Realtors: What to Look For and What to Avoid
Just got asked again, about our realtor program. I want to share it one more time and I want to tell you how we find the realtors to work for, and some of the pitfalls, and some of the things you will have to have in order for this to work for you.
I am Ron Ramsden, I am a DYB coach, also a painting contractor up here in wonderful, beautiful New England.
Working with realtors can be tough. There is one realtor you specifically want to go after and some you want to stay far, far away from.
First of all, any kind of discount realtors who are low balling, we want to stay right away from them.
We also want to stay away from… I hate to say this, the part-time realtors, I was a part-time realtor, and always had another gig going, either painting or something else, and I love to play in real estate.
Well, these people don’t sell that many homes, and when they are using you, they are only using you.
If you can find a team to work for, you might drive down the road and you see that; The Smith team, The Prime Property team, or some other kind of team.
Download Your Free Infographic...
9 Ways To Get HOA And Property Management Work, E-mailed to your NOW!
This means there’s a multiple of realtors working in that same team, there are usually 2, 3, 4, 5 realtors, they have administrative assistance, they have a marketing person.
These people turn a lot of properties every month, these are the people you want to work for.
Also, you might want to see that John Smith, and you see him when you are driving down around your town, you want to associate with her.
She turns a lot of properties, and they value their vendors and what they can say to you is, you will be a vendor for them, a carpenter, a plumber, a photographer, Ariel photographer, they might have a home inspector, and of course a finance person.
And you want to be considered part of their team, you want to be considered one of their vendors that they go to.
But how do you find these people?
Well, they always have some of these bigger ones, I worked for Real Max, I worked for Kero Williams and I worked for smaller real estate agencies years ago, this is years ago.
But they all have a care’s committee, something like a charitable organization through these large real estate agencies.
Offer to give a gift certificate at their next function, they do a lot of money raising so they can donate to different charities, attend their networking events, they might even have a place where you can put a table in the next meeting.
Or, just call that team and ask them if you could have 10 minutes of their time, you might just talk to the administrative assistant, or you might just talk to one of the marketing people, and let them know what you do.
This is where we land all our work, this is the program that I wanted to share with you.
I have shared with you in the past, and I also want to carefully let you know about the pitfalls that you have to have in order before this happens.
You need an agreement: I went to one of my BNI networking associates, one of the lawyers, and I had them write up an agreement specifically for my company.
It is a one-page agreement that the realtor signs and the homeowner signs and I sign. And you should reach out and have your own made, it was $150 and it was well worth it.
And what mine spells out is how much work we are going to do, who’s responsible for payment and when is it due?
Ours specifically say, in general, usually it is 35 hours work we will provide, it is due within 120 days, or whenever the house sells, whichever comes first.
Also, the agreed upon, both parties will sign it, and also states what we are actually going to do in that one agreement.
And the reason this works is a lot of people are equity rich in their cash pour when they are selling their house, especially someone just asked to sell.
They have been in the house for a long time, maybe it is an elderly couple, maybe the elderly couple has moved on into assisted living or nursing home or something, and they have a relative handling the sale of their property.
Well, there is no cash there out of their pocket and they can sign this, or someone can sign this and allow you to do the work on the house, and that’s where it works out great.
We have been doing this for years and it works so well, we always seem to have one in-process at any one time.
In-process, I mean we have done the work and we are just waiting for the money, and it’s always great when that check comes and the realtors stay in touch with you.
And that’s what’s great about the realtors when they have a team, they stay in touch with you.
They’ll let you know what the process is, they say hey, we can put the house under the agreement, we are expecting to close this date, oh, we have extensions, it is going to be 2 weeks longer.
I have only once, before I had an agreement, it was the first one I ever did, it didn’t work out as the way it was planned, but I met some great people who gave me a lot of work since then.
And how do we do it? We do $3,500 worth of work, delayed up to 120 days like I said.
How do they sell it? The realtor goes into a house, maybe has some of that old wallpapers, kitchen cabinets need to be painted, whatever it needs to be, and they know what needs to be done for this house to sell the fastest.
In a fast economy, which means houses are dropping and selling on the first date… Sometimes this doesn’t mean, as the economy tightens up, houses are going to sit on the market a little longer and houses are going to be need to be sold.
This is a great time to put this plan in the process.
And all of the pitfalls, make sure you have a signed document, make sure you are working with a realtor who knows what they are doing.
Like I said, don’t work with a realtor who sells 3, 4, 5 homes a year, you want a realtor who’s a heavy hitter in the industry.
Also, network with these realtors, let them know what you got to do, visit them, ask for 5 minutes of their time, 10 minutes of their time, if you have a proven record, you can show the proven record to them and it can work out then.
This can be a win-win for all of you, but this is the biggest key, do not do this program if you don’t have money in the bank, because you are going to shoulder not only the materials, you are going to shoulder all the labor and you are going to have to wait 120 days.
If you need money now, or if you don’t have a couple months’ worth of cash backup in the bank, do not do this program, it’s not for you.
This is when you have a good padding in the bank, maybe you have a savings program for your business also, and you can float the $3,500.
I got to tell you, when you start doing this, you are not only doing $3,500, they are adding additional work unto this.
We do not float the additional work in most cases, most cases it’s a check or a credit card for the additional $1,000, $15,000, $5,000 worth of work.
Once they see the work starting to happen, they realize the change it makes in the house, and they can get top dollar, if they are can’t get top dollar, they are going to make sure their house sells faster.
If you do not have extra money in the bank, do not do this program. Anyways, a great thing to look forward to, a great way to work with these realtors.
You are going to be working with people who are selling their homes, and sometimes they are not residual work, but the realtor is the one, she is the chicken, or he is the chicken who is going to keep laying these eggs and these eggs are the work ahead of you.
So anyways, I hope this helped? I am Ron Ramsden, DYB coach, also a painting contractor, coming to you from beautiful New England.
If you want to reach out to me, reach out to me at dybcoach.com.
I would love to hear a comment, if you have any comments or questions on this video, please write them down here, I am more than happy to answer any of them.
You can also find me on Facebook, send me a message and we can chat there.
Anyways, have a great day and I hope you enjoy the outside today, bye.
Download Your FREE Infographic...
9 Ways To Get HOA and Property Management Work, E-mailed To You NOW!