I Will Not Take You Seriously As An Investor, If You Tell Me This...

Every investor friendly agent on this forum deals with investors day in and day out, and with the pandemic/tik tok, plus BP going well over 2M users, this is more and more of a "main stream" topic and I find more and more people are interested and have desire to invest in real estate.  However, there is a reason that most people in real estate are contrarian thinkers, it is not for everyone, and it takes a certain mindset and individualism to be successful.  If you truly want to be taken seriously as a newbie when shopping for a deal, here are some things to avoid...Or at least to be aware of.

"Well they paid $XYZ for the property, so I'm not going to pay more than $ABC" - If I'm presenting you a deal, and your reasoning for not wanting to move forward is what the last investor paid for it, That tells me a Metric F Ton about you and your buying style, and frankly I don't want any part of it.  This tells me that you buy into the hype, that you are seeking external validation for your decisions, and it tells me that you do not have a good enough handle on your own buy-box to make a solid decision.  Sure I get it, no one wants to overpay for something, but in today's market, if you are not comparing the deal to your own criteria and making the decision based on how it fits into YOUR portfolio in some manner, then you are not going to be very successful and will likely never pull the trigger on anything.  

"I'm looking for single family, or multi family, as long as its A Good Deal" - Ok this one is a bit on the fence, but let me just say this for every real estate agent out there, WE KNOW...it is implied that you want a good deal.  I'm going to assume that every person I talk to does not want to buy "a bad deal".  So when I ask the follow up question "Great what does a good deal look like to you?"...you had better be able to give me specifics.  These specifics can be anything, I don't care if its a bedroom and bath count, a square footage min and max, a specific area code, a specific cash on cash return, or the fact that you won't buy near a body of water because you don't want the liability of an Alligator snatching up the tenants little toy dog...literally give me anything specific to show that you've thought about what "a good deal" is to you.  Or, if you have NOT, then just say so!  Let's talk it through, let's dig down into what a successful investment looks like to you!  because if you don't have this figured out, or are not able to articulate what the successful investment looks like to you, there is no way I can find you something you'll end up pulling the trigger on.

"Yes I'd like to make an All Cash Offer of 50% of list price" - I'm all for lowballing, don't get me wrong there is some real overpriced junk out there on the market, but if you come to me with this, and you cannot defend your pricing to me, how am I going to present that offer to the seller/list agent and how will we have any chance of success?  This tells me that again you either have no idea what a successful deal looks like to you, or more than likely you are some kind of internet scammer, that's trying to wholesale an on-market deal in some janky way.  

Offering 50% of list price for the poops and giggles of offering 50% of list without any defense, comps, ARV discussion etc, is a huge waste of not only my time but also yours.  Now by all means if the property is way over priced and we can't find comps to support the list price, or maybe the rents are no where near where they need to be in order to support the list price, great let's have that conversation, because that is a factual data driven discussion and gives us a leg to stand on and educate the seller/list agent.

In all seriousness, if you are a new investor, and truly want to get into real estate, myself an every other investor friendly agent on this platform would love to help and coach you.  But it's a competitive market out there, so understand that if you say things like the above, we don't care, and you aren't impressing us.  Frankly, there is someone else that will buy the deal, who does see the value and won't bat an eye at what the list price is or what the last guy paid for it. The biggest barrier to you buying your first or next deal is you and your mindset, and what you determine success to be.

If you need help figuring out what success in an investment looks like to you personally, reach out, that's a great discussion to have and any of us on here would be happy to dive in with you in preparation for your search.