All Forum Posts by: Jason King

Marc, 

Welcome to the site!  I am also a new investor in Rhode Island.  If you haven't started already, I would highly recommend attending the RI Real Estate Invetors Group (RIREIG) meetings.  They are on the third Thursday of every month from 6pm-9pm, with usually an hour or so at the end for networking.  This is a great opportunity to learn from/network with more seasoned investors in the area.  This is the link so you can check it our for yourself - http://rireig.com/ .  Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help!

Jason

@Jesse Rivera Thanks for the clarification!

@Jesse Rivera This seems like a great way to generate more leads. Buying off of the MLS seems super competitive, so any opportunity to get those pre-listing/off-market deals is worth it in my mind. This may seem like a dumb question, but what is the industry standard (if there is one) about working with multiple agents from the same agency? Should you try to stick to only 1 agent from any particular agency, or is it ok to work with multiple?

@Jeff Valentino - currently I am working exclusively with my agent on all buys and sells, but I like your recommendation for wording.  Thanks again!

@Bill Gulley - great advice as always, I like the tip about the FSBOs, though I haven't come across too many of those in my area in the price range I'm looking at.  Thanks for the feedback.

@Jeff Valentino  - I am glad to get some feedback from a Realtor's perspective.  Would a listing agent still be interested in exchanging information if I already have an agent I am working with?

@Account Closed & @Rachel H. - thanks for the feedback.  I didn't think there was anything wrong with this, I just wanted to get some other opinions and see how you guys handle the situation.

@Account Closed - I usually try to keep it under a half dozen ;)

@Account Closed Thanks for the advice!  I like the way you spin it as being more convenient to pop into an open house rather than  make an appointment, which is in line with my point of not wasting anybody's time.  The realtor is going to be there for the open house regardless of if I stop by or not, so why not take advantage of it.

As part of performing my market research I have been trying to go to as many open houses in my area (in my desired ARV price range) to get a feel for what is currently available on the market, what quality of materials buyers expect at certain price points, and what can help sell a house quickly vs. what will keep a house on the market for too long. Naturally, as I have been working my way through the houses I have been getting questions from the listing agents about how I found the house, what I am looking for, etc. To this point, I have been keeping my answers pretty vague, i.e. "I am just browsing, looking in the area, not serious, etc.".

I am not sure if what I am doing is misleading or not (I certainly have not expressed any real interest in any of the properties, and have tried to make that as clear as possible).  Should my answer to these questions be that I am a real estate investor checking out the competition?  I am not sure how a listing agent would respond to this type of answer, which is why I haven't taken this approach thus far.  Any thoughts?

@Tom S. Thanks for the help. This seems to be the case with most large banks, from what I have read. So, is the only viable option for buying REOs to get them off the MLS? It seems there is room for improvement in this process, though I know how efficiently banks work.

@Account Closed this is what I anticipated to hear. So, with that being said, is the only option on this property to wait for it to hit the MLS?