Tim Bell power team 3

Now, the second person that you need on your team, the second person on this list, is a title company. Now, a title company does many things for you or can do many things for you. I always say that having a relationship with a title company is like having the key to the information vault in your area. Okay? Title companies, all title companies have real time online access to the county records. And their computer can go into the county records and pull anything they want to see out. They have to have that access. So they couldn't do their job to check titles. Basically, what title companies do is they do title searches. They also do settlements where everybody comes and signs. They do closings where they have the documents recorded down the county recorder's office. They do all different kinds of things that can be helpful for you and that will be necessary for your real estate transactions. So having a title company on your team is a good, is a good thing to have. Now, in these videos, I use them all over the United States. Okay? And in some places it's required that an attorney be present in every real estate transaction, in every real estate closing, resettlement. Okay? Not most places that's not the case, but there are a few places that that's the case. New York, northern New Jersey, Virginia. There's some states that require an attorney to be directly involved in your real estate transaction. Other places, not so much. But most, the rest of the United States don't require that. So when I say title company, if you live in a state that requires a title attorney, please hear me using those terms interchangeably. Title attorney, title company, they're interchangeable from our perspective here. Okay? Some people say, well, wait a minute, don't I need an attorney to close my deal? The answer is in most places, no, you don't. Okay? Now there are, like I say, a few states where they have enacted laws that say that an attorney must close a real estate transaction. But those states are not so many. And most of them are east of the Mississippi river and kind of the northeast part of the United States. And so again, you can find out. Ask your real estate agent, they'll know. Or ask the title company, they will know and be able to tell you whether or not an attorney is required. Okay, so we're going to use the term title companies, assuming that if you need an attorney, you'll know that I mean, title attorney. Okay, all right, so again, back to title companies. Number one, how do I find them? And number two, once I find them, what do I say to them? Okay, so let's talk about that number One. Finding a title company. Now, my strong recommendation when finding a title company is to find an investor friendly agent first and then ask your investor friendly agent for an introduction or a referral to an investor friendly title company. See, title companies don't market to the public. They don't. Why? Because of some national association of Realtors statistics say that the average person in the public doesn't buy or sell a house that often. Somewhere between two and seven times in their whole lifetime do they go through one half of the other half of that process. As a consequence, title companies don't market to people because they know that between those processes they're going to forget their name and they're not going to need them anymore and they're not going to know who they are. But they market constantly to real estate agents. Why? Because real estate agents often have an opportunity to recommend a title company to their clients. You can imagine this conversation happens many times every day in America. Okay, real estate agent says, Congratulations, Mr. And Mrs. Seller for putting your property under contract for getting that contract. We've got the buyer signed, you've signed and now your property's under contract. Congratulations. Well, one of the first questions the agent's going to ask that seller is where do you want to go to have the title work done on this property? The seller's going to look at them like title work. What's that? Well, you're going to need to have, you're going to need to have title investigation, you're going to need to have title insurance policy, you're going to need to have a closing, you need to have recording and all that and doc preparation stuff and everything. Well, I don't know anybody who does that, says the seller. Then the agent says, well, fortunately I know Susie over at XYZ Title, she's been working with my clients for the last 12 years. If you like, we could probably use Suzy. What's the seller going to say? No? Yeah, okay, great, let's use Susie. So title companies realize this. So they realize that real estate agents have a terrific opportunity to recommend them to their clients. As a consequence, title companies don't market to the public, they market to real estate agents. So find an investor friendly real estate agent. Once you found your investor friendly real estate agent, you need one for your team anyway. Ask them to introduce you to an investor friendly title company, they typically will know 1, 2, 3 or more. And investor friendly title companies they'll be happy to introduce you to. Now once they commit to introducing you to that investor friendly title company, then at that point, you're going to use the handout that I gave you because this has instructions on developing a relationship with the title company. Okay? So let's go through these. Step number one, ask your agent for a good, for a referral to a good investor friendly title company. Investor friendly agents know investor friendly title companies, so they will be able to give you a referral. Number two, visit the title company in person, hand in hand, arm in arm with your agent physically in person visit. Okay? That's the most effective way to create that relationship. So you go to the title company, your agent introduces you as one of his or her investor clients. Well, at that point, when they introduce you as one of his or her investor clients, the title company has no reason to believe you're anything but a successful investor. The agent that they work with on a regular basis, your agent has vouched for you, they've indicated that you are an investor. Why would they have any reason to believe anything but the fact that you're a successful investor? So now you have correctly positioned yourself with your title company. Okay? And once you've done that, once they introduce you as one of their investor clients, from that, from then on that title company, they views you as one of their clients and views you as a legitimate investor. So this legitimizes your agent introducing you as an investor legitimizes you in the eyes of the title company. Okay? Step number four, be sure to ask whoever you meet there, you're going to meet various different people there. But be sure to ask, who should I call if I need information about a property or to order title work to be done on a property. Now the sometimes it will be Susie the marketing person that your agent introduces you to. Or they might say, well, you need to talk to Carol back in our customer service department. Or they might say, well, Nancy back in our title plant would be the person who would order and find that information for you. Okay? So no matter what they say, whether it's Susie the marketing person or Carol the customer service lady or Nancy back in the title plant, regardless of who they tell you it is, get an introduction to that person, meet them once you get you meet that person, get their contact information, a business card is ideal. That's what you're looking for. Why? Because number six, you're going to send them a personal note. That personal note is going to say something like, it was nice to meet you, I look forward to working with you. Something along those lines, put your business card in there and send it off to them again. Remember, the incidence of personal notes in our society is dramatically reduced. Okay? So if you do send someone a personal note, that's going to make you stand out, that's going to make someone remember you. So again, get one of those little personal notes and send it to them. Mail to them. Now, once you've established that relationship, number seven says make it a point to contact them either in person or by phone at least once a month. Just to say hello and, and to keep the relationship going, just, yeah, remember me? I stopped by, Susie, introduced you and all that stuff, remember? Okay. Now, number eight is really, really important. When you do a deal with them as the closing agent on your property, send your new friend something, send them flowers, send them a plant, cookies, donuts, a personal note, a small gift certificate, et cetera, as a thank you for doing business. What'll happen is that will make you stand out in their mind and, and then they will be more than willing in the future to help you with information you need. See, as it says at the bottom of the handout, the idea of developing and nurturing the relationship with the title company may not seem important at first, but again, you need to recognize the fact that having a good relationship with the title company is like having the key to the information vault in your marketplace for properties in your area. So it's really important that you strike up and nurture this particular relationship.