Learn To Be Rich

I got a call from a particularly feisty real estate investor late last week that I just have to share with all the real estate agents and brokers that work with us on the AnalyzedDeals.com network of Real Estate Resources websites.

This investor was asking me to recommend an agent to him to help him buy investment property. His attitude though was particularly interesting to me. He had basically said to me with the real estate market so tough why is it that real estate agents are not calling him back or showing him deals? He believed that since the number of transactions in many markets are way down (especially with the crazy financial markets the last couple weeks), that agents would be more than happy to help him buy property and yet they have not been helpful.

What he is referring to is that many agents do NOT call people back. Many agents, when they get an e-mail inquiry with a telephone number, actually e-mail the client back instead of calling. Many agents believe that the best way to sell houses is to set someone up on an e-mail to blast with the lastest listing from their MLS system.

How do I know this? Because I am an investor buyer too and I’ve had lots of agents do it to me. In fact, I sent out an e-mail to exactly 1,345 real estate agents and brokers telling them that I wanted to buy for my personal portfolio almost a month ago on September 11, 2008. Want to guess how many calls I received? A measly 11 calls from agents the day I sent the e-mail. Yes, that is 11 calls to me from contacting 1,345 agents.

So, I do understand the investor that was calling me (despite him being exceptionally feisty) and his frustration. I had a similar, but very different, experience earlier this year when I was considering selling one of a dozen investment properties that I had in a particular city. I used the web form on the websites of ONE agent in that city for EACH property I had (12 different agents in total) as if I was a seller. Do you want to know how many people actually contacted me back? One. And they called me, left a message. I called them back and they never returned my call.

So, are you going to be one the hundreds of agents that do not follow up with investors or are you going to be one of the very few that actually call investors back? It is up to you.

If you want to work with my investors, you can submit your deals and we will get them out to our investors and refer them to work with you… only if you’re committed to following up.

Until my next post,

James

Tammy and I have had a handful of discussions this morning over deal quality and the deal of the week e-mails to our investors receive the Priority Deal Alert E-mails.

If I can take the liberty of summarizing her opinion, she is concerned that, in markets where we are paying a researcher to pull deals that in some cities, there is potential for the quality of the deal to be less than ideal.

First, I agree with her. It would be much better to have a local agent hand select deals. It is very clearly second best for us to have our researchers select potential deals based on our rouge selection criteria and then we analyze them and send them out.

That is one of the reasons why I am moving toward the sponsorship model and we have one key agent that is willing to find great deals and submit one per week to use to send out to the investors.

If you happen to be that real estate agent that wants to find and submit great deals and work with our investors, you can read about the sponsorship program.

Until my next post,

James

While Tammy is still going to proof-read and make corrections to the Real Estate Agent/Broker Sponsorship Sales Letter, I officially released it today to real estate agents and brokers that have been receiving referrals and submitting deals from me.

I am sure that I will be sharing additional information about it in future posts, but the feedback I have received so far has been overwhelmingly positive.

I have had half a dozen phone calls about it and they’ve been great. I have also had people capture their markets before someone else did.

I do feel a little bad because some people that have been receiving referrals from us rather regularly did not grab their market before someone else did and now they are not going to be getting any more referrals. Also, there are quite a few more people that have been getting referrals and that have not grabbed their market and it is still available.  We will see what happens with them.

I did talk to one of my preferred agents today. She had called to tell me I had referral checks coming and asked about the sponsorship. She quickly figured out that the sponsorship fees she would pay would have been less than the checks she was about to send me. Of course, since the referrals already out are on the old plan, she still needs to pay the referral fees on past referrals, at least she’ll get to keep her full commission on all future sales when she upgrades to sponsorship.

Until my next post,

James

P.S. A sneak peak at what is to come: I will be allowing people to refer agents and brokers to our system and be paid an on-going percentage of the sponsorship fees. You will need to register on Analyzed Deals to participate, so go ahead and register now.