help me, help you

[tahani]

i need your help in understanding how i can serve you "investors" better.

I Just opened the first investors focused Brokerage in Ontario. in order for me to serve you better i need to know as investors what are your chalanges and experiences with other agent from all over Cananda.

here are two questions:

What are the top 5 problems/obstacles as investors you face when dealing with agents.

What are the top three skills//qualities agents must have ?



thanks so much

Tahani

 

[Nir]

Hi,

You present it as if we answer your question, then you can help all of us

Anyway, you have good intentions so here goes.. just a few but critical ones to have if you want to work with investors:

- Communication skills: always reply say within 48 hours. try not to ignore any message or note you receive. that`s a big one. requires you to be both motivated and organized.

- Something that may be really challenging for you if you are just starting but really important too: having connections with the right people in order to have visibility
FIRST to the best deals out there. otherwise what`s the big difference between using mls.ca and working with you.

* To be honest RE agents working with me have the easiest job in the world. Other than the above I do not expect much. bring me a superb deal and I`m putting an offer within 24 hours.

Good luck.

 

[RedlineBrett]

QUOTE (investmart @ Oct 1 2009, 10:06 AM)
* To be honest RE agents working with me have the easiest job in the world. Other than the above I do not expect much. bring me a superb deal and I`m putting an offer within 24 hours.

Good luck.

A common perception by investor buyers out there... for what it`s worth my investor clients are much more work than my regular home buyers. Having little emotional connection to a property and being all about the money makes the agent`s job much more difficult. Also the properties investors buy typically have a lot more issues than owner-occupied property which jacks up the post-offer work for the agent.

Regarding the original posters question.. I own a brokerage in Calgary. We do sales, mortgages and management. Investors make up about half our business so while we are not exclusively working with investors I do have a pretty good idea of how to keep them happy (or how to p*ss them off in a couple unfortunate instances) so here are my thoughts:

1. Investors `needs` vary greatly. Some want to be very involved some don`t want to lift a finger. Your success will depend on your ability to gauge this for each client and deliver your service accordingly. Do not assume they are all the same or follow the same process before buying. Your clients will like you when they think you are doing a great job... but each investors definition of `your job` is different. You`ll see this with other answers to this thread. This gets much easier with experience.

2. When you find a `hot deal` you will have multiple clients that may want the same property. You need a system for dealing with this. I tell my clients that the first person to call me ready to write an offer gets my representation, the next gets a more than capable associate etc.

3. Most importantly - you need to know your numbers. Financing, rents and repair/replacement expenses are paramount to a sound investment and if you are telling your client`s "I`ll get back to you" on these numbers every time they won`t be impressed. This is the reason we do sales and financing and management. It has enabled us to provide a very niche level of service to our clients and I can rattle off numbers from the drivers seat as we go from property to property. If you are only doing sales you`d be well served to get connected with one of the mortgage brokers on this forum!

4. Investors need a lot of pre-buying service. Just remember that doing a great job makes the second deal much smoother so be patient and treat each client like one of your own investments... as they may give you a greater return than any property you own

 

[housingrental]

Responsiveness - Vast majority of email and phone calls answered within 1 hour.

Thorough and accurate responses to questions. If you don`t have time immediately to answer in detail respond back saying you`ll respond in detail in the future.

If you don`t know the answer say so and find out and follow up once you`ve found out.

Never push your own listings to buyer clients over other agents.

Never push listings - provide as much info on negatives of particular property to buyer.

Provide additional support resources to the client for their success - property inspector, trades for quotes, property manager, mortgage broker, landscapper, etc..

Have all offer require seller provide up to date no deficiency ESA and fire inspections.

Have a functional knowledge of building systems and management to point out to buyer clients potential cash needed / issues with tenant profile before they spend $$ on home inspection and time examining further so they can determine if suitable to them.

 

[housingrental]

Brett 1. is fantastic advice applicable to many client service jobs

QUOTE (RedlineBrett @ Oct 1 2009, 02:21 PM) 1. Investors `needs` vary greatly. Some want to be very involved some don`t want to lift a finger. Your success will depend on your ability to gauge this for each client and deliver your service accordingly. Do not assume they are all the same or follow the same process before buying. Your clients will like you when they think you are doing a great job... but each investors definition of `your job` is different. You`ll see this with other answers to this thread. This gets much easier with experience.

 

[invst4profit]

Brent`s # 3 is extremely important. I want to know every detail about income and expenses on a property when you first inform me of the listing. I do not want to waste my time or yours waiting for you to contact listing agent, wait for him to contact his client, and have me continue to wait for days to then only get back half of the necessary details of the property.

My most import issue is to have a agent that understands as a investor, regardless of the asking price I will place an offer based on my expected cash flow. I never want an agent to tell me my offer is too low and may insult the seller. I expect my agent to present any offer I give them with expertise and confidence.

As a side I dumped one agent in the middle of a deal because he said to the sellers agent that he understood the offer was low but that it was a starting point.
He clearly did not take the negotiations seriously.