rearestate brokers

Thom: In reading your comment, it sounds as if you are going to the agents with a problem that you are expecting them to solve. I need your help Mr/Ms Real Estate agent.
May I suggest that you focus on what you can offer them:
1) Active investor who will purchase a minimum of 6 properties in the next year (probably we will buy many more than that, but we don't want to sound unbelievable. This is a benefit because most of the home buyers they work with only buy a property once every 5.5 years).
2) Quick analysis of properties and a systematized approach to making offers--(only inspect properties where offers are accepted)
3) Buy by the numbers not by emotion
4) Not scared off by properties that need work, we actually like them
5) If average prices are $300k, and you make 3% from each property we buy, and we buy 6 properties in a year, they will make over $50k this year just from working with us. Since the average Real Estate agent sells only 4 to 6 homes per year, this would effectively double the number of properties on which they earn commissions if we only perform at a minimum level. Once we get rolling, we may reach a point where we are doing 6 properties a month, and then 6 properties a week.
6) We can provide them with a very specific list of criteria on properties, and the more properties they find that match those criteria, the more deals we are willing to do--they actually control how much money they make by how effective they are in researching and bringing us the properties we request.
So do we have something great to offer to agents? The secret to getting them to work with you is to focus on what you can provide to them, let them know about it, and keep emphasizing it as we ask them to make offers for us. By the way, the best way I have found to locate agents who are good at working with investors is by attending Real Estate Investors Association Meetings. That's where I've found the agents I work with.

thanks that approach sounds very good I will try it

Thom: Another thought on agents occurred to me that I share partly for your amusement, and partly because it is accurate. You are, no doubt familiar with the term MLS referring to the Multiple Listing Service. As investors, we have discovered that MLS also has another meaning that relates to agents. The term is "Mostly Lazy Salespeople." There is no disrespect for good hardworking agents intended here, but it may also be part of the explanation for why you have had some difficulty finding an agent who is ready to dive in and make some things happen. Many agents entered real estate thinking that it is a very easy way to make a lot of money. They use the park and pray approach--get a listing on a property, post it on the MLS, and pray that another agent will find a buyer so they can make money as the listing agent.
A good agent is worth their weight in gold, most agents will require a little gentle training to our methodology; agents, I think in general are a little afraid of investors because they are worried we know more than they do and can figure out ways of edging them out of earning a commission. They have been taught a standard way of doing real estate transactions, and anything outside that, they think, must be wrong, or illegal, or something. Many agents are good at following regulations, but deficient on creativity. We need to find those select agents who think differently and who are willing to work in order to make decent money. They are out there, there just are not as many as the MLS type.