Wearing out an agent

[Brandon Pelfrey]

I've never worked with an agent who has turned me down on going to check out a property, gather details from a listing agent, or any other kind of work that I ask them to do, however there's always a voice in the back of my head whenever I make a request that's asking me if I'm asking too much. Oftentimes I want to go walk a property or try to get more information on it even though I know that there's a good chance I won't actually be interested in making an offer, so I don't end up contacting an agent about it. Curious to get feedback from those who have good relationships with agents (or who are agents themselves) about how they feel about this.

[Russell Brazil]

I am an agent. I am a very high producing agent. I am an agent that works primarily with investors.  I work with investors of varying skill and price levels, from first time purchases buying a cheap $150k condo, all the way up to multimillion dollar deals. I do an amazing job for my clients. 

I say all this to preface, someone like myself who does a lot of business....we typically interview the client to see if we are going to take on the client. I turn down a lot of business. My time is limited, and I dont take on clients who I dont think are going to close deals. I can usually size someone up pretty quickly if they are going to close something.  If they want a property at a certain price, I tell them A) if that is possible, and B) If it is, we craft a strategy to get the property at that price.  If they want to make an offer where their price is not possible....I might do it once, a second time, I fire them. 

I dont show someone 100 properties.  They tell me what they want, what their criteria is.....I either know where to find a property that meets that criteria, or it doesnt exist in my market.

I spend a lot of time educating buyers on properties, the market, renovations....but its typically going to be at my leisure if we are in the education phase and not the buying phase....and Im usually going to have them come to REIAs and meetups for that.  If they want to look at a property they are not going to buy, if I happen to have the time....sure. But most of the time, I dont have the time to show properties unless your actually interested in buying, in which case I send them to the open house.

But the flip side is, I make my clients a ton of money.  Had a client this past year, got him $250k off the list price. (It was obviously an expensive property). Just got a deal under contract last month, $75k off list which was 18% off.  Big discounts like that though, those are usually several months of process involved