Agent-friendly Investors

Ask the right question

We hear people ask where to find investor-friendly agents a lot. If you type “investor friendly agent” in Google, there are more than 16 million items shown up. But I think whoever wants to be successful in real estate investment should ask this question: “am I an agent (or broker)-friendly investor”. Things may get pretty interesting if you think in this way.

Having hard time finding and keeping investor-friendly agent?

People usually regard an agent investor-friendly if the agent knows the market, would like to work with investors, understands what are good investment deals, and has good connections that can help your business along the way. These are sound criteria. There are tons of articles and posts about how to find those agents. And suppose you find one of those, then what? And if you have a hard time finding any, what should you do? In both cases, making yourself an agent-friendly investor will help for sure because it will be easy to build your relationship with good agents, and letting people know you are an agent-friendly investor will definitely help good agents to find you. How nice is that? So the real question is, what is an agent friendly investor?

What are agent-friendly investors?

First of all, an agent-friendly investor has clear criteria for what specific properties they are looking for. Imagine there are two people approaching a good agent at the same time. Investor A asks “Can you help me to find some good properties that can make money for me?” While investor B asks “I am looking for a 3/2 property in a B class neighborhood with price range 150 – 200k, 8+ schools. The property should be built after 2000, with no or minor improvement needed. It should be in a good rental market with at least 20% people renting.” Which one do you think the agent would like to work with? Then what if investor B keeps saying something like “I want the cap rate to be above 8% and cash to cash return to be above 10%. My current plan is to purchase two properties this year and 10 in the next 4 years. I will be available to visit properties Mon/Wed/Fri after 4pm, and most Saturdays all day.” It is a no brainer. If an agent understand and would like to work with investors, he/she will take investor B over A without a thought, because he or she has a much higher chance to do a series of deals with much less efforts.

Going to a higher level

The concept is that simple – always know what you are looking for and have both short and long term plans. Moreover, if you let your criteria and plans known to the world, good agents will find you because they know you are potential good clients. Good agents are always selective, so it’s better to become something easy to be selected. Being consistently out there to market your investment criteria and plans will help you spend less and less time looking for good agents and deals, because they will come to you naturally.

So where to go from here? Besides being an agent-friendly investor, you may have the same mindset for being an X-friendly investor, such as lender-friendly investor, contractor-friendly investor, property manager-friendly investor, and even investor-friendly investor, and the list can go on and on. The underlying principles are the same – being professional and keeping marketing yourself to the whole world.