All Forum Posts by: Doug Pretorius

@Shalom Afraimian You have to keep in mind that the Realtor Association is essentially a cartel. They will more often than not ignore your property if it's listed with a flat fee or 'discount' broker, just to stick it to a fellow licensee that they see as not playing by the rules.

@Jay Hinrichs recommendation is 100% correct. You have to play on buyer's agent's greed to get them to break from the ranks. That way when the other agents in their office dog them for cooperating with the flat fee riff-raff, they can brag that they made extra $$$, and they'll see them when they get back from their trip to Paris.

It's not right, it's probably illegal, but it happens to be the system we have to work with. Unless of course you want to just sell the house FSBO, if you know what you're doing you can sell the house faster and for more money than any agent can anyway.

@Christi Hawkins Almost exclusively. If I happen across an FSBO I'll knock there too of course, but they are rare in my market. You seem shocked that I would knock on a house listed with a realtor? Well, it's out of necessity I'm sorry to say. I've tried countless times to make offers through listing agents but they always refuse. I was advised to report them to the real estate council, but that would be a unpaid full-time job, and my offer still wouldn't get into the hands of the only person with the authority to accept it.

@Yacine Rimmo Here in Ontario it's possible to put a property under contract and hire a broker to list it on the MLS as an "assignment sale". This lets other agents and their buyers know that you are selling the contract and are not the titled owner of the property. These types of listings are common on new construction, less so but still possible on resales.

Might be worth looking into if you can do that in New York.

@Tania Salas Let's say the house has been for sale for a month or more, I'll say something like:

"Hi, my name is Doug, I noticed your house has been for sale for awhile and just wanted to let you know my wife and I can take over your payments. Here's our card. Let us know if we can help. Have a great day!"

or I'll leave a note on their door that says: "House won't sell? We take over payments!"

If they don't have payments then I'll suggest a lease purchase. If they don't want to wait I'll offer a low cash price.

@Kate J. Like I said, that's up to the seller. And yeah 3 months seems to be pretty common here for listing agreements. It's too early for me to say with based on results, but it seems like door knocking is like any marketing. Some of the people you speak to are motivated, most aren't, but with time may become motivated.

@Kate J. Yes bypassing the agent is the whole point of door knocking. Unless you mean their commission? I don't have anything to do with that side of things. That's between the seller and their agent. All I want is for sellers to get my offer, and to do that, I have to bypass the agent.

@Storm S. @Nathan Gesner said all that needs to be said. And as @Brandon Vukelich said there's no need to make guarantees against your commission. You deserve to get paid.

Just do what you say you'll do. And don't be afraid to tell a prospective client that you can't help them. I would much rather an agent simply tell me they don't want to present my offer, than pretend they will and disappear.

@Storm S. All you have to do to set yourself above 99.9% of agents is actually do what you say you're going to do. If you're not willing to do what your client requests, just tell them so upfront, so they don't wait around for a call/text/email that will never come.

Just recently I accidentally ran into an agent. I was calling FSBO ads and this agent didn't disclose that he was an agent. Still, I gave him the chance to present my offer to the seller, which he promised to do and get back to me with their response. And of course he never did. So now I'm going straight to his seller and cutting him out of every deal going forward.

@Emma Bennett Send me a PM and I'll give you the contract I use, but you'll need to have a lawyer look it over to make sure it's legal in NJ.

@Nick Beveridge Every cycle it amazes me how oblivious builders tend to be. They get used to the market going up and they keep right on building like mad even as the market becomes flooded with resale inventory. Then they sit with all these houses that are slowly but surely losing that new home/latest style appeal and try with the incentives again.

I doubt anything will change this time around. Builders are great lovers of the boom and bust cycle LOL :D