Real Estate Investor vs Realtor(R)

[Paul Juell]

Hi everyone, Just a quick question for you... FIrst of all, I am starting out as an investor. I have invested in the past and was a licensed RE agent for about 10 years. That was several years ago. Since I had my license in the past I have decided to get it again. While in my RE classes, there seems to be a lot of resentment towards RE investors from the RE agents. What do you think causes this? Is it just a lack of understanding? Or maybe a few bad experiences? Fear/insecurity? What do you think?

[Mitch Messer]

Great question, @Paul Juell! While it's always dangerous to generalize, I agree that there is often friction between agents and investors.

I've been an investor for nearly 20 years, and I've never been an agent. So, it's not self-serving to say that, most often, investors earn this resentment by not respecting the most valuable resource an agent has: their time. 

Here's one example.

Agents work to earn a commission on a sale. Making offers is a necessary part of their process, but offers do take time to create. Now along comes a newbie investor demanding our poor agent make dozens of low-ball offers (just like the real estate guru told them to ...). Most of these offers will have ZERO chance of ever being even considered, much less accepted. The agent already knows this. So, if the agent does make the offers, they risk wasting their time and incurring the ridicule of the listing agents; if they don't, they risk the wrath of their investor client. So, the agent loses. And, the investor loses. And now, the agent doesn't ever want any more investor clients.

Of course, the challenges work both ways. I personally know an experienced investor who is also an agent/broker who could do a much better job outlining some of these issues (yes, I'm looking at you @Marta Brown!).

But mostly, I'd say lack of both communication and mutual respect are the root causes of the animosity.