All Forum Posts by: Jeff Keller

@Maciej Charyga -

Take a look at some of the books by Garry Keller (Millionaire Real Estate Agent, etc). They give good insight into growing real estate sales into a company.

Clients want instant response. Always be on the lookout for ways to give a partial helpful response instantly, so you can follow up in detail later. Ex: Gmail has a canned response add-on that lets you store many different responses. You can add a little to the canned response, then follow up later.

Yelp is actually a poor way to choose. People abuse it to promote themselves and damage the reputation of their competition. We interviewed a woman to write fact sheets for homes. She told us she had just come from an interview to write Yelp reviews. Google "paid yelp reviews".

One of the best, but not perfect ways, is to see who is doing the most business. Most experienced agents get a lot of business, often more than half of their business, from both past clients and referrals from past clients.

Looking into the future keep in mind that 1030 exchanges have requirements on rental use vs. homeowner use. In the other direction, understand the $250,000 IRS tax exclusion on the sale of your principal residence. Predicting how laws will change complicates choices.

Beyond tax consequences there might be other things to consider. 

A local family in Palo Alto CA had created a motor home park around 1950. Seventy years later, the descendants own property worth tens of millions of dollars. The problem is that the city is wanting them to pay relocation expenses to the current low income tenants/mobile home owners. It's been in the courts for about 3 years now.

Do a search for "Minneapolis occupancy limits" ... looks like 1 family plus 2 people.

A permit was being sought to change a local Palo Alto, CA home into an 11 bedroom, 1 car garage home. Neighbors were very upset because it probably isn't going to be used as a single family home. AirBnB is making a lot of homeowners very vocal about problems with high occupancy.

Thank you Michael, with so many posts coming from the eastern U.S.  I'm starting to think I might need to do some location filtering. You must have an even bigger challenge to find location relevant questions/answers.

In Silicon Valley writing your own offers might not be worth your time. The market is competitive. Buyers offer money and credibility. 

You would probably learn more about how to make a good offer but you would probably also find it frustrating. It will be hard to find out why your offer wasn't accepted. Real estate sales is an area where the more you succeed, the easier it is to succeed. Part time is likely to be frustrating and not financially rewarding.

As a new licensee you probably wouldn't find it hard to work at a brokerage. If you don't complete enough sales it might be hard to stay there. Different companies have different ways of generating income. 

In Silicon Valley many of the brokerages have more agents than they have office space. You learn and make connections at office meetings, but much of your work is done on the road. If you complete enough sales to cover their risk (insurance etc) and administration overhead, you could probably stay there a long time. 

The fees they charge don't cover everything. They also need to make money off your commissions. Fees vary significantly but a very rough number would be $200 month.

In northern California you rarely need an attorney to buy a primary residence. Standardized contracts are used so both buyer and seller aren't likely to have any surprises from a legal standpoint. Title companies normally act as escrow agents making certain the money and property transfers both happen.

Issues about the condition of the property are the biggest source of problems. Real estate agents are expected to flag areas you need to look into. Attorneys only look at the legal issues. Property inspections are the starting point for evaluating the property condition. You and your agent should look at any things pointed out by the report and look for signs of things that wouldn't be reported by a property inspection.

It depends on where the value is. If the building is adding little value you could look at it as an investment in land. If you are mostly investing in land you really want to know what is happening in the community to make it a good investment.

Understanding the rental market where the property is would be at least as important as knowing the likely repair and maintenance costs.

Likely repair areas are roof, plumbing, and termite damage. If a lot of work was done and they have signed off permits the odds of non permitted work are reduced. If you don't have enough information to be fairly certain there are no significant termite infestation, that the roof is in good shape, and that there are no plumbing issues, then you should get an inspection.

Keep in mind, tenants expect their property to be kept in good condition. That can be good in that it prevents maintenance issues from becoming major issues.

When I first got out of school I rented a studio from a man who supplemented his salaried job by buying and fixing up real estate. He and his wife actually did a lot of the work after normal working hours. When I met him he was keeping the properties for rental income, not doing a flip.

A change of activity can be relaxing and rewarding even if it is work. Think about what you can do to get started, then expand to more areas of responsibility or to more quantity. A little success can lead to a lot of focus on your part and lead you where you might not predict.