Approaching my personal Agent to join business team

[Josh Coleman]

Hey All, 

TLDR: I'm working on putting together my team and I was hoping for some advice on approaching my current real estate agent. He is a top producing agent in our area, and represented my wife and I purchasing our first home. Him and his wife are also good friends. He is extremely well connected and an investor as well, and I'm confident that he'd be a great asset for my team. My two main concerns are that I won't be able to provide the value that he deserves to get from me as an early stage investor, and that because he's getting closer to retirement, he may not want to jump in on the ground level of something. 

I'm putting together a quick script for this conversation that I'd love some feedback on. I've included it below and would love any feedback or general advice. Thanks in advance!

Initial Communication

Hey (Agent's name), My wife and I are starting a real estate investment business where we plan to buy distressed multi-family properties, rehab them, and then rent them out. Having you and (His wife, also an agent) as our realtors has been wonderful, and your team is our obvious first choice to partner with on this new venture. If you have 5-10 minutes I’d love to tell you a little bit more about what we are planning to do, what we are looking for in an agent in our model, and what value we could bring to you as well.

Follow-Up/Initial Call

Thank you for taking the time to chat with me, I know you are busy so I won’t take long. Like I mentioned previously, your expertise in the home buying process and recommendations for all of the fun issues that have come up since buying our home, as well as your friendship have been awesome. When my wife and I think real estate, you guys are the first thing that comes to mind. We can’t think of anyone better that we’d like to work with on a more regular basis, and provide us the opportunity to be able to return to you some of the value that you’ve brought to our lives.

In our model, we will be buying distressed properties and rehabbing them using private money, renting them out, and refinancing the properties once they are eligible. We would like to focus on multi-family properties as we feel this provides the best opportunity to scale our business long term.

From an agent perspective, we are looking for three main things, the first being leads. We aren't going to ask you to hunt off-market properties, or spend hours trying to find us deals, that will be on us. From a leads perspective, we'd just ask that you plug our criteria into whichever drip campaign that you are currently using, so that we are notified of new properties that hit the MLS that fit our criteria. Second would be your representation on sales; making offers on our behalf, and preparing documents/closing in a timely manner.

The third thing we are looking for in an agent, and what we think your team specifically would be the best to provide us, is expertise and advice when it comes to looking for contractors, lenders, property managers, etc. While we will be doing our own due diligence when it comes to finding and analyzing deals, we respect and value your opinions and would love to be able to tap into the knowledge and wisdom you’ve built over your career.

In return, we can provide an easy experience for you. We aren’t going to be those first time home buyers with impossible standards. We will have our homework done and not waste your time looking at multiple properties with no intention of pursuing them. Once we get up and running, we’ll be able to provide a consistent transaction flow, and we will gladly continue to send referrals your way. As we establish ourselves in the space, those referrals won’t be limited to just real estate buyers, we would be able to refer other investors, contractors, lenders, and the like.

Currently, our efforts are geared towards building our foundational knowledge, analyzing Omaha sub-markets and individual properties, and putting together our team. Our goal is to be in contract on our first property by the end of the year. We really would love for you guys to be a part of our team. We do realize at this point in your careers you may not have time or desire to jump into something at the ground level, and we would completely understand that. If that is the case we’d love to hear if you have an investor friendly agent that you could recommend, and we also want to assure you that you will always be our first choice for our personal real estate needs.

What questions can I answer that will help you come to a decision?