Working with Family Friend Realtor

[Ned Rennolds]

Hello all. I did some searching for this but didn't have any luck. I have a family friend who is trying to help me find good deals to either flip or rent. She has more experience selling historic and more expensive homes. I am still starting out but am under the impression she is not very familiar with what a good deal looks like for me. Maybe this is something I need to explain more to her but what are some suggestions on how I can help her think about what would work for me. Thanks.

[Roman Pak]

@Ned Rennolds I would try to show her some examples of what you're looking for. Deals that others have done or that you've heard about, or a deal that you found that didn't quite work out. You may just need to get her to think about the deals in the same way as you, or look at properties from a different perspective. If she's used to working with historic homes and larger homes, it may be difficult to shift that perspective into something like fix and flips.

As a side note however, I've tried working with friend real estate agents, and in my experience, it never works out. When you have a personal connection with someone like a realtor, in some ways the pressure is off of them. They don't seem to have the same sense of urgency.

Here's an example. I worked with a real estate agent that was a long time friend of mine. When I contacted him to look at properties I thought it would work out great for both of us. What happened was that he didn't really feel like he was working for me. He must have had the idea that there was no problem with taking his time and handling his other affairs over trying to find a property for me. It would take him days to put a contract together. He would show up late to showings, and would make promises he knew he couldn't keep. As a result of him dragging his feet, I lost out on two deals, which I stood to make approx. 30-40k on.

Bottom line is that before you start working with a friend on real estate deals, especially if they've never done this before/don't do this themselves, be 100% clear as to what your expectations are. Let them know that it's not ok to treat your relationship as an excuse for poor performance.