Average Agents vs Investor-Focused Agents - The Difference

0:00America leads the world in medicine development. It matters. We get new medicines first, nearly three years faster. Five million Americans go to work because we make medicines here at home, and not relying on other countries keeps us safe. But China is racing to overtake us. Will we let them? Or will we choose to stay ahead? When America leads, America cures. Let's tell Washington to keep us in the lead. Learn how at americacures.com, paid for by pharma. Alrighty folks, if you are a real estate investor, you are undoubtedly looking for a great real estate agent. Unfortunately, they are all not created equal. Most real estate agents probably are more comfortable or actually are more comfortable dealing with home buyers. They don't really speak the language of investors. What I thought I would do in this conversation and talk with KC from brick by brick. Well, and say, what do we expect? Or what do we like when we are working with real estate agents? And yes, we will probably drop a couple of things we hate as well.

1:02But KC, let's talk about this. Because again, a great real estate agent is a gold mine for real estate investors. But unfortunately, most of them, not so good. What do you think? You know, real turns are like Starbucks. There are dime a dozen. There's one on every corner. Everyone's a real turn. Doesn't take a lot of work to get your license. Like, look, that's my license up there. My California real estate broker license that I got in 2007. I was a real estate agent. So, although, you know, smack talk that I could say about realtor. I know firsthand what it's like. I know what a good realtor should do. I know what bad realtor's do. I know what lazy realtor's do and all the things, especially having worked with, you know, Josh helped over 100 so students go through this process and them choosing realtor's and all the things. You know, realtor's really our door to my side, you know. So, I think there's a big misconception out there on what realtor's are supposed to do versus what they are actually going to do. And I

2:05think the biggest hindrance that we have as investors, especially new investors, you know, I talked to new investors a lot, is that investors put too much weight into what their realtor says. I mean, I can tell you as an investor, I can tell you hands down. And as a real estate, you know, license holder, they don't teach you real estate investing in real estate school. They teach you how to sell, how to sell real estate, really for homeowners or home buyers. They don't teach you any methods on, you know, how to evaluate real estate. They don't tell you about the market and what tenants want and anything like that. They don't teach you how to run the numbers. They teach you how to sell a house. So, I think the exception there on what is a realtor's knowledge level? And they all don't know what we're expecting them to know, first of all. Oh, yeah. So first and foremost, I don't think I've said this in a while. Once I once I left work in 2018, I got my real estate license

3:06in California because I assume, and correctly as it turns out, that there was some super secret information inside the MLS that I couldn't get anywhere else. That was 100% the only reason. I had no intention of taking clients. Yes, I would use it for my own deals. But once I got, you know, certified or passed or whatever that little blue certificate you have behind you, I realized that the MLS outside of some like broker comments or agent comments, there was really nothing secret or hidden that as of as of a value. So I let that license go immediately, never, never used it, didn't renew nothing. So first off, I was actually pretty disappointed that I, you know, spent, I don't know, weeks and, you know, hundreds of hours studying and passing the exam the first time, which I got to tell you surprise me because I didn't study that well and I still pass. So it just tells you it's not that hard. I fully expected not to pass. But hey, I did. But yeah, there was nothing

4:08there. So back to the kind of what I hear from real estate or real estate investors is I can't tell you how many times I have heard the following statement. Michael, I found the perfect real estate agent. It's the perfect she or he is the best. And I got to tell you the chances of you finding the best real estate agent in your market, you know, that quickly are not great. What you found probably was a real estate agent that didn't have a lot going that was willing to travel around with you for a couple hours. And they're just thirsty for business. You know, I would not be in a rush to sign a, you know, a contract saying, you know, you're my agent for any length of time. Maybe you're my agent on this house. Like if you show me a house, you deserve to get paid. But yeah, I'm not signing a one of those agreement that says, you know, you're my agent because that that could cost me money for sure. Yeah. So what real estate agents are good for in my opinion, right? If you don't

5:09have a license and have a little key to open the door, they're good for opening the door. They're good for getting you in. They're good for getting you in the property. And they're good for filling in the blanks on the contract. Now, yeah, I, you know, everyone's going to come and hate me in the comments, all these realtors. But look, I was a real estate agent. I worked with real estate agents all the time. And you, they don't going to know what you know, you know, and you're even if they do, you should not be relying on them at all one Iota to tell you what you should invest in and why. That is up to you. And you need to know your market and you need to know your numbers. That's why like in my coaching program, I do it a little backwards. My students learn their market first like the back of their hand. They know how to analyze. They can write cashflow numbers. And then we find a team. If you go find them built, gives me a chance. If you go find them build the team first, you're relying on their knowledge and you're getting lazy. That's the simple fact. So realtors are good for open the door

6:09and they're good for signing in the contracts and filling the blanks. Now, let me tell you something that sucks. Okay, that I have run across that just sucks. So, you know, Blake and I always are all looking for the dream home all the time. And, you know, we'll always go look and we'll go look at open houses and we'll contact ones that are for sale by owner and talk to them. Unfortunately, real estate agents have this stigma that if you if an owner wants to make their own offer on a property that's listed on the MLS, they aren't going to take you as seriously. They think you don't know what you're talking about and they treat you like utter crap. So, unfortunately in the industry, it doesn't always be who you as an owner like as an investor or a solo buyer to make your own offer to really do that. And a lot of cases because you are going to be treated poorly. They don't respect you. Realtors do not expect people that come in and make their own offers. It's a it's negative. So, in that aspect alone, sometimes it is better to work depending upon the market and the type of proper all the things to work with a real estate agent in my opinion because

7:13you're not going to get taken as seriously if you're writing your own offers. I don't know what your thought is on that, but that's absolutely what I have run across. Yeah, I guess the place where I really struggle with most real estate agents is they always want to kind of do the negotiation. And you know, I haven't met one that kind of met my criteria for negotiating. I don't mind. In fact, I've leveraged real estate agents to write offers all the time. You know, again, I've talked about on this channel. I have agents that kind of just have my default setup because I do write lots of offers. So, they can get it done in two minutes flat because it's, you know, it's address, price, you know, it's a very standard offer for me. But yeah, I don't want them negotiating on my behalf, right? I hate when they kind of play this telephone game because if, you know, in today's environment, I'm really writing two offers most of the time because I'm doing the research on the property to figure out how much equity they likely have. And I want one offer to be cash and frankly, disrespectful. And then the other one,

8:17I want to be reasonable but with seller financing. And most agents, unless I really train them, won't have that conversation. And it's just a waste of effort. So, that's very frustrating. It is because, you know, the real estate agent is supposed to be you. They are representing you on your behalf. And when, you know, you can negotiate better than the realtor, it's very, very frustrating. And I thought people email me and, oh, Casey, who can you recommend in Memphis? And I'm like, nobody. Nobody has to help me with anybody. Because I run through real estate agents like water because I'm better. That's just the answer. And so it sucks, you know. And the biggest thing with Mike, the last guy that I worked with, which he's great and he did several deals with me, but he's not the best negotiator. And, you know, I do, I don't, you know, ask for seller financing and stuff. Sometimes I will if I need to have that happen yet as far as having worked, as a matter of fact, last week, made an offer on his lake house. Again, the same house I tried to buy last year. Lake houses don't move hardly any style. So there's not a lot of

9:21inventory. I said, how about seller, talking realtor, let's do a seller financing. Oh, well, why would anybody want to do that? And I said, look, we can negotiate on terms. And I can give him what he wants. But, you know, I know his rate rates 2.5%. Why don't we, you know, like I'll pay what he owns, whatever, what he owes, he can, we can sell it 5%. Oh, why would anybody, why would he want to do a low, I mean, a lower interest? The fact that that, the fact that that agent is negotiating against you is insulting. I know. And I'm so mad at her. You should be. That is, that is a horrible agent. Yeah. She's been really good in the past, you know, and she really has, she's good with a lot of things. The thing is I don't live nearby. So she understands stuff. I don't know about doc inspections, lake rules, all these things, waterline, white line, red line, a lot of stuff that I have no knowledge in. She's got a really great list of contractors and stuff

10:22that can fix things that are local, which is really important. So she's really good with that. But I'm really upset this time because she's mad at, you know, she's mad at me that I'm not offering more for the property. And at my offer this year was less than last year. And I'm like, you show me any properties that it increased value since 2023 in that market, like it just isn't there. So, you know, how about some of our finances and understand it. And like that's the thing, it has investors. And yes, we'll use it as our primary, you know, like as a vacation home or a thing. But it's still an investment. And your realtor should have some knowledge of some of these tools and strategies. And when they're needed, and I didn't think I would need a seller financing strategy. So whatever, you know, but it is what it is. You win some, you lose some, sometimes you find out realtor strengths and weaknesses as time goes on as things get brought up. But for the most part, like if you're buying long-term rentals, like minus like the lake house

11:23and short-term rental possibility, your realtor is not going to be some magical unicorn that has going to provide you off-market deals. Yeah, freaking right. Every time I talk to people, they're like, well, I want my realtor to find me off-market. They're going to do that. What they're going to do is they're going to maybe have a pocket listing, which I think is even illegal now. But they're going to have a pocket listing. Listen, they know that are coming in the market that they can maybe try and do off-market. But even then, as a realtor, realtor with the R in the circle around, as a realtor, their fiduciary duty is to their seller and to give their seller the best price. So it is not in their best interest and it's not ethical for them to sell property that they will have the listing to sell their property below market value. Their fiduciary duty, their seller is to list the property on the open market to get the highest and most amount that they can. So no one's going to be finding you off-market deals. They're going to end up listing and get used to my amazing deal. That's kind of against the rules.

12:24Yeah. Yeah. The biggest thing for me also on this is most real estate agents really don't speak the investor language, right? They don't really understand. Well, they kind of get buybox. That's just kind of filters to them. But they don't understand cash on cash or yield. They don't even understand gross rent multiple and cap rate. You know, all these other very investor vocabulary. They often try to pretend to and they probably go Google search at or chat GPT after the phone call. But it is kind of embarrassing. They also don't understand where the value is, right? Value for landlords specifically usually go to bedrooms, bathrooms, parking, you know, fence yards, things of that nature. You know, often they're very trained, you know, got to be in a good school district. But as Deon says, that's not something he looks for because he doesn't want his tenants to age out. There's very investor, you know, focus things. And it's often opposite of what a home buyer is looking for. So they just, they just get all kind of confused. One other thing I think is good that realtors are good for. Besides opening the door,

13:27filling in the blanks, right? Knowing maybe some local contractors, if you're not familiar with the area, they really do have those good, which I would lean on. I would use those first for trying to find some random online, you know, absolutely. But they also are good and they have the MLS, right? And unlike Zillow, where you can run comps, you can pull data. It's limited with the, it's only going to give you back so many months, but they can run expired listings in 30 seconds. They can give you a list of properties that were withdrawn. And if you are looking to find off market deals or maybe find those in contact with people yourself, you know, you can get a list of expires and withdraws from your realtor that's more difficult to find on your own. I'm sure like PropStream and all those, I'm sure like things like that that you pay for can probably offer that. But for free, your realtor can do that for you in literally three seconds and pull you over for. And they can also pull you past listings and photos, which is really cool. Now I've found that

14:30homes.com is my new and I've been talking about it once before a long time ago about homes.com is my new favorite free online tool because homes.com will tell you how, you know, details about the last sale. They'll tell you equity. They tell it tells you what are my favorite things, especially if you're looking for investing is what percentage in the neighborhood is renter versus owner. So yes, you can find out so fast as the ABC or D neighborhood. What percentage of this neighborhood is renter versus owners? It's got a lot of great information that it's free and you don't have to pay for like PropStream stuff. Yeah. At the end of the day, I do think real estate investors need to continually network with real estate agent because again, I really do believe when you do find that unicorn, they're worth 10x what you what they get paid. It's just unfortunately, you got to kiss a lot of frogs. You're going to walk, you know, walk, you're going to have to talk to dozens and dozens to find it. But once you do, they're, you know, the real estate agent,

15:31the real estate agent who focus on investors, especially residential investors. There's not a lot of them, but there's a few in every market. When you find them, hold on to them. You know what's on my favorite, you know, tricks for finding a good investor, friendly realtor, not investor friendly, meaning they will work with investors because they all will. Okay, if you have a pulse, they'll work with you. But investor friendly, meaning they understand investments, property management companies. Okay. Oh, good call. My fave. So if you are going to have your property managed, now if anyone does have a property management company doing their properties, probably a hundred percent of those agreements that you sign with the PM are going to say that they get the right to list your house if you want to sell. Probably. Yeah. So what does that mean? They are realtor's too. And if you're looking for someone that is going to have, you know, not, you know, doctor style, you know, doctor grade contractors are going to charge with a zillion dollars for stuff like if you had a doctor, you know, a house like

16:33a rich home. If you're looking for an investor pricing subcontractors and contractors, if you are looking for a real estate agent who understands the rental market understands what tenants want and where the better areas and tenants want this or that in these certain neighborhoods and what properties we'll rent for and type of upgrades that are needed to get whatever cash flow. You know, who's going to know that the real estate agents that work with the property management companies or are in house at the property management company? So I'm like, now I have tons of realtors that I recommend in other areas, right? Just I'm just kind of a brat when it comes out here. But those ones they work with property management companies or most all of their clients are investors. And that's the question you ask. What percentage of your clients, Mr. Ms. Realtor, are investors versus owner occupies? If every 90% of them are owner occupies, they aren't going to be able to help you. And a key, a key, this is if anyone's still watching it at this time, this is so key. You ask that real estate agent. If I gave you a house, give you an address to a house, would you be

17:36able to tell me how much it would rent for? If they can't tell you that they go, oh, well, let me get a property management person, you know, a property manager to look at it or let me rent a rent, I'm going to report. Okay. No. But if they can give you the answers, boom, if they know the answer, you want your realtors to know just as much as the property management company. I love that. Casey, there's always a fun conversation. Again, folks, we're not ragging on real estate agents. We know most of them do amazing work for home buyers. We're just ragging on real estate agents who try to pretend to be investor friendly. There are some of you out there that are amazing. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But hey, a lot of your peers, not so good. Casey, closing thoughts and where they can find you? You know, you got to have a ramp sometime and it's okay. You know, I love real estate agents. I have been one. I have my license still and I think it's just like when I used to be a server at a restaurant. I highly critique servers and servers at restaurants. Why? Because I was one. And I know a good one and a bad one. I know what they mean. I know what it takes

18:38and I know what people are being lazy and falling short. Hey, that's excellent. You know, as we all should. So it is what it is. And I don't sugarcoat. Anyway, thanks for watching. You can find me on YouTube. That's my new favorite platform. Brick five brick wealth. And you can check out my website brickfivebrickwealth.com. Thank you so much. Have a great day. Want to see your brand on TV? Roku ads manager makes it easy to launch targeted ad campaigns in minutes. Track results in real time and drive on screen purchases with just a click of the Roku remote. Get a $500 match on your first $500 spent with code Roku 500 at ads.roku.com. That's code R-O-K-U 500 at ads.roku.com. Terms apply.