Unique Method to Locate Investor Friendly Realtors

Before we disclose the unique method of locating an investor friendly realtor, lets first look at who they are and why they are essential to your real estate investing business.

An investor friendly realtor is one that is comfortable working with and servicing real estate investors and is aware of the way investors think, as well as why they seek properties. Sometimes they themselves may also be investors.

Every real estate investor should have connections to realtors, and especially investor friendly realtors. Why? Actually, for a few reasons. One reason is so that you can utilize their access to the multiple listing service (MLS) for securing comparables (comps) for properties that you are targeting or already own. Another reason is to be made aware of pocket listings before they are shared to the masses on the MLS. A pocket listing is a property that will soon be listed for sale on the MLS, however the listing realtor (agent) may choose to make a select few aware of the upcoming listing before it is actually listed.

Yet another reason to connect with realtors is that they can also conduct searches of expired MLS listings. An expired listing is one that was at one time listed for sale, however, did not sale and the listing expired. Searches of the expired listings might produce fruit to revive a property for purchase.

Now that we have touched on who an investor friendly realtor is and why they are essential, lets look at that unique method of locating them. There is a government website for the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (also known as HUD). We want to direct our attention to the portion of the HUD website that promotes the sale of HUD foreclosed homes. This particular website address is www.hudhomestore.gov. While most visitors to this website come here to seek possible HUD foreclosed proprieties to purchase, when you land on this website you will want to look for the wording in the header “Broker Search”. Clicking on Broker Search will allow you to select the state and zip code, as at least the state is required to conduct a Registered HUD Broker search, and conduct your search.

There is typically only 2 reasons why a real estate broker would take the time to be registered with HUD: (1) to attract first time homebuyers that may be seeking a HUD foreclosed property to purchase (2) to attract real estate investors that are seeking to bid on HUD foreclosed properties. In my opinion, you have a 50% chance of locating an investor friendly realtor via the HUD registered broker search.

Once you create the list of targeted HUD registered brokers that service the geographical area that you choose, then Google their name and review any website & profile that may be online to see if they reference specializing in working with investors. Then reach out to the ones that look promising to confirm that they service real estate investors. Depending on the volume of purchases that you want to complete you may need more than one investor friendly realtor on your team. However regardless of the number, they can be a very useful resource for locating properties and comps. They become just one source of properties, and in some cases a source for off-market properties, to help you search for those properties that fit your buy box parameters.