Negotiating with Realtors

Mike: Welcome back to the flipnerd.com REI Classroom, where experts from across the real estate investing industry teach you quick lessons to take your business to the next level. And now let’s meet today’s expert host.

Larry: Hey this is Larry Goins, and welcome to today’s REI Classroom. I am your host. I’m really excited about what we’re going to talk about today. As you probably know, I’ve done a lot of REI Classrooms already, but one of my favorite topics is negotiating. Now, today what we’re going to talk about is negotiating with realtors.

Mike: This REI Classroom real estate lesson is sponsored by uglyopportunities.com.

Larry: Now, a lot of people are afraid to talk to realtors, they’re afraid to make offers because quite frankly your biggest fear in making an offer is “What if they say yes? Now, what do I do?” So I want to go through a few little things about working with realtors and talking to realtors.
Now, the very first thing that I want to share with you is most of the time, 99% of the time, 99.9% of the time, you’re going to get the realtors voicemail. So when you get the realtors voicemail, what do you do? See, a newbie would say, “Hey, this is Larry Goins, and I wanted to get some information on your house at 125 Oak Street.” No, realtors can’t make any money giving out information. Okay?

Here’s what you say, “You see. Hi, this is Larry. Larry Goins. As if you should know who I am, but if you don’t, here’s my last name. Hey, I need to get an offer to you on 125 Oak Street. Hit me back as soon as you can. Hey, if you don’t have my number handy, which you should have it, hit me back at” and then give your number.

So this way the realtor they don’t even know if you’re an agent, or you’re a buyer. All they know is you need to get an offer to them. So they come back from out showing houses, and they got all these voicemails from appraisers, can’t get in the house, underwriters turning down loans, and now you have an offer you need to get to him. You’re going to get the very first return phone call.

Now, I’m going to give you a few one-liners that you can use when you’re calling and talking to a realtor because when you’re calling especially if you’re brand new, you want to always call the listing agent. Nobody knows more about the property than the listing agent. So the very first thing I say is, “Hey, this is Larry. Did I catch you at a bad time or you got a minute?” You give him an alternative choice.

Whatever you want them to choose, you make it last. That’s very important. Like, “Hey, do you want to go out shopping with your mom or do you want to stay home with Dad?” If you want him to stay home with you and play then that’s what you say last. It even works with your kids. So how about this. “I was calling about 125 Oak Street, can you tell me a little bit about it?” All right? That’s one question. Hey, I always like to ask is it a blower upper or a fixer upper? It kind of breaks the ice. It gets them to laugh a little bit, all right?

So I want to say, “How much work does it need just a ballpark?” Remember the key words “Just a ballpark,” very, very important. How about this question, “Have you had many offers on a property?” How about this one, “How is the market there? I buy properties all over, and how is the market?”

The other thing is, would this be a better rental property or a better fixer upper. “Hey, do you get many listings like this? If so I bet we can work together and do a lot of deals.” How about this, “Do you have any other properties that I need to make an offer on? If so, tell me about them.” And then you just going on to say, “Let me tell you a little bit about what we do. We do this, this, and this. I’d like to make an offer on the property.” And I always, always, always make an offer on a property before I get off the phone.

Here’s how we do that. “Based on what you’re telling me, it looks like I need to be around X. Would you like to give the asset manager or a seller a call or email and let them know you have a cash offer in this range, and see if they want to put it on paper? Because I don’t want to waste your time.” So that’s been some tips for working with realtors. I hope you really enjoy it, and be sure and check out my website larrygoins.com for more information, and thanks a lot, and I’ll see you on the next REI Classroom.

Mike: HomeVestors, the We Buy Ugly Houses folks, is a franchise system of hundreds of real estate investors that have purchased over 65,000 houses. If you’d like to learn more about the most powerful real estate investing system in existence, whether you’re a pro looking to take your business to the next level, or whether you have no experience at all, but a burning passion to be successful at real estate investing, please visit flipnerd.com/ugly to learn more.
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