Real estate agents' perspective

[Jacoby Atako]

I usually hear about qualities we need from our real estate agents as investors, but I don't generally know what agents need, especially when working with investors.

What does your ideal, investor, working relationship look like? What are your expectations from him/her? What value do you generally bring in your relationship with them? How much collaboration goes into making offers?

I'm legitimately curious about this subject as my first investments came outside the help of a realtor.

[DJ M.]

Simple answer. Cut the ********, dont waste my time. I dont mind opening doors, but trust my professional opinion when I tell you something like your offer of 70% of asking price for a house thats been on the market 3 days wont fly.

Your the investor, im the agent. I wont run your #s for you, thats your job. No reason to increase liability for me, and we may value things differently. Dont get cold feet. I can handle cold feet from first time homebuyers, but your supposed to be a professional. Act like it.

Im here to open doors, run comps, and do my best to get an offer accepted and get the transaction to the finish line if buying. List side is getting the listing marketed correctly and getting you the best offer the quickest in addition to guiding the transaction to its conclusion.

When I find you something that meets your criteria, your job is to pull the trigger and get your ducks in a row so we can close.

Agents only have so much time in the day, and for 99.999% of us we are 100% commission. I would rather work with first time homebuyers than a newbie investor, and that says a lot.

Professionalism goes both ways, you should expect your Realtor to be professional, and you should be professional towards him/her.  Questions are ok to ask. General questions are probably better saved for google, though.

Really the most important thing is just this: 'Dont waste time'.  Every minute I spend working with a newer investor is a minute I am taking away from another client of mine who I know will close.  For some agents, that is not worth the risk.

Hope this helps, Good luck!