Don't Waste Your Time! | Are You Working with the RIGHT Real Estate Agent? | Tim Hubbard

Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. We've talked before about the value of working with a real estate agent or broker, but are you working with the right one? I want to tell you about a recent interaction I had while I was looking for a property and a couple tips to make sure that we are using our time most efficiently. Stay tuned. Let's jump right in. Welcome to Short Term Rental Riches. We'll discuss investing in real estate, but with a specific focus on short term rentals. Quick actionable to acquire, manage and scale your portfolio. I'm your host, Tim Hubbard. Welcome back to the Short Term Rental Riches podcast. I'm super happy you're here. Thanks again for joining us from wherever you are. It's really cool to see our listener count grow, our viewer count grow. I think we're like over 80 countries now, so that's really cool. Thanks again for joining in. I was in the US recently and I was looking for properties. So I went to multiple states and one of the states I went to was Texas. If you've been in real estate for a while or you've just had your ears open, you probably know that real real estate in Texas has been booming. One of the best opportunities for real estate, I would say, in the US There's a lot, a lot of people moving to Texas. Of course, it depends on what area you're in. I was looking in San Antonio and I happen to think San Antonio is a great little city. It's really close to Austin. In fact, I drove from Aust. I was visiting a friend there. It was only about an hour and the city between Austin and San Antonio, it's almost like it just didn't even disappear. So I think San Antonio's got a lot going for it, some great value there. And I was going there to view an apartment building, apartment building that I found myself that was listed on the open market. I had my alarm set up and things like that to where when a listing met my criteria, I got a notification and so I inquired about it right away, within like an hour. Now I inquired about it with an agent that I was referred to. I had called before on some other larger apartment buildings and because this one was a little smaller, that agent referred me to someone else. Now, it turned out, long story short, that this agent wasn't very familiar with apartment buildings. They were, I'm sure, a specialist with single family homes, but they are different. So I'll get into that. But before I do, I just want to remind everyone, I guess if you haven't Heard all the podcasts. I used to be a broker, so I used to sell apartment buildings, and we sold shopping centers and all kinds of commercial property. And we only worked with commercial real estate investors. So only investors. We weren't doing residential sales or anything like that. And it is different. It is very different. So I can speak from my own personal experience, but I want to break down this recent property tour a little more to get you guys thinking about if you're working with the right broker or with the right real estate agent, because it is super, super important. So, first of all, how do we find the right real estate agent? Or if we're talking about commercial properties or apartment buildings, five units or more, the market usually just calls them brokers, even though it's kind of the same thing. Right. So how do we find the right agent or the right broker? Actually, a great place to start, anytime you're trying to meet someone is through referrals. So if you happen to know someone in the area where you're looking, a family friend, another fellow investor, whoever it is, if you can get referrals, that's usually a great place to start right now. But if we don't have referrals, we gotta make some phone calls, we gotta send some emails, and once we find someone. And again, you can find these contacts right on open listings. A good way to find someone that works with investment properties is to call the listing agents that are on those actual properties for sale. So if it's a fourplex for sale, you can call the listing agent directly and they're likely gonna have a little more experience with investment properties because it's a fourplex, but not necessarily. So you want to interview them, basically. I mean, you don't want to make it a super formal thing or anything like that, but just some casual questions to make sure that they know the area well, that you're looking in, and they're familiar with investment properties and that they're going to have your best interest at hand and they're going to be able to help you out. So. So make sure that you do a little vetting. This would have gone a long way had I done this before. I showed up in San Antonio to view a property with someone that really didn't know anything about it. So just ask some questions. Now, is it really possible to build a relationship with someone if you're looking somewhere remotely? It's going to be more challenging, but I can guarantee you it is definitely possible. I work with all my agents and brokers remotely, and the longer we Work together, the better our relationship becomes. So you definitely can. But a few things are going to help, right? If you know the lingo in the real estate world exactly what you're looking for and you have your criteria down, those things are all going to help. No one wants their time wasted, right? So if a professional agent or broker that you're talking to feels that you're not serious or that you don't know exactly what you're looking for, or, or that you're a complete newbie, well, then they might not be inclined to work with you. So it does get easier. The more we work with agents, the more properties we close on, the better it will be. If you do already have a property in the area, that's really good information to give to a broker if you're planning on working with a new one. So we just got to put our feelers out there, ask the right questions, know exactly what we're looking for, and hopefully if we're looking at investment properties, we know a little bit about the lingo. So back to my example, I'm sure the agent that I met with was a really good agent, but not for the eight unit apartment building that I was looking at that actually turned out to be a 10 unit apartment. That was one of the questions I had. So I saw in one of the listing photos that there were 10 meters electric meters on the property, but it was only listed as an eight unit. So that seemed like a good value add there, right? If someone's selling an 8 unit property but actually has 10, well then there's something going on there, right? Why are they not offering those other two units? Because that would surely raise the value. So when we actually showed up at the property, that was one of the first things I wanted to find out. And it turned out there were two separate structures behind the eight unit apartment building. Now, they weren't in good shape and I'm sure that's why the listing agent didn't list them. But that would have been awesome information to know. Before I got there, literally, I showed up to this property. I was only in San Antonio for two days, one night, so I didn't have a lot of time. And I knew more about this property than the agent I was working with did. So it was quite a bummer. I mean, going through the units, there was easy tall tale signs that she didn't quite know what was going on there. Right. We're walking through one of the units and looking at potential renovations. And I simply asked, how much do you think this Property can rent for in this sort of state, you know, a renovated state. I could tell she didn't have a clear answer. So she worked with residential. It's different than multifamily. That was my bad. I should have done more due diligence on the agent or the broker I was working with before I showed up in the city and traveled all that way. So lesson learned there. Now I do, hands down, think working with a broker, working with an agent is super, super valuable. We just got to make sure we're with the right person. But assuming we are, they can help us with so many things. Of course they can help with the negotiation. If they happen to be double ending it where they're listing it and selling it, well, then the negotiation power might not be as well there. But if you have a, an agent representing you on the buying side or the selling side and they're negotiating on your behalf, that really, really helps. If you're looking at a new market and you found someone to work with that's an expert, they can help you with all kinds of little things that maybe you wouldn't have known. Is the soil in that particular area known for settling? For example, is it in a flood zone? Is there crazy wind that's going to raise your insurance costs a lot? So just little things that an agent or a broker knows from being an expert in the market, those things can go a long way and save you tons and tons of money. So it's super valuable to have a good relationship with the right broker, the right agent in the area where you're looking. If you're looking at a new area where you've never been to before, well, then you got to start doing your homework and you got to make those connections. But in the long run, having someone you're working with goes a long, long way. So it's worth putting in the time. And in the end, if you're an investor, they know and they know that you're going to keep coming back and buying more properties. So it's easier for them too. So if you don't already have a great relationship with someone you're working with, already start working on that connection and hopefully you can build a really long, long term relationship that gets you a lot of good deals, saves you a lot of money, helps with the negotiation, and helps you uncover things about that area that maybe you didn't know. So until next time, I hope you're doing really well out there and I catch you next time. Ciao. If you're looking for a ton of free resources. Well, you can check out the links in the show notes or head to our website restmethods.com where you'll find free guides, house rules, and my ebook on finding the best short term rental properties. Thanks for tuning in.