Don't WAIT For Opportunities - CREATE Them!

Are you a Waiter or a Creator?

As a self employed Realtor in Oklahoma City, do you get the maximum value out of every minute of your business day for all of the hard earned dollars you spend paying for advertising, gas money and all of those killer membership dues?

I am a local real estate investor here in Oklahoma City, and I hope this tip explodes your business for the New Year.

When driving around showing (hopefully pre-qualified) buyers houses, do you ever stop and take a look around?

Sure, you are showing your client houses and you are doing a great job narrowing down their search and making sure it fits their criteria and it's in the right price range - but are you maximizing the value of your time?

How many potential opportunities do you DRIVE BY without ever even REALIZING it?

It's time to take the blinders off, and get the most bang for your buck this year.

Next time you are out and about showing houses or going to potential listing appointments, take a notebook and a pen with you. When you are driving through the neighborhood, keep your eyes open for houses that look like this:

Broken windows

Tall Grass

Sagging Roof

Burn damage

Mail overflowing from mailbox

Graffitti

Abandoned cars in front yard

Well, you get the picture!

You know, the houses you find that you hope the owner NEVER CALLS YOU ABOUT.

They can't go FHA and obviously the owner can't afford to fix them up. But just because a retail buyer wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole doesn't mean an investor wouldn't buy it, give you a big, fat hug, fix it, and list it with you at full commission!

There are investors in Oklahoma City who love, love, LOVE to buy distressed properties to rehab and put back on the market for FHA buyers. And if you bring enough deals to these investors, it will earn you a feather in your cap to where you can get them to list ANYTHING with you, because you bring them so many deals.

Remember - an investor only makes money when they BUY, not when they SELL. So, a gem to a real estate investor is a piece of trash to a retail buyer.

As an investor, we like those diamonds in the rough. We love to buy them, fix them and make them a desirable property.

Every Realtor wants to list the desirable property in the desirable area of town. How many of you call off my ad or send me emails on Craigslist once I fix up my houses and put them on the market?

And how many of you call me when you find a distressed property that nobody wants to list?

If you were an investor - who would you list your property with?

The Realtor who found you the gem to begin with, or the Realtor who is asking for business because it's a fixed up DOLL HOUSE that everyone wants to buy?

Make an agreement with your investors beforehand that you find the deals and make the tiny commissions on the buy (because it has to be a cheap property if it needs a lot of work) and that your payoff will come when the property is fixed up and ready to put on the market.

If the investor is greedy and doesn't want to pay you 6% after you did the leg work and brought the deal to them, never do business with them again. That's why I suggest negotiating the deal to list them BEFOREHAND.

Pretty soon you will find that you have a pipeline of remodeled, rennovated listings heading your way that every FHA buyer can qualify for just by opening your eyes and making yourself aware of all the opportunities that abound.

So, don't wait for a listing, create a listing!

If you bring deals to a real estate investor, you will be worth your weight in gold to them. We buy them cheap (50 cents or less on the dollar) but we buy them quick and don't poke around like a retail buyer, which saves you some time.

Also, the run down houses you find that are NOT on the MLS are usually the best deals, because none of the other investors know about them yet. When you put it on the MLS, the whole world knows if it is a deal or not. If it doesn't sell in the first day it's on the market, chances are it isn't a deal anyway - or else it would have sold.

So, finding a deal when you are driving around town showing buyers or going on a listing appointment is like LEGAL insider trading. You know about the deal before anybody else knows about it, and put it on the MLS as "pending" when you enter it for the first time.

If you ever run across anything, don't hesitate to call or text Rose Wilkinson @ 405-881-5958