12 Ways to Dominate the MLS in Your Market

Posted on Nov 2 2015 - 6:29pm by 2!xMyNQ#FV8h4U

Con’t: 12 Ways to Dominate the MLS in Your Market

  1. How to Get MLS Access if You Don’t Have It

Become an “assistant” to an agent. This is as simple as finding the right agent and paying him to be his assistant. He/she can control how much access you have to the MLS. All licensed agents with MLS access are allowed several assistants so this is a very easy thing to get done. Simply find the right agent and offer them money for the access.

  1. MLS Access, Part Two: Team Up with an Agent

Another way to get MLS access if you do not have it; bring a licensed agent onto your real estate investing team. If you’re not planning on getting licensed yourself, you will need a licensed member on some level. With this person in place you will have no trouble getting MLS access. This is a person that will forgo the commission on the front end to profit with you in the back end of the deal.

  1. Utilize Field Agents

A field agent is an agent that you find to work in a specific area, such as a zip code, town, county, etc. You’re looking for an agent that does more than the average. The National Association of Realtors average is three deals per year. Yep, that’s correct: three deals per year. You’re looking for someone who is doing closer to ten. They just need to have a decent understanding of what we do. This way they are bringing you real deals.

  1. Work with Smaller Foreclosure/REO Agents

Once you figure out how to work with these guys, it will be like finding a pot of gold at the end of the foreclosure rainbow. Building relationships with these agents and letting them take both sides of the commission (double-end the deal) will have you finding yourself with a steady stream of deals from these people.

But it all goes back to properly communicating with them and letting them know why you would give them both ends of the commission. Of course your reasoning for that is that you want to build relationships since you’re a full-time real estate investor looking for deals all the time.

  1. Work with the Large REO Agents

It may seem like the large REO agents (the guys doing 100 to 600 deals per year) are hard to get ahold of if not impossible. Though these elusive agents may seem difficult to build relationships with, there is a way. Since you can’t get ahold of them, you have to focus on their staff.

You need to make sure their staff knows who you are and that you’re a real estate investor who truly closes on deals. Try dropping off donuts and/or candy to their office the next time you’re working with them. Trust me – they will not forget you. Again, proper communication is key; you must absolutely kill them with kindness. Since these REO staffers deal with a bunch of angry A-holes all day I have found that being the bright, shining star in their day, even if you’re not getting the info that you want, will go a long way.

  1. Make Proper Offers and Use Proper Proof of Funds

This is a BIG one. So many investors that I’ve talked to are writing half-assed offers and expecting them to get accepted. But most of the time, they probably end up in the REO agent’s garbage. These agents are getting enough offers that are written properly, so if yours is not, I can assure you that yours will end up in the garbage, too. And if the offer you uploaded into the bank system directly was not written properly, it will get rejected without further review even if they liked the price.

Also, you need to have proof of proper funds which needs to match the buyer’s name on the contract EXACTLY. This can be an actual bank statement, a letter from a banker, or a letter from an attorney (hint, hint…the last one’s the easiest to get).

  1. Don’t Back Out! Know Your Stuff!

If you back out of deals after they get accepted, you’ll end up on the REO agent’s black list. And if they’re not an REO agent, like if it’s an estate or regular sale, you may or may not run into them again. But trust me, they will not forget you. The point is: don’t make offers you can’t or aren’t completely willing to close on.

  1. AGAIN, Know Your Stuff!

Be knowledgeable of after-repaired value (ARV), repair estimates, and the maximum allowable offer. You should know this well enough to walk in and out of a house in 10 minutes or less and complete the property repair estimate sheet.

You also need to drive the area comps. Neighborhoods and location can play a big role, so it’s important to lay your eyes on the properties you’re using as comps. Google Street View has made this a lot easier, but I still recommend actually driving by before pulling the trigger.

  1. Estate Sales are my Personal Favorite

These are one of the reasons you need to be checking the MLS three times a day because these will pop up and go under contract just as fast because of the emotional reaction the executor of the estate often has. You see, many times, this is a house that has been in the family for a long time.

A loved one has just died and now that they are at the point of selling the house, they want it to be done as quickly as possible and will take the first reasonable offer that comes across their table, especially a cash one. So checking the MLS three times a day is key for this strategy to be most effective.

  1. Offer Follow-Up and Organization is a Must

When making offers in the MLS, you will usually get 10, 20, and 30 offers out at a time. I’ve had as many as 180 offers out at one time and was able to track all of them with a simple Excel spreadsheet. Google Drive has a similar format to Excel to organize your offers.

But, why the organization comes into play and is most effective is the offer follow-up? If you follow-up with these offers properly after you don’t win the original offer but follow it 30, 60, 90, or 120 days until it either reactivates or closes, I will tell you that for the properties that reactivate at day 90-120, there is a small fortune to be made in them.

  1. Take the Classes Offered by the Local MLS!

Duh! This is only a system that regularly produces the most motivated sellers that you will ever find. Don’t you think it would be a good idea to learn all of its tricks and tools so that you can you can use the system to its fullest? They will teach you how to set up proper searches or hot sheets. They will show you how to conduct detailed property research. Trust me…take the damn classes!

I hope you found this information useful, but what I really want to stress to you is the first point I made regarding communication. Have proper communication with the agent you work with and with the listing agents you are giving offers to. You need to keep your cool and always remain in good contact with them.

Depending on the deal, this can be the reason the agent tells the seller to take your offer over others. When they see that you are diligent and they are confident that you will close on the property, they will recommend to the seller that they accept your offer even if they end up accepting another offer.

Trust me – you will be the only one following up with the agent a week or two into a deal you didn’t get to see how the inspection went and if the deal still looks good. This is the kind of stuff that will get you the deal if that one falls apart. The rest of the information in here is pretty easy, but if executed without proper communication, it will be significantly less effective.

Here’s what I want you to do next. Go to MLSDomination.com and sign up for the free training videos. I will walk you through these strategies in more detail, and this will really help you start to dominate your MLS today.

Pages: 1 2 3