How to motivate realtor

[Vivian D.]

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie here from Houston, TX and would like to say hello as well as thank you to everyone who contributes to BP. Such an awesome place here, I am so glad I stumbled in this site.

I have a question with hope that you can point me out to some direction.

I am a stay at home mom and will continue with this wonderful full time job for at least another 3-4 years if not more. In the meantime, I would like to take advantage of the small savings my husband and I have to get ourselves into REI. We think let us start small, at least for the experience. With the mortgage on the house we are living in (our first home), we can afford something max of 50-60K (down payment + standard mortgage). We guess that small sum will make it hard to get a realtor motivated (even the one who got us the first house). Any ideas how we can make it work in this case?

Getting a license myself can be a way to go - so I can get to see/make offers to as many properties as I wish before we see a good deal. Is there any pros/cons in this?

Thank you all so much for your responds. I really do appreciate them all.

[Joel Owens]

"we can afford something max of 50-60K (down payment + standard mortgage)."

First you need to understand if you are putting some down the loan balance will be below 50k. Those types of properties are very hard to fund because mortgage brokers do not make any money off of them. An in house bank that services the loan still usually has interest in such a loan.

So you really need to line up financing in that price range before starting to look as it will be hard to come by. There are turn key companies that fund with some down but you need to make sure you are not over paying for a money pit that has been skimmed over with carpet and paint but all the expensive stuff is in bad shape.

Second you need to figure out if your goal is realistic. This means if you can only afford a 60k property and are expecting 800 rent for it and a 3 bed 2 bath in the area you want and only 2 such properties have transacted on the MLS in a year then it's a pipe dream. If you search high and low enough you might find or may never but do not expect a broker/agent to go on a wild goose chase for a very small commission. You might get a newbie who doesn't know any better but you are getting inexperience also.

If the range you can afford isn't realistic maybe you need to flip things around. Maybe wholesale a property, rehab and flip a property, or buy a 4 unit and live in one of the units where you can buy with 5% down instead of 20% thereby increasing your purchasing power. You can also look to another area where the purchase price and rents line up with your goals.

When I work with commercial clients on larger commercial deals I analyze the time invested versus the odds of finding what it is they are looking for to transact a deal. If a broker/ agent isn't analyzing their time for maximum potential then they are failing running an effective business.

Hope it helps. Good luck.