What do you offer RE agents in return for their knowledge / mls access?

Question

So after a great discussion with Ryan Webber (who is THE MAN btw, THANKS RYAN!!!), I've picked my basic areas of town that I'm going to target. Now I'm going to do some research on my own, but I also plan on utilizing RE agents in the area who know the neighborhoods way better than me. The question is, as a wholesaler what incentive do I offer them in return for their knowledge of the area/mls data? I was thinking of telling them that I'll be dealing with FSBO's on a regular basis and I could pass on any deals that don't work, to them. I don't know if that's offering too much or too little. Or maybe I'm going at this from the wrong angle. Would love to hear any suggestions you all might have...

Ryan Webber · Answer

To do a wholesale deal, let's say you will probably talk to about 30 pre-qualified people who want to sell their house.  About 25 of those will be motivated but won't have enough equity to sell you the house at the discount you require. About  4 of them will have the equity but not be motivated enough to sell at such a discount.  1 will be motivated and have enough equity.
          
          Now let's look at realtors.  Realtors are looking for people who want to sell their house.  You will roughly have 29 people who aren't going to sell to you that want to sell their house.  Any good realtor should be able to pull at least a couple listings a month out of those warm leads.  Even if you only refer the ones you know don't have the equity to take your offer, your realtor should be able to get several listings off of them.
          
          i.e. a Win-Win situation

Brian Haskins · Answer

To be honest I have never heard of a wholesaler that has build and kept up a long term relationship with real estate agents, the agents always move on because we donâ€™t have much to offer them. The only time I have seen this work is if you focus on reos and give them ton of business. Bottom line if you plan to make any money wholesaling you need to become the expert and get access to the mls somehow or realquest. your agent will get tired of pulling comps very quickly. If your going to do any amount of deals each month you will have to have tons of leads which would mean them spending a ton of time pulling comps.

Brian Haskins

Account Closed · Answer

By the way, I make it my business to know my work area intimately, so I know without checking whether a deal is good or not.

I keep track of asking prices and see how fast houses sell.  Most of the local sales information is free from various brokers, the local news, and the internet.

About the only thing I can't do without help is to check the actual sales prices to do comps.  Once I have the figures, I do my own visual inspection of the property that sold for that price. The price means nothing unless you see what exactly sold for that price.

Account Closed · Answer

What I do is to use them for all the purchases and sales I do through the mls. Believe me, there are deals on the mls, you just have to look for them.

Also, I like to retail when I sell, so often sell through the mls.

When I buy or sell something that was never listed and the agent never worked on with me, I pay my agent $500 to do the paperwork and oversee the escrow.

Sage Jankowitz · Answer

Brad, Ryan, and Steve: Thanks for your input!

I'm going to start heavily scouting my farm areas next week so I have a better idea of the neighborhoods. I'm then going to reconnect with this agent and tell him exactly what I'm looking for and further explain my intentions. (he already knows what I'm doing, but he doesn't know the EXACT areas/criteria I'm looking in.)

Hopefully we can create a win-win situations here...

Steve Nicewarner · Answer

Sage,

The fact that you are asking the question puts you on the right path. It's important to make sure all your relationships are winners for both sides.

My suggestion [and you've received good advice before my post] is to ask the agent. Lay out what you want to do and ask them what would make it a win-win for them. Ryan is right, the leads themselves, once you've proven an ability to accurately assess things, are worth a lot.

Brad Gertz · Answer

Good Luck, it turned out well for us. We are working on my wholesale deals and a few rehabs of our own. Let me know if you have any more questions. Im always available.

Sage Jankowitz · Answer

Sounds like a good plan Brad. I offered something similar with the realtor I spoke with in my area. It will be interesting to see how it develops...

Brad Gertz · Answer

Sage,

My partner is actually a realtor but we started out because I told him if he helped me out I would use him as my buyers agent on my deals and if he would submit the contracts for me on deals that the REO agent didn't want to deal with other realtors I would pay him a consulting fee from my LLC.

It all worked out because now we are partners and we work great together.

What do you offer RE agents in return for their knowledge / mls access?

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