back and you’re going to buy property based on those numbers. It goes up a little bit and down a little bit, but not very much. That’s it, everything else after that is developing simple systems for you to move this property though the stages of acquisition and sale.
Jill: Well that’s great Steve. Once again you’re making it sound easy.
Steven: It is easy.
Jill: I know, but I want to add one thing, because I think that if I were listening to the first time to you I’d be going well that’s great, you make it sound so easy. How do you know it’s going to work that way, because you’re not only picking markets that you know because of data that it’s going to go that way. You’re not messing with markets that nothing has sold in for the last three years, or it’s just a community or it’s a retirement community and they only buy in the summer. You’re going to have sit and hold things for six months. Well it’s not hard when you learn and have access to the data, get in and just figure out where are the hot markets. And not just what you hear and what you think and what you read in the paper, but you have hard facts with data and you’re pitting and you’re MSA the top ten zip codes in that area. And now you’re really getting strategic to the two that really shine. It’s important for me to point out that that’s why we’re saying this is easy, you really know and that’s what we do.
Steven: Let me oversimplify again, on websites like Realtor.com they pull all the statistics. Realtor.com is a culmination of all the 300 or so MLS’s in the country. They concoct data reports constantly you have access to this stuff, it’s free. So the data makes a decision for you, so for instance they can see which MSA. Which MSA has been clicked on the most by users, and I know I just looked this up. In Arizona in Chandler, the city of Chandler, so all right that’s a good indication. Now I’m going to make data driven decision, I’ve got the data and where to send mail. I’m going to look up all the zip codes in Chandler, pit them against each other, see which ones got the lowest DOM. Okay great, I’ve got a handful of zip codes that really make sense. Let’s take it a little step further and one step after, step after step the data makes all the decisions for you.
Jill: I mean what do you think, do you have to be like a data analyst nerd to really get it?
Steven: Yeah.
Jill: Okay.
Steven: I know that’s not the answer you want.
Jill: Well wait a minute, I wasn’t born a data analyst nerd.
Steven: Well you have me.
Jill: That’s true, but I understand it though too. You can teach me, I get the gist of it. You know what it is? I think the difference, I’m glad we’re bringing this up, you love it, I don’t love it. For you it’s fun, for me I can do it not as well you clearly, but I can get through it and it’s painful. But what I do have is the stuff that you don’t like too. So then it comes to the sales part then we reverse. I shine there.
Steven: You’re a rainmaker there.
Jill: When they finally call in, they do want to sell, that’s where I shine. It’s a no brainer.
Steven: I mean what’s more fun than taking a look at a ton of data, realizing that zip code 85258 for example, is the clear place to send out a bunch of offers to owners because of all the statistics that you’ve compiled. That’s like cheating. If you did that on the stock market you would go to jail, it’s inside information, you would go to prison. In real estate it’s totally encouraged.
Jill: Yep, that’s true.
Steven: And we teach all this stuff, so now you know why we’re at this title.
Jill: Yeah.
Steven: We can go on for hours, Jill and I, as exact like take you through the sales process, because she applies data to sales and the whole thing. There’s a real easy way to see whose going to buy this house. Very, very serious less than five minute data driven indicators to see whose going to buy the house before you even close on it.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: In my opinion, so she says she’s not a data geek but she is.
Jill: I guess you’re right, but you know what, but I just look at different data. That’s a good point, I look at the sales data. I look at what days people are more responsive. And some of it’s not just what I’ve learned, but it’s my personal experience into data. Because I’ve got a lot of transactions under my belt now too thanks to you. But I know when how much time needs to pass when I hang up the phone, let them think about it, here they come. But I do study that too.
Steven: We cut our teeth, if you know us from the Land Academy Show, we’ve got our teeth for years and years on land. Buying and selling land, but the whole time Jill and I have been buying and selling house we just never really talked about it. Until recently I didn’t realize how special our approach was to buying and selling houses. It’s built off of that land prep platform, so we decided to list Land Academy, and what we’re finding the same type of data geeks [crosstalk 00:10:22].
Jill: House Academy.
Steven: I’m sorry House Academy, the same type of data geeks are joining House Academy as the land people. It really tells me that there’s a special kind of person that joins our group, anybody can join, but it’s a special kind of person typically that has some type of analytical background. Whether it’s finance or aerospace or something like that, somebody just joined our group whose a former land acquisition person for a large home builder. They were buying agricultural land, farms and stuff and converting it into subdivision properties. So this was a very logical step for them. So it’s really, really exciting to see this unfold. And it’s such a logical extension I think for buying and selling land.
Jill: I agree.
Steven: And it’s a lot easier. I’m going to be real honest here, buying and selling houses I think there’s benefits to both. But it’s so much easier from a pricing standpoint, because everybody understands houses.
Jill: Well there’s more data available too, more comps. They’re more reported, more accurately reported and recorded than a lot of land transactions. That makes it easier.
Steven: Post office based mail gets a bad rap in this industry, let’s face it. A lot of people veer away from it because they’re not doing it right. They’re not actually sending offers, they’re just sending letters of interest and it doesn’t work.
Jill: Exactly.
Steven: Join us next time for the episode called The Gold is in the Follow Up.
Jill: And we answer questions posted in our online community, it is at HouseAcademy.com, and it is free.
Steven: You are not alone in your real estate ambition. I get overexcited.
Jill: You do?
Steven: I get heated up let’s say.
Jill: Oh yeah you do get heated up. I’m like let’s define that. Overexcited is one thing, heated up is a whole nother thing. I’ve seen both and I know which one I prefer.
Steven: No, every once in a while something happens when Jill and I are both present. We both look at each other and go wait a minute. Nobody understands us, and it usually has nothing do with our business or anything. But for whatever reason Jill, I was thinking about this a couple days ago, you and I just don’t have to explain anything to each other. For some reason, I don’t know, we both want to get to the same place.
Jill: I never thought about that, but we do. From day one we’re automatically have been on the same page and you’re right we don’t talk about it.
Steven: Right.
Jill: We just know we want to get it done.
Steven: That’s right.
Jill: I love it. Wherever you are watching, or wherever you are listening, please subscribe and rate us there. We are Steve and Jill.
Steven: We are Steve and Jill. Information-
Jill: And inspiration.
Steven: To buy undervalued property.
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