Landlord Owners Being Reluctant to Show Their Properties More than Once

[Alvin Grier]

We've found that a lot of the landlord owners are reluctant to show their properties more than once.

A lot of them don't understand that it's fairly rare for local buyers to buy site-unseen, thus every now and then it's necessary to walk five or more buyers through the property.

Being that they normally ask us to act as if we're insurance agents or something, once we get to the second and third visits with prospective buyers, the tenants start to feel deceived, and it's down hill from there.

Is there a policy you communicate with landlord owners or something that allows them to understand that there's going to be instances where multiple people are going to need to view the property before they buy?

I know I just posted another forum topic that may be perceived as being the same, however I think that although they're dealing with the same general area of the business, that they are two different questions.

Thanks in advance for your time.

[Aaron Mazzrillo]

I posted under your other topic, but now I'm wondering if you're an agent selling listed rental homes? Here is what I do:

Go to the property and do a very, very good video tour. Also, take LOTS of photos. Then edit those into the video tour. You can use very simple software like Windows Live Movie Maker. We're not trying to win an Oscar here, just give any interested party a pretty good idea of what they are getting into. Load it up to youtube and then put a link to it in your listing. In the comments, be very specific that the tenants are not to be bothered and that all offers are to be submitted 'subject to interior inspection.'

Anyone who won't take the time to write up an offer without seeing the inside probably isn't serious anyway. This has worked very well for me and avoids a lot of lame looky-loos who just want to waste everybody's time because they have a pipe dream of buying some real estate.

I also do my agent's visual inspection at the same time so that I can provide them with detailed notes about what I see regarding the condition of the property. If the client sees the video and writes an offer, they are probably pretty interested and you have a much better shot of going to escrow. Plus, you don't have to leave your house all the time showing some disgruntled tenant's pigsty.