All Forum Posts by: Sean O'Dowd

Hi! CEO of a TC company here!

It's a fantastic industry and more and more agents are looking to hire TC's. It''s a huge time savings for agents (we see about ~15-20 hours per agent per transaction) so as soon as an agent gets to see the world once they have a TC...they rarely want to go back!

I'm copy-pasting a response I just wrote on another thread because I think it's still relevant, but would strongly agree with the other posts written that you need to push yourself out there. Any day without 10 outbound phone calls could have been used differently

OK, copy and paste below

Here's one you haven't seen, but I highly recommend. I'm CEO of a transaction coordination company so not a realtor, but we use this ourselves and are teaching realtors the same strategy.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

It's the paid version of Linkedin, I think it's $80 per month. But, it's a gold mine for targeting buyers. It gives you so much information that you won't believe.

In short, buy the software and then start running a search:

• Your city (and surrounding area)
• Just started a new job in the area
• Just left a job in a different state
• Is a VP, SVP, or C-Suite level individual (read: buying a more expensive home)

By running this search, you'll get a list of a few dozen people who are moving to the area and are likely looking to buy.

Good luck!

All of these posts are great and I totally agree.

Here's one you haven't seen, but I highly recommend. I'm CEO of a transaction coordination company so not a realtor, but we use this ourselves and are teaching realtors the same strategy.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

It's the paid version of Linkedin, I think it's $80 per month. But, it's a gold mine for targeting buyers. It gives you so much information that you won't believe. 

In short, buy the software and then start running a search:

• Your city (and surrounding area)
• Just started a new job in the area
• Just left a job in a different state
• Is a VP, SVP, or C-Suite level individual (read: buying a more expensive home)

By running this search, you'll get a list of a few dozen people who are moving to the area and are likely looking to buy.

Good luck!

You can, but there are some caveats.

The bank will need to be OK with this (and not every bank will be-you'll have better luck with smaller community banks).

David is right that the bank will need to be paid off when closing. So, the seller could theoretically do a seller hold back on their existing equity built up in the property. It doesn't happen a lot...but it could

Hey Ryan-welcome to the real estate world!

Shawn (the other one) and Nathan had some good points. I'll piggy back on some of their comments. The first few months can be very tough. It will feel uncomfortable, but you need push through

The best advice I can possibly give (and this might sound weird) is to give up the sensation of feeling embarrassed.

You'll need to really put yourself out there. You need to ask people you love and trust for their business or to help refer you new business. You need to strike up conversations with strangers if you overhear someone say they are looking for a realtor. You need to knock on doors in neighborhoods where houses are flying off the shelves.

The other big piece of advice is to follow up.

I own a transaction coordination company, but my wife and I are investors also. I'm constantly on the phone with realtors to talk about properties we are interested in.

I can't tell you the number of agents (who paid for my lead on Zillow!) who promise to send me more information about an area but didn't follow up. My wife and I were actually talking yesterday about an agent who lost a commission with us because of this. She never sent us the info she said she would, so we called someone else. That second agent got the commission

Hope this helps and congrats again-welcome to real estate!

Not off the top of my head. My company is also a vendor to realtor (completely different area-we do transaction coordination), but I hear of a new company serving realtors at least once a week. Someone told me yesterday about a company that takes 3D matterport tours for agents.

My guess is there's going to be a bunch of competitors for Velocity (I've heard mixed things about them, if it's helpful) and a ton of local individual photographers who specialize in real estate. I'd do a bit of Googling for each neighborhood in Austin you're thinking about

Best of luck!

I'm a long-distance investor (my wife and I own property that we've never seen) and own a transaction coordination business so I've seen even more deals.

Greg made a good comment in that the average BP member knows more about validating if a property is a good deal or not from a numerical perspective.

However, the agents I've hired and the agents I work with who build great investor businesses focus on adding value that you can only get on the ground.

For example, I want to know more about the property that I could ever learn about online. For example:

• As mentioned above: is the local trader joes going in there?
• Do locals avoid this area? Is it more tourists?
• Does this street smell bad, due to it's location to nearby businesses? (more common than you'd expect)

I went to Penn and I see you're in Philly. An agent who told their customers to look at fishtown ~5 years ago (before the "numbers" made it look good) probably made their clients a ton of money and made a client for life
Hope that helps!

Absolutely agree, this is going to be dependent on what your broker is looking for.

If your broker has no preference, I'd recommend setting up a new LLC. Being an agent is a business, and you'll want to handle it like a business. Separate LLC, separate business bank account, the works!

Best of luck and welcome to real estate!

Hey Annie! I'm in Chicago but I've worked with Wisconsin realtors (my company is a transaction coordination company) and know even more Wisconsin realtors.

Honestly, you're not being picky at all. I know of a couple CPA's in Wisconsin that focus on real estate, and I'm not a resident! There's definitely someone in Wisconsin who can give the exact expertise you're looking for

Hey Shane!

I can't say I've seen this before (and I've seen a TON of agents and deals). I'm not sure if it's a legal explanation or some other reason though.

What I have seen is agents who have a partnership with lawyers. The agent refers the business to the lawyers, and the lawyer somehow rewards the agent for that. Sometimes it's a dinner, sometimes it's a more formal partnership

Hope that helps!