3 Ways to Create Your Own Inventory as a Real Estate Agent

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You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think you could be successful.

But this business is hard, and it can be difficult to make a name for yourself.

Maybe you’re a real estate agent looking to expand your portfolio a bit. Maybe, as you’re taking your buyers from home to home you can’t help but think to yourself, “If I bought this home, I could fix it up and sell it for a bit of profit. Easily.”

Maybe your buyers are having a difficult time finding the right home in a tight market. You can’t help wondering if you could lead the market by purchasing homes for cash and placing them for sale, increasing the amount of available inventory.

Guess what? You can. As an advisor with Cole Realty Resource, I’d like to share the following ideas around how to market yourself in the most impactful ways.

3 Ways to Create Your Own Inventory as a Real Estate Agent

As a real estate agent, you have the market at your fingertips. With a quick map search on an NMLS-type service, you can get a look at the climate of the market.

You also live by your commissions. No closings means no paycheck. In a job that is often feast or famine, wouldn’t it be nice to have more feast? You’re the agent. You know what your buyers are looking for. You are practiced in getting listings.

Why not take those skills and create your own inventory? Here’s how.

Related: 5 Ways to Work Less and Get More Done as a Real Estate Agent

1. Use your resources.

You have a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips. While many investors may be stuck using public domains like Zillow and Redfin, part of your real estate dues should give you access to some sort of national or regional listing service. The information hits these services hours and sometimes even days faster than it hits public access. So use it.

Keep up-to-date with what neighborhoods are “hot markets.” Save a few map searches and pull the addresses into Cole Realty Resource to get email addresses. Create email flyers for the different neighborhoods that catch your eye, encouraging folks to consider an easy cash offer. You’ll most likely reach someone who sees homes going up for sale around them but isn’t able to or interested in fixing up their own place to sell.

2. Make friends.

Walk areas adjacent to trendy neighborhoods and meet the neighbors. Ask if there are any eyesore properties in the area. If you have the address, you can look up the property-owners’ cell phone number in Cole Realty Resource to begin the conversation about a cash or investment offer.

Neighbors can be surprisingly helpful when they realize you care about restoring properties around them, helping their home values and neighborhood quality.

Build relationships with local companies so you know who to depend on when you need work done to the homes you’ve purchased. Ask contractors if they know of any properties nearby their current projects that could use some love. They’ll keep an eye out for leads for you when they know you might be making an investment that could bring them steady work.

3. Do your research.

Become familiar with your lenders. Get to know when your county tax board holds its auctions. Learn about the foreclosure process.

Many lenders have officers dedicated to home purchasing grants while others specialize in rehabilitation and renovation loans while still others focus on how to maximize your borrowing abilities if you plan to sell the property for a profit.

Not interested in borrowing? Check out your local tax franchise board’s website and see which homes are coming up for property tax default. Most counties hold auctions once or twice a year on the courthouse steps. Addresses are often posted beforehand so you can do a drive-by of the properties—but remember not to enter the property since that’s trespassing.

Check out the pre-foreclosure market. Owners in these situations may be more inclined to accept an all-cash offer.

Establish yourself as an expert in creating inventory, and you may even find yourself approached by other agents to work on distressed properties together.

Ultimately, be the visionary that looks at a real estate market and refuses to accept it at its current state. Be the change that builds your portfolio.

Cole Realty Resource has a 70-year history of providing contact information (including cell phones and emails) for a specific property or entire neighborhood, which means more meaningful conversations about buying and selling real estate. Because of your relationship with BiggerPockets, you can now get access to unlimited home phones, cell phones and emails—all tied to a specific address and all at a discounted rate. To start getting contact info within minutes, click here.

Any tips you’d add to this list?

Comment below!

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.