If you are a serious investor or you’re just getting started in the business, then you need to have a realtor on your “team”. There are many ways a realtor can help you to build your business.
A realtor can help you by giving you MLS listings with key words in them such as “motivated seller”, “handyman special”, “needs TLC” and other phrases that will tell you the seller is motivated to make a quick sale. Another function a realtor can perform for you is to give you very old MLS listings. This tells me they have been on the market for a very long time for a variety of reasons. Maybe the home needs rehab and the seller doesn’t have the money to do it. Or the seller is very restrictive as to when the house can be shown. In any case, these listings can provide you with many good leads.
One of the best deals you can do with a realtor is to have them provide you with expired listings. You will need to make an agreement with them as to how much you will be willing to pay if you close on one of these deals. In my Marketing Magic System, I have an entire direct mail campaign aimed at expired listings and have bought houses this way myself.
Sometimes a seller will contact me and they are not terribly motivated and would like to sell their home for near retail. In these cases, I refer them to my realtor. If he does a deal and sells that person’s home, I get a referral fee, so it’s a win-win all the way around.
I also use my realtor to help me with comps and valuations of properties when I get stuck on a property that is in a remote area or is somewhat unusual.
I even use my realtor to sell houses for me. There are times when I will have a home in portfolio that is unusual in that it’s very large, very expensive or has some other trait that makes the market area smaller. My realtor has a buyer’s list available that he can draw from and gets my homes sold quickly.
For more information on using realtors to help you find motivated sellers visit my web site at Marketingmagiclady.com