Land Academy & LandTank

Thank you, Jack and Jill. None of this happens without Land Academy.

Student #3

After selling a 160-house portfolio in Detroit, I wanted a way to buy directly from owners. I studied the business and found a land dealer starting an education company: Jack Butala and Jill DeWit’s Land Academy. I was student #3. They taught me to pull county data, mail blind cash offers, and run land as a real business — the foundation for everything on this website.

Within weeks of joining in 2015 they had me on their show: “New Land Academy Member Luke Smith Creates Great Success Quickly.”

On the shows, the webinars and the blog

Over the years I joined Jack and Jill on their weekly webinars many times in 2017, on their podcast and member interviews, and I wrote articles for the Land Academy blog, like “Send Mail” and “80% of the Peas Grow in 20% of the Pods.” Some of those interviews are among the most watched and replayed in the land space.

Speaking at Land Academy Live

I attended the first Land Academy Live event in 2018, and in 2019 Land Academy invited me to be one of five featured speakers at their Land Academy Live event, held October 4–6. I spoke on running a land business with project boards like Jira, title research with TitlePro 24/7, and scaling deal flow. I brought my wife and kids along. People I met at those events still call me about deals.

LandTank: raising money for deals

In February 2019 Land Academy launched LandTank, a site where members posted deals and partners funded them. I jumped in on day one. I posted deal after deal looking for funding partners — beach lots, storage-unit land, commercial land in Ohio and more — and became the top money-raising land dealer on LandTank while it was running. Many of those partners still invest in my deals today.

Thank you

Jack, Jill and the whole Land Academy team: thank you for teaching me this business, for putting me on your stage, and for building a community where land investors help each other. If you want to learn land investing from the people who taught me, visit LandAcademy.com.