Agents: Seller or Buyer

Agents: Seller or Buyer

Member since 2008 · 25 posts · 0 votes

I'm new to wholesaling and still in the process of researching my market, which means I'm beating the pavement, basically on weekends, seeing as many houses as I can.

I'm learning a lot about the values in my area, and I'm running into a lot of brokers and agents as well. Some of them have started calling me with potential deals - nothing worth pursuing yet, and I'm still educating most of them on what a "deal" is to me, but I'm wondering whether the pros here have experience working with both buyer's agents (someone who can scour the MLS, etc.) and alert you when they find something they think might interest you, and a seller's agents, who will call you when they have a listing they think you might be interested in.

I know there are pluses and minuses with both, but here's what I've heard:

1) If you're going to elicit the assistance of a buyer's agent, you should let that person know if you're also having listing agents call you with deals.

2) The listing agent is likely to be more motivated, since they'll get both ends of the commission, but they'll obviously be calling you *only* with their listings, so it will take time to build up relationships with enough of them to keep any meaningful number of leads coming in.

Opinions?

As a side note, thanks to what I've read here, on a couple of other forums, and in the books and courses I've read, I can stop the "BS" pretty quickly and tell these people what a house should be selling for, what kind of repairs it probably needs (at first glance), and what those repairs will cost. Man, I wish I'd known all this when I bought my house years ago.

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  • Real Estate Agent · Minneapolis, MN · Member since 2008 · 193 posts · 7 votes
    19y

    I can speak from experience on this question. When I first was trying to get started in flipping and investing, I would meet Realtors much like you are. I would go through the same discussion each time with them:
    [list]Here is what I am looking for (flips, rentals in this neighborhood, etc)
    When you call, I can drop everything and meet you at the property
    I have money in the bank and I am pre-qualified with a compentent mortgage banker
    I will make a decision within 5 minutes of seeing the property
    [/list:u]
    I should have been the ideal buyer, but typically the agent never called me again or would send me deals that were completely opposite of what I was looking for.

    I finally met a Realtor that only worked with investment buyers. He had never listed a house and had no desire to. He spent time with me to learn what I wanted and then when out and found it. I think that was the only way I could have started. I used him as a resource to learn the investment business. He benefited as I bought about $4 million worth of property from him!

    Now as a Realtor myself, I use the same process. I relate it to being a detective or big-game hunter. Tell me what you are looking for and I will find it. A listing agent is only going to see what he has listed. As a buyer's agent, I see everything on the market and can use my tools and expertise to find exactly what my customer wants.

    Long message, but I hope it makes the point.

  • Real Estate Investor · London · Member since 2008 · 3k+ posts · 74 votes
    19y

    Most agents have no interest in working with investors any more than retail buyers. In fact the investors are hard for them to work with as the agents do not see many deals come across their desk following normally processes.

    Being an agent is mostly about great customer service with a naive buyer or seller. Most people do not buy or sell that often so most customers never get that much experience. Great agents for retail buyers are a joy but still little help for investors.

    Think of it this way. If being an agent was really profitable the average full time agent would earn more. The average is pretty low. If they were motivated to make more they could be investors but very few go down that path.

    Agents can provide a great service for the typical buyer or seller. Being an agent has almost nothing to do with investing other than cash is involved and properties are bought and sold.

    When buying through agents I prefer to use buyer agents. Ones that I have built a relationship with and who have been trained by me on what I care about. It is my job to train them. It is their job to chase down deal details or run around coordinating things I need done.

    A good investor learns a great deal more about RE than an agent. We have to if we are going to find the deals that the agents never see.

    John Corey

  • Member since 2008 · 25 posts · 0 votes
    19y

    Thanks for the replies, John and Scott. I've actually come across a few agents recently who at least understand that, when they work with an investor, they can get cash and a fast close for the right deal.

    I've been thinking I could approach them about working with me on properties that they generally wouldn't want their sign out front of, but even if they understood what I wanted, I'm sure I'd be the guy by who they'd run everything they didn't want to list, regardless of whether or not it fit my criteria.

    However, I've also got a couple of leads on young, hungry, new guys who I think I could train to look for deals - I haven't yet met a Realtor or agent who understands REI.

    The buyer's agent route seems like the way to go.

    Thanks again.

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