What's Your Expectation of a Investor-Friendly Agent (IFA)?

[Eagle Yeh]

Hi Canadian BP community,

When finding an investor-friendly agent (IFA), what are your typical criteria and expectation? I just listened to the BP podcast: "Retired as a 'Digital Nomad Landlord' with 15 Rentals" with Sarah Weaver on 26-Jan, 2022. One thing I find very challenging is knowing what to expect from your IFA.

These are my criteria and expectations in different priorities. I would love to hear from you if anything here is "too much to expect", or I am expecting too little.

Top Priority: The Must-Have/Do

1. The IFA owns investment properties in similar markets

I find this critical because I want the IFA to have experience in the investment property industry. I am personally not experienced. Even though I am educating myself as much as I could, I need to trust the people on the ground.

2. Find deals that meet my criteria on and off-market: a) location, b) budget, c) type of housing (single-family, duplex, multiplex, etc.), d) age of the building

This is another must-do because what's on MLS today is public to everyone after posting. Finding off-market deals that meet the criteria differentiates an IFA from residential agents in my opinion. Good ones find more than the others, but I am not sure how to baseline this since we typically don't work with multiple agents in the same city/market.

3. Provide housing details not available publically

One challenge I find when analyzing a deal is not knowing what is the property tax, insurance, expected rents, vacancies, and sale price for similar houses. Some of these are available depending on where you live (HouseSigma provides sold and leased prices in BC and ON). Another thing is being the eyes on the properties physically to spot anything that could potentially break the deal.

Second Priority: The Good to Have

1. Rolodex

I am not sure if this is more on IFA or property management company(PMC). Being a remote investor, it's critical to know who to call for different jobs (?). I haven't studied into PMC yet, so I am not sure if this is typically managed by PMC, or I need to provide vendors when needed. I have met IFAs when they have their own Rolodex, and I have also met the ones that don't. This is something I definitely need to educate myself more on what to expect.

2. Preliminary analysis

I am not sure if it is due to bad definitions in searching criteria. Sometimes I would get deals that don't make much sense (ex. rent-to-price ratio below 0.2%). I don't think agents should run analysis when they send deals to clients (liability and time limitation), but making sure deals that just don't make sense are filtered out would be nice.

Extra Questions

Sarah in the podcast mentioned that investors should do their own due diligence, and I fully agree. What are the things you suggest a remote investor do independently? These are what I have in mind:

1. Understand the city and demography

The city's census data is available online. I research the city's GDP, population growth rate, crime rate, attractions, job market, etc. I use RentalHousingIndex to help me learn about the affordability, average rent, rent to income ratio, and other rent-related information. Although I find the information not quite update-to-date in some cities when the current rent is much higher than posted.

2. Cosmetic of the neighborhood

I walk around with Google Map in street view to take a look how the neighborhood feels like. This obviously isn't accurate but is what I can do independently without flying/driving there. 

3. Who else to call around?

This is a bit tricky. As mentioned earlier in the post, I am under the impression that I can only work with one agent in a market. I usually interview a few before choosing one but sometimes the first one would start sending deals before I sign anything. Other than an IFA and PMC, I am not sure who else I should be calling before an offer is signed. Connecting back to the "Rolodex" section, do I need to build my own vendor lists if a PMC is managing my property?

Thank you!