Realtor? Call me!
There are a lot of real estate investors who have a somewhat combative, almost hostile relationship with the concept of realtors. It doesn’t make sense to me. Investors and realtors play different yet incredibly complementary roles in local real estate transactions.
I understand on the surface where some of the friction comes from — to a large extent, we market our services to the same people. As an investor who buys houses, I’m always hoping to reach motivated sellers in Hawaii who wish to the sell their house quickly and easily – so I can actually buy it. Brokers and realtors, of course, also want to reach this same market, yet for another reason – to list their house on the MLS. Same market, different service, both certainly valuable in the right situation.
And thus it starts – the beginnings of seeing the other party as competition more so than collaboration. Investor vs realtor.
But it’s so short-sighted. Let’s look at the different ways investors and realtors CAN work together:
1. Realtors and brokers speak with hundreds of home sellers in Hawaii every single day. What if some of these sellers need a fast cash “as is” solution due to some unfortunate or troubling situation? The realtor can call up an investor like me and try to negotiate a fair deal for both parties. Maybe the realtor even gets dual agency, depending on their brokerage rules. At the least, they become a hero to their client by bringing them an actual buyer who helps solve their problem. Win-win, and that realtor will likely get many more referrals in the future from their happy client. Investors are crazy not to see the value in this.
2. Investors like myself often seek to work with owners in some sort of preforeclosure scenario – but we don’t like to actually negotiate with the banks themselves. I sure don’t! Realtors with the proper expertise and who can take on this heavy lifting become very valuable to our business. When the bank has approved the short sale, I’m there to perform and buy the property. Walla – problem solved.
3. Some investors like to sell their own houses – a FSBO. There are good reasons for this — save on fees, meet more potential customers by holding open houses, increase company branding, etc. But this also comes at a cost — TIME. I personally prefer to have a broker sell my properties so I can focus that time and energy elsewhere (this is the E-Myth principle in action). Once you place an actual dollar amount on your time, the power of leveraging the resources of a quality broker or realtor become more apparent.
There are, of course, other examples but these are the ones that come to mind right away. If you’re a local Hawaii realtor or broker and agree with the above, then I’d definitely like to hear from you. Contact me here or call (808) 377-4379. I’d also appreciate it if you left a comment below!
The local Hawaii real estate market is too small for investors and realtors to be opposed. Of course, there will always be some natural competition in any market, but the opportunities to work together are too great to ignore.