How to Find an Investor Friendly Agent

A lot of people, when they begin investing in real estate, are in need of an investor friendly agent to help them place offers and to help them find their 1st, 2nd, or 3rd deal. Whatever it may be, they need a solid real estate agent that's going to help them place a bunch of offers along the way. With the way the market is in the U.S. right now, you need to place 40 - 60 offers just to get one deal. It will be very important to find an agent who will work hard and who is going to help you find deals and analyze them.

These people are not easy to find, as it took 3-4 months to find my first investor friendly agent who actually helped me acquire my first property out of state. It doesn't matter if you're investing out of state or investing locally, these tips that I’m about to explain to you, can be used whether you are investing locally or out of state.

BiggerPockets

The first way that I would go about finding an investor friendly agent is by using biggerpockets. Biggerpockets.com is an amazing website where real estate investors collaborate through a forum. On the site, you can search for real estate agents in specific zip codes and message them a little bit about yourself. You can explain what your goals are and the type of properties that you are looking for. These agents are going to help you find these properties, so it would be important for you to start building a relationship where you can work together. Whether that means you meet-up in person, or build an out of state relationship, a relationship is key. You can also post on forums informing agents about the need of an investor friendly agent and some people will contact you saying they function in “X” city and are interested in helping you acquire some real estate projects there.

Cold Calling Agents

My second recommendation, which I think works the best because people are not willing to put in the time, is cold calling. The way I was able to find my first investor friendly agent was through cold calling. There are thousands of real estate agents listed on Zillow.com and they all have their contact information showing. I have a google spreadsheet containing all the investor friendly agents that I've called in the past. I've been collecting this data for a while now, which pertains to all these real estate agents and all these different markets that I’m interested in.

Essentially, what I would do is, I would go on the agent search tab, on zillow, type in the zip code I was interested in investing in, and I would cold call investors that way. It’s important to properly prepare a pitch, for example, I would say, “Hello, my name is Antoine Martel, I’m a real estate investor interested in investing in your city. Here's what I'm looking for, do you currently work with investors? Are you interested in helping me out?” Even Though this takes a lot of time, this would be my pitch and that's how I would go about reaching agents. It is not easy to find an investor friendly agent, especially when you have no resources. But it was the way I pushed myself to find that investor friendly agent. Eventually, my hard work paid off.

Call Listing Agents

Something else that I was doing, instead of calling zillow agents, was also calling people who had listings of properties similar to what I was looking for. These properties were as-is properties that needed rehab work. As new listings would come up, I would call these agents who were listing these homes and say, “Hey, my name is Antoine Martel, I'm interested in this property, can you tell me more about it? Can you tell me more about yourself? Do you normally work with investors?” This is a great way to start building a relationship with these agents, through their listings, and hopefully they can tell you more about their other listings that they have, if they have any.

Networking Events

The last and final thing is networking events. Networking events are a great strategy whether you're just getting started or if you've been in real estate for a little bit and are looking for an investor friendly agent. There are many ways networking events in every city in the USA. Biggerpockets.com has different events that you could attend and you can always be networking with people locally, across the whole U.S. and even around the world. I definitely recommend reaching out to as many people as you can and sharing what your long term goals are.

Another way that you can find these networking events is through Meetup.com. They have a ton of real estate investing networking events that you can attend. I would highly recommend attending some of these events to inform people on what it is you are doing, learn more about what they're doing, show interest, and keep reaching out to them every month. I have a CRM with all the people that I've met personally and every couple of weeks I go through my contact list and continue reaching out to them and say, “Hey, how's it going? Do you have any current listings? This is what I’m looking for…. ”. To keep a conversation flowing, I simply look at that email thread about what we talked about last and sort of just catch up with them. Its very important to keep up that relationship with these real estate agents.

These are my 4 tips to finding an investor friendly agent. I would definitely recommend doing a combination of all 4 of them. If one of them is not working out, then maybe another one will for you. You may be better on the phone or in person. The way you reach out to these agents depends on your preference or strengths.

Regardless of whether you're going to be speaking with them over the phone or meeting them in person, you need to make sure to have a solid pitch up front to intrigue that investor friendly agent right away. You want to make sure that you come in and explain exactly what you're looking for, where you're looking for (if you know), your price range, the type of product you're looking for, and also have some questions ready to ask about them. For example: Are you interested in working with investors? Have you worked with investors in the past?

You want to find someone who has an investor mindset and is investor focused. You don’t want somebody who is a retail agent who spends their time selling homes to families all day.

I hope this helps you find your 1st, 2nd, or 3rd investor friendly agent. Let me know if you need any assistance and good luck on your future endeavors!