5 Ways To Find Investor-Friendly Agents When You Are a Brand New Investor

[Jonathan Greene]

One of the hardest things to do when you are a new investor is to find an investor-friendly real estate agent who will give you the time of day. From the agent's side, you have to understand that every Tom, Fred, and Sally says they will buy ten properties over ten years and need to find a partner. It's too soon for that; do this instead.

Before

1. Get your finances and financing in order before reaching out. If you want to get a great agent, you want to be able to tell them that you are pre-approved (and for how much, for single- or multi-family), have confirmed hard money if you are going to flip, and how much savings you have. Know what you want to spend vs. how much you can spend.

2. Do a lot of research on what type of property you want to buy and what investment strategy you want to use (it's ok if this changes, just have a plan). If you come to an agent and you don't know if you like short-term, flipping, multi, condos, or single, it's not a good use of their time to help you at that point.

During

3. Go to local real estate meetups and see what investors also have a license. Don't look for the agents pushing their card into everyone's hands, look for investors who also work as agents. Look up their reviews on Zillow and Google and see if there is investor feedback. Anytime you see a house getting flipped, watch to see who lists it. Most agents who list flipped homes are the ones who found the property for the investor. They are a great place to start.

4. Keep doing your research and asking smart questions about your strategy. Make sure your agent knows you are doing the work on your end also. If you show up every week and tell a good agent, I will buy whatever is a good deal, that puts the decision-making on them when it should be on you. You want to be ping-ponging ideas with your realtor so it is more of a partnership.

5. Don't blame an agent for telling you no or that this is not a good property for you. If they do that, they have your best interests at heart. If they say yes to every deal you want, they have commission breath and are just trying to get the deal done. The best agents for new investors are ones who act as guides and protect them from themselves.

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If you are a new investor, feel free to add your experience. There are a lot of terrible real estate agents, this is a fact. But there are also a lot of unprepared investors asking for time from good agents without being ready to do the work.

If you are an agent or have worked with a great investor-friendly agent in your career, add to this list.

[Bradley Buxton]

These are good tips. One of the most important is to know your goals and why you want to invest.

As a new investor if you don't have all the information that is also okay. There is so much advice and noise from the "experienced" investor it can be hard for new investors to sort through it. In today's environment its very different than the last 3, 5, 10 years. A good agent will be a guide not a servant. A good agent can help you with strategy, listen, show you a path along with assist in finding properties that fit with the your goals.  

As a new investor don't be afraid to switch agents if you're not conformable working with them. Ask lots of questions of them and if something isn't right then ask more until you are or you know enough to keep looking. It will become more important once buyer agreements are the norm.