Tapping into the Flipping Fad: 5 Business Boosting Strategies for Loan Officers to Share with Agents
By Ralph R. Roberts, CRS, GRI
While many novice real estate investors readily call a roofer when a roof is leaking, or a contractor to renovate a bath or kitchen, they often view real estate agents as superfluous overhead. Unfortunately, investors focus on an agent's commissions, while often overlooking the value an agent can add to their investment business. As a loan officer, you can expand your business by helping agents understand how they themselves can be indispensable to the rehab investor.
To appeal to investors, agents simply need to customize their business model to meet the investor's needs, and then market their services accordingly. Here are five tips you can share with real estate agents today, which ultimately will bring both you and the agents you work with more business!
1. Encourage real estate agents to become real estate investors themselves.
To sell anything, agents have to know what their prospective clients need, and there's no better way to learn what investors need than by suggesting that the agent become one themselves. Suggest to your agent friends that they start by investing in one property a year. Then invest in two properties a year, then one every quarter. By the fourth year, they should be buying about one property each month. Through investing, they not only build their own personal wealth, but they also reward you with their valuable business, all the while establishing contacts with contractors which they can share with their investor clients.
2. Tell the agents you work with to attend monthly real estate investor and landlord meetings.
Suggest to agents that they show up at the monthly meetings and talk to the investors in their community. Tell them to hand out their business cards and let people know what you have to offer. If the meeting includes lunch or dinner, the agent might be sitting at a table with eight or nine other people, all of whom buy and sell real estate, providing the agent with a perfect opportunity to network.
3. Encourage agents to steer investors to lenders like yourself.
Investors need cash to purchase and renovate properties. By leading prospective clients to sources of cash, the agent enables them to buy more properties, and they prove that they are dedicated to their success. The next time the investor buys a property, they're more likely to buy it through the agent. And once they buy the property through the agent, they're more likely to sell it through the agent later on.
4. Assist agents in assisting investors in finding investment opportunities.
Encourage agents to learn how to use the tools in their MLS system to automate the process of finding attractive investment opportunities. Agents can set up their MLS system to notify them of bank foreclosures, homes that are priced significantly below market value, and properties whose prices have recently been reduced. If the agent is investing in real estate him or herself, they're likely to find more leads than they have the resources to pursue. Tell them not to be selfish, and to share surplus leads with as many potential clients as possible.
5. Create and distribute a handyman list.
Once an investor acquires a property, the next thing she needs is help renovating it. Have the agent generate a list of top-notch contractors and handyman--or better yet, you yourself could generate this list and give it your agents--and when they sell a property, provide the handyman list to the buyer as a part of their service. Update the list regularly and ask agents and investors for feedback, so you can remove anyone from the list who is providing less than stellar service.
Remember, rehab investors want the same thing agents do-success; and you too want the same thing agents want--success. Show your agents that they can be more successful with these tips than without them. Prove daily that you are an indispensable contributor to their success, and encourage them to remain in monthly contact with investors and real estate investor groups. Do these things now and you will build a solid and ever growing base of loyal agent referrals.
Ralph R. Roberts GRI CRS
Macomb County Real Estate Broker
The Ambassador of Enthusiasm
"Official Spokesperson of Guthy-Renker Home"
Author of Flipping Houses FOR DUMMIES
Author of Foreclosure Investing FOR DUMMIES
Author of Advanced Selling FOR DUMMIES
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