We use the Dream Team Checklist to remind us to continue to expand out and strengthen existing relationships we have with key dream team members that will help us accomplish more as real estate investors.
Unlike many of our other checklists that give you action steps, this one lists some of the key dream team members to encourage you to reach out and make contact with professionals that will make your life easier and more profitable.
Whether you use it as a reminder to ask your existing dream team for referrals or recommendations in those areas or as a list of folks to seek out and interview on your own, you will find the list to be a great resource for improving your real estate investing business.
Here is a very abridged list of key dream team members from our much larger list:
- Accountant/Bookkeeper
- Administrative Assistant
- Appraiser
- Attorney
- Contractors
- Lenders (Traditional Brokers, Hard Money, Private Money)
- Insurance Agent
- Property Manager
- Real Estate Agent/Broker
- Real Estate Wholesalers
- Title Company
Until my next post,
James
Last week I shared with you an article about my recent experience of looking for a few new real estate agents to work with in the markets we are looking to buy in. In that article I shared with you how diverse the applicants were… some were amazing; some were not.
One thing that I knew going in, but was reminded of as I searched was the power that belief and expectations had on the real estate agent. Here’s what I mean.
If an agent believes deep down that properties never sold for large discounts or with owner financing or any of the creative real estate strategies that, as real estate investors, we know happen every single day, they would automatically shut down and try to tell me that it can’t be done. For those of you that think you’re going to be able to convince an agent that it can be done, I’ve got a couple redwood trees you can push on to move as well. It is just not going to happen.
Even though I personally and thousands of other investors I know have done deals like I have suggested, some agents insist that no one would ever (and fill in the blank).
On the other hand, there are other agents that, because they are new or overly optimistic or maybe just desperate for any deal, tell you they are willing to find those types of deals but have an overly rosy picture of what that entails. They may believe that if they make 2 or 3 offers they’ll find you a killer deal at 50% of value with owner financing. Are there deals out there like that? Yes. Can you find one with an agent? Yes. Will it happen in 2 or 3 offers… the chances are very, very small of that happening with the first two or three offers you make.
While I believe you should be doing marketing yourself, using agents in your business to supplement your deal flow is a great tool–as long as you find an agent that both has realistic beliefs and expectations that mirror your own.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. Download and listen to the Real Estate Investor Daily Training Volume #1 (free for a limited time) to learn how I recommend finding deals and working with motivated sellers.
With a lot of folks facing challenging local real estate markets there has been a lot of talk lately about wholesaling outside of your local market or virtual wholesaling.
Yes, wholesaling outside your local market can be done and a lot of the tools I teach can very easily be adapted to this type of investing, but I have one warning for you before you start and before I continue to share some information about it: if you are not willing to do the work that is required to build a buyers list, find deals and talk to buyers and sellers about properties in your local market, then doing it across the country still won’t work for you.
With that being said… if you are willing to build a buyers list, talk to motivated sellers to find deals and put them under contract then talk to your buyers list as they inquire about the deal, then yes, this is a viable business model.
In fact, if you sort of cross your eyes funny, it is the exact business model I run here on these sites except I am doing it with a real estate license and skipping a few steps as I’ll show you below.
For real estate investors that do not have a real estate license here is a basic overview of how the process works:
- Start building your buyers list so you have buyers to sell your deals to
- Market to find motivated sellers
- Negotiate with sellers to put deals under contract
- Sell your contract to your buyers list for a profit
- Repeat as often as you like
I know that seems over-simplified, but that really is what the system is. I document in the various free training I provide how to do each of those steps. All you need to do is look through these articles and the Real Estate Investor Wiki. Then tweak our systems to your unique situation and implement them for your business.
If you have a real estate license, the business model goes something like this:
- Start building your buyers list so you have buyers to sell your deals to
- Find great deals from other wholesalers, the government, banks or other agents/brokers with listings
- Put your buyers together with agents who help them buy these properties and collect a commission (or referral fee) on the sale
- Repeat as often as you like
Until my next post,
James
P.S. For a limited time only you can watch my hour long webinar on How To Setup Your Virtual Wholesaling Business for free.
For the sake of brevity, I am going to assume that you already know why it is very important to put yourself in the middle of a great team of people to be successful in real estate investing. If you read any book about a highly successful business person, you will quickly see that that they did not do it alone. So let’s discuss how to build a great dream team for your real estate investing business.
There are many great ways to find key dream team members, which I will briefly list. I am also going to share with you the two key short cuts that I have discovered to help you find truly amazing dream team members faster and easier than you probably thought was possible.
First, let’s talk about the ways that people usually find dream team members.
There are traditional methods, like calling on advertisements in the yellow pages, newspapers, on-line in your favorite search engine, classified ad websites, and so on. This time-consuming approach rewards dream team members that are willing to spend time or money advertising to find more clients.
The second approach is to network or ask for a recommendation from a friend or colleague. I’d like to take a few moments to discuss two variations of this because they can be highly effective strategies for building a dream team.
The first variation is to get recommendations specifically from other real estate investors. Read some of my other articles for ways I go about finding other real estate investors by building a buyers list. Many active real estate investors will already know a great real estate attorney, property manager, title company and so on.
The second variation on networking is to tap into one of the best centers of influence for all of the critical dream team members. Where is that center of influence? Well, who is traditionally at the center of most real estate transactions? The real estate agent or broker.
Great real estate agents and brokers have dozens of experienced dream team contacts. They tend to know who to avoid (many times based on actual experiences with them) and who can get the job done – even in difficult transactions. They know lenders, they know real estate lawyers, they know property managers, they know escrow and title companies and they understand the real estate process. If you’re lucky, you will even find a real estate agent that has experience with investment properties and they can be a source of deals and other investors for you too.
So, you can struggle calling dream team members at random from their marketing materials, or, you can take the easy way and tap into other investors’ dream team members by networking with them. Better yet, take the super fast approach by using a great local real estate agent who will introduce you to all the key dream team members you need.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. We have an extensive list of Dream Team members will notes, tips, interview questions, selection criteria for many of them available in our training materials for our Real Estate Investor Bronze Members. These materials are in addition to the over 100 real estate courses, on-going live training and free consulting sessions we also provide to our members. Sign up today for Real Estate Investor Bronze Membership.
Buying Investment Properties Through An Agent – Reasons Why Investors Should Use A Real Estate Agent
I am often surprised to learn that many people believe they are paying a commission when they buy real estate through an agent. This is not the case. The seller pays the commission out of the final negotiated sales price of the property.
However, it is true that you may not find the lowest-priced deals buying through an agent because sellers cannot afford to discount the property as much since they have to pay a commission. Just the same, there are still times when using an agent is a good idea.
If you are new to investing, then you can definitely benefit from the knowledge of an experienced agent who caters to investors. It is certainly a good idea to seek expert guidance to navigate successfully through your first few deals. I should point out too that not all agents are real estate investors and having a real estate investing mentor that can consult with you and provide on-going support and training is often extremely valuable as well. You can get more information on our training and consulting for real estate investors if you are interested in that.
Another reason to continue to use an agent, even if you have some experience, is to save you time. Many investors do not invest full-time. They have jobs, families, and many other obligations that all demand large amounts of their time. An agent can sift through the many properties that come onto the market each week and can present you with only those that meet your criteria or that look like a good deal. Beware of agents that ask you for criteria and then just have their MLS dump MLS properties into your email box each day for you to sort through. Just about any agent can do this and it is a disservice to many investors in my opinion (real estate agents reading can consult with me to learn how real estate investors should be worked with).
Finally, even if you have knowledge, experience and invest full-time, there are still good deals that are only available through the MLS. It all comes down to crunching the numbers, if a deal works, then it works, regardless of whether you found it through your own marketing or through a real estate agent.
Regardless of your level of investing experience, do not automatically assume that you will not find good deals through a real estate agent. It is simply not true. Good investors know that their deals can come from many places and they recognize the value that a real estate agent can bring them as one part of their entire plan for finding deals.
Until my next post,
James
P.S. I much prefer to to do marketing to have motivated sellers call me with potential deals and that is primarily what I focus on with consulting clients and training materials. To access over 100 hours of training including a lot of training on how to have motivated sellers calling you with potential deals upgrade to a Bronze Membership now.
