Finance Roll

Property Investing Secrets:

How To Work With Agents And Get What You Want

When you're property investing, it is important to know how to connect with real estate agents. Here are some techniques you can use when you are out there pressing the flesh. I believe it is important to connect with agents at lease once in person when you're property investing.

I've found that when you walk into a real estate agents office and say "I'm looking for a bargain."- that's a big mistake. When you're property investing, the minute a real estate agent hears that you want a bargain; they size you up and think this person isn't serious-they're a flake. Keep this is in mind, to a real estate agent there is no such thing as a bargain. But it is possible to buy at a wholesale price. If you're going to form a relationship with an agent they have to know you're serious because these agents get hundreds and hundreds of buyers every month or every 6 months, depending how busy they are, coming into their office. Thus real estate agents must know how to size up buyers. They know how to qualify buyers without the buyers even realizing they're being qualified! Real estate agents question buyers and the answers they hear tell them how serious the buyers are about purchasing.

When you're out property investing, here are some common questions a real estate agent will ask: "Hello Mr. and Mrs. Buyer, are you buying, selling or looking?" And if they say, "Oh, we're just looking." The agent will ask, "How many properties have you looked at so far?" The buyers may respond that they've looked at a couple of properties. The agent will ask if they made an offer on any of the properties they've looked at. If the buyers answer no, the agent will inquire why not? This line of questioning just rolls off the agent's tongue. The buyers get bamboozled. They don't even know that they're being qualified. And if the agent decides the buyer is too difficult, they will put them into the "too hard basket".

It is important to note that an agent has one commodity to sell and that is not houses but their time. I discovered this early while property investing. If a real estate agent has only 8 or 9 hours in the day, they want to get the best return on their time. So it is up to the investor to make it easy for the agent to make their money. Of course an agent will say they work for the seller, but the agents also have wives and kids sitting at home to feed. While the agent may say they're working for the seller, quite often they're working for themselves and you have to harness the agent's desire to make a sale and use it for yourself to get-not steal-but secure a discount to purchase the property.