116: Rookie Reply: Can Agents Help You Find Off-Market Deals?

This is Real estate rookie episode 116.

My name is Ashley Kerr and I am here with my co host Tony Robinson and we are getting ready for the BiggerPockets conference.

I'm super excited. You know I've never been to New Orleans and I can't think of a better excuse to go to this lovely city than with hanging out with my best friend in the real estate world and and all the rookies that are going to be there with us.

You mean best friend in the whole wide world, not just the real estate world?

Exactly. I got you pinned Ashley in my my imessages now so you're up there with Sarah and my groomsmen so I feel so honored.

But that's just because I text you so much. We should do this. Let's do this. Chinese Object Syndrome.

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So Tony, what is today's question?

So today's question also comes from the Real Estate Rookie Facebook group. So again, if you guys are not in that group, make sure, you join. It's one of the most active, one of the most engaged real estate Facebook groups out there. Today's question comes from Mel Sims and Mel's question is when working with agents, do your agents help in finding off market deals or do you mainly look for those as to send you on market deals? What's been your experience, Ashley? What have you seen coming from your agents?

I. From the agents that I have used, all of them were on market deals that I've worked with them. Because if I'm going to do an off market deal, it's probably because I find it myself. But a realtor can help you with an off market deal and they can bring you, you have to find one that's doing. Maybe there's some that do direct mail. So I did this like shadow day with this commercial broker who did farmland and hunting land and we went all over and looked at all these huge acreage properties and what he does is he doesn't really have people come to him saying I want to sell my property. He does direct mail markets to them. So he gets the listing from them and then he puts it on to the mls. So real estate agents can source their own off market deals that way. So sometimes it's called a pocket listing where the realtor will get the deal and then they'll tell their investors before they even list it on the mls. So if you can find a realtor that you can work with that will show you those pocket listings before they're actually listed, you may have a greater chance of getting the deal. If there is an off market deal and you're working with an agent, there is a chance that you could ask the seller if they would pay a commission towards the realtor to help you through the process or you can offer to pay the realtor to do it to either a percentage or a flat fee. One reason I have never gotten my real estate license is because I don't want to do showings and I don't want to do any of the paperwork, create the contract, anything like that. So when I do an off market deal, I actually have my attorney do the paperwork on it and I pay her for that. But you could pay a real estate agent to do that for you too.

Yeah, I think you hit on most everything that I'd say as well. Yeah. The vast majority of agents that I've worked with are sending you things that are on market now depending on the situation. Right. Like one of the markets that we invest in for our short term rentals, there's a lot of new construction like activity happening in that market. And these builders who are constructing these new homes, they're builders, they're not agents. Right. So they work with agents to get these homes sold. And a lot of times what you see is that before these houses get listed on the mls, the agents will have these pocket listings and they'll reach out to folks they know, you know, that they have the ability to close, they have a relationship with and say, hey, this house is going to be done in the next three months or even some. We have some that won't be done for another year under contract right now. Right. But you know, we have that relationship and those deals kind of flow to their trusted clients for everybody else. So that's another, you know, new construction. Working with folks that way is one way to kind of get some of these off market deals as well.

Yeah. And the advantage of a pocket listing is that maybe you won't get it for a reduced discount for say if you got direct seller or if you got it from a wholesaler, but you at least you'll have the first option of their asking price possibly. So if a realtor is bringing you this listing before it's on the mls, hopefully you're not competing with a thousand people for this property and maybe only a couple people. So that can be the advantage of it.

That's a great point. Right. Because maybe you're not getting it at a discount to what it's listed for, but at least you're not bidding against 10 other people to where it's been bid up $100,000, $200,000, something crazy like that. So we are seeing that in my market. So it's nice to know that there are some opportunities I have to fight and scrape for every deal.

Well, I think that kind of sums it up, Tony. Thank you guys for listening to another rookie reply. Make sure you join the Facebook group and leave questions for us. You can also leave us a voicemail at 1-888-5-ROOKIE and we can use it for the rookie reply show or we'll have a guest answer it on our Wednesday show. Thank you guys so much for listening. I'm Ashley at Wealth Rentals and He's Tony at TonyJ Robinson on Instagram. And we will see you guys on Wednesday.

Hey rookies, if you're watching this, we want you to apply to be a guest on the real estate rookie podcast. That's right. Ashley and I are looking for amazing stories just like yours to be a part of our real estate rookie Podcast. Now look, you don't need to be an expert. You don't need to have done thousands of deals. Even if you've done one deal, your story could help inspire the next listener.

As a rookie investor. Especially if you just got your first deal. It is all fresh in your minds and you are the best person to tell your story. Give your experience on how you got it done to help someone else get their first deal.

So head over to biggerpockets.com/guest if you want to be a part of our show again. That's biggerpockets.com com guest and we'd love to have you on.