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Communication, Communication, Communication.
This is by far the most overlooked step. About 99 percent of investors overlook communication. I know it may seem silly to lead off with communication, but if you do this properly, you’ll have a great deal of success not only in the MLS, but anywhere you’re making offers.
This is by far one of the reasons I have had and continue to have success in the MLS. From presenting the offers, to following up, as well as how and when you call and email, and how often will all dramatically increase your odds of getting your offers accepted.
It’s simple: proper communication. Just ask your significant other! (And if you don’t have one, you really need to work on that communication!) If you are not consistently using proper communication you are not going to have success. If you are submitting offers without calling the listing agent your chances of getting that property are not very good.
I know that half the time I get these properties because of the rapport I built with the agent. Well let me be more clear; because of the rapport I built with the agent, the agent might have told me where I needed to be on price to get the house. Now I am not saying this is going to happen to you too but I am not saying it won’t happen either.
I get deal after deal out of the MLS from agents I have never met before because of the conversations I have with them. And you have to have persistence. You must be consistently persistent without being annoying. Always be cool and respectful with your communication all while being consistently persistent with your follow up.
So how do those conversations go? Let’s see. They start with a phone call letting them know I am interested in the property and if it’s a foreclosure I am calling to find out if they are able to represent me as the buyer’s agent. This is called double ending the deal and most banks allow the listing agent to do that.
Then I ask if they are representing anyone else currently (they have to disclose that to you). It’s called contemporaneous offers. If they are that doesn’t mean I don’t use them still. But depending on the feel I get from them, I might use my agent team member and in my case that’s me. However, there have been times the agent told me that the current buyer is low balling and is not being realistic. So my decent offer was very welcome to him.
Did I mention that I am not saying they will give you inside info but I am not saying they won’t either? It’s all about having proper communication with the agents and not being afraid to ask questions about price and where you need to be. You will be surprised how often you get the answer you’re looking for.
Sometimes I have to fish for the number. For example, I just got one here in my area that listed for $360,000. Now this thing needed about $60K and will easily be worth $575,000 (the agent or bank way undervalued this property). Obviously there is a lot of meat on the bone here. At the current list price, after holding and selling costs, there is about $125,000 in profit potential and this will be a three to four week flip.
The problem was that there were over 20 offers on it. I had to go to $407,500 to get it. I was not pleased with this price but I still had a potential profit of $75K or so. And had I not brought the listing agent in as my buyer’s agent I would have been way off on where I needed to be to get an easy flip like this.
The agent never told me the number I needed to be at. I always offered a number and I was told there might be higher offers. When I finally got to $407,500 I was told that should probably do it. Again, it was the communication and rapport I had with this agent that got me this property.
I should probably mention I just met this agent and she has already brought me two off-the-market REO’s that I will get the first shot at. This stuff works over and over. Now if the property is an estate sale, I ask the agent if they think it would be okay for me to not take a commission on the buyer side. I always say I know that this is an estate and every penny counts for the heirs. So I just want them to net as much as possible.
This is usually very well received.
In this situation you either have no representation on the buyer side or your agent team member goes down but waives the commission. This strategy can also work for regular sales. I will get more into that during the market research section later on. I get deal after deal using these strategies.
You have to explain to these agents that you are an experienced real estate investor, a cash buyer, and can close at any time. You have already run your numbers on the property and know that you can pay X for it. You will have already seen the property with your agent team member. If you don’t have an agent team member yet, I will teach you how to find one below.
You need to be following up with these agents even when your offer gets rejected. In many cases there will be an inexperienced investor that overpaid and will back out after the inspection. If you are following up with that agent seven, 14, and 21 days later to see if the deal is still holding together, he is going to know you are serious and guess what? If that deal falls apart, who do you think he is going to call first?
It is with this exact strategy that I have gotten several deals that never officially came back on the market. They went from the first offer directly to me without ever going active again. So all of the other offers never had a second shot. It is just simple proper communication with persistence that will get you more deals then you can ever imagine.
Look, at the end of the day it is just being super cool and saying the right stuff when you call to build rapport. You cannot be cool enough to these agents, especially the REO agents as they deal with a-holes all day. Be a professional that knows your stuff and is super cool to them even when you want to be rude because they are not calling you back.
Even if you’ve left three or four messages, just keep your cool and trust me it will be worth your while. It is your job to make it as easy as possible for the seller’s agent to tell the seller that this is the offer they should take. The agent just needs to feel confident that you are not going to back out of the deal after the offer is accepted, like asking for some ridiculous inspection credit because you realized you over-paid.
I have actually had agents tell me on more than one occasion that my offer wasn’t even the highest offer but the seller still accepted it because they felt the most comfortable that I would actually close without any trouble. It just goes back to being professional when contacting the agent whether you are submitting the offer with them as your agent or not.
You need to build proper rapport by communicating with them so they know you are legit. When you submit offers make sure they are filled out properly and submitted with all necessary documents. Never just email in an offer without calling first. Also call to make sure it was received. Ask them when it’s a good time to follow up on the offer and follow up at that exact time.
This is a business where you can make millions of dollars. I am not sure why so many investors screw up this basic business principle of proper communication. Again, these are strategies that will get you deal after deal with agents you don’t know and will help you build lifelong relationships with agents who will bring you deal after deal before they even hit the market to see if you are interested.
These are strategies that ANYONE can implement immediately. You can look at the MLS right now today and put this to work.
NEXT PAGE: More Way to Dominate the MLS in Your Market
