Cold calling as a Realtor..

[Derek Martin]

I've been cold calling multifamily owners trying to purchase their rental property (in areas where I currently own rental properties). Most times we cannot agree on a price for a number of reasons. As a REALTOR does anyone have any experience turning these calls into Listings? Is it possible to transition the call into a listing?

Any advice?

[Account Closed]

@Derek Martin 

No I wouldn't come out and say I owned buildings in the area.  You're right, it might give you some common ground, give you something to talk about.  But it's all kind of irrelevant for the purposes of a cold call.  You've only got a brief moment before you lose this guy.  So when you give out your history, you're missing the purpose of the call....which is to a) find out if he's a possible seller, and b) make an appointment with him.

Bottom line is you need to get him talking rather than you talking.  Plenty of time to tell him you own a building in the area if that's important to you.  But trust me on this, it's not important to the issue of whether he's entertaining selling, or to the real purpose of your call.  And too, your original question was about realtors and success with listings.

I usually called with something like this:

Hi, my name is Jim Piper with XYZ real estate company.  Just calling today to see if you have ever entertained the idea of selling your property?

What that does is it throws the ball to him.  Now, he has to talk.  I like to ask questions that answer the who, what where, when, why and how.  Every question you ask gives you more information.  How many units do you have there?  Are you full or do you have vacancy?  What kind of rents are you getting?  Do you have any deferred maintenance? How long have you owned the property? Etc etc.

Now, my goal as a broker was to make an appointment to get a listing.  When I went to the listing, saw the building, and continued to ask questions I would try to determine his motivation.  "How quick do you need to sell?"  "Are you able to carry some of the deal to facilitate the financing?"  If the answers to these question are coming out in a way that makes me think he's motivated, then I'm going to shift my direction to buying myself.  If not, I'm going to list.

Regardless of what hat you have on, no one especially cares about your history.  And too, you've got to know alot of information before you have any idea of what the value is.

I think you get the idea.  The idea of cold calling is to get down your list to the handful of folks that are interested in selling.  And btw, that automated caller is a poor idea in my opinion.  It some areas it might even be illegal. Legality aside, you do a higher quality call yourself.  And if you do them how I'm suggesting you'll down your list quickly.

Have you ever entertained the idea of selling?  No.  OK, thank you very much and hang up.  That's a 30 second phone call.