By now, you guys know that I’m a big “teams” guy. One of the most exciting assets of being a real estate agent “insider” is that you already have a great team of advisors set up to help your clients. These advisors actually make a living off your listings and sales, therefore treating the real estate agent (you) as not only a client they wish to provide outstanding service for, but also as a source of future business.
This allows the service provider, commonly called affiliates in the real estate industry, to actually pull out all the stops when it comes to servicing one of their real estate agent/broker clients on their own properties!
Affiliates liked my real estate brokerage practice because we were very loyal to their services. Once I found affiliates who took extremely good care of my clients — dotted the “i’s” and crossed the “t’s” — I pulled out all the stops to make sure they were included in every transaction. Upon receiving a real estate offer, I would counteroffer the cooperating real estate agent to include many of my affiliate service givers.
Most top real estate agents control the inventory listing side of the business. During my listing presentation, I was adept at convincing the seller that without my team of professionals I could not guarantee the quality or outcome of the transaction. Therefore, many of my sellers were very aware that having a loyal, committed team, increased the chances of their goals being met.
When an offer came in from a cooperative real estate agent, it was easy for me to counteroffer with the use of my affiliates. These affiliates appreciated the effort and consistently held me at high esteem and jumped a little higher for me.
My affiliates were free to call and solicit other real estate agents knowing that their account with me was secure. The counteroffer was assembled in a non-threatening manner to prevent the transaction from not continuing. For instance, if a cooperative agent brought in another lender to handle the transaction for his buyer, my counteroffer would say that the buyer had to be pre-approved through my lender.
Then I would also have the counteroffer include that after pre-approval, the buyer was free to use any lender of their choice. This gave my lender a foot in the door after the counteroffer had been accepted. This counteroffer allowed him to meet with a buyer at the stage prior to submitting a loan application.
If my lender showed up in a presentable, business-like manner with outstanding opportunities to achieve the buyer’s goals, there was a good chance that the buyer would stick with my lender after the application process. My lender received a substantial income from the loans I acquired for him through this system.
The extra step of countering his name in the contract allowed him to do much more business. Gratitude for my efforts to include him in as many transactions as possible cemented the relationship with my lender. He then provided me with every advantage when the loan was for me!
My lender and I also explored opportunities of joint lead generation with for sale by owners. Using my lender for first contact, he would also contact divorcing couples to refinance their property prior to the spousal transfer. Not only did these systems help my business, but it also filled my lender’s pipeline. A side benefit of this partnership was that when I had my own needs, I was shown every kindness and consideration.
It is important that an “insider” agent uses their affiliates, especially lenders in their investing business. This relationship helps you not only generate more leads, which amount to more opportunities to buy real estate, but also receive the very best service when you, the “insider,” are in need of their services.
My title company was another part of this affiliate partnership. I worked very hard to insert my title company in as many contracts as possible, therefore becoming one of their better clients. My title company showed its appreciation by making sure my clients’ needs were at the top of its list, and it allowed me access to their customer service department to give me more opportunities to generate leads through hot demographics, both for my clients and for myself for investment purposes.
Some of these demographics would include people who owned real estate in my town but did not live my state. These people were in great need of assistance and mentorship in my area. I formed numerous outstanding relationships with these people – relationships that resulted in either a listing or them selling their property to me.
Furthermore, in negotiating with clients, my title company prepared a preliminary title report for me at no charge, allowing me to see what the seller had regarding total recorded loans and liens on a property. This gave me an indication as to their motivation and their ability to actually sell. It also gave me an indication as to the amount of equity they had in the property.
These were all outstanding negotiating tools that normally would not be provided to a real estate agent or anyone else, prior to the opening of an actual title policy due to the cost of producing a preliminary title report.
Another great team member was my termite company. In California, termites are a major deal breaker, and the quality among termite companies can vary immensely. Upon finding the best termite company in the area and seeing that it cared about my clients, the decision was easy for me to have them involved in my transactions.
Since I was one of the company’s major lead generators for termite work, it increased its manpower on my own personal transactions and sent out the best people; therefore, any potential problems would have a higher chance of being disclosed during my own personal contract negotiations. This is another example of my being loyal to an affiliate provider, such as a termite company, in return for outstanding service on my own personal purchases.
Home warranty companies were also an outstanding affiliate. In many of my transactions, I negotiated the seller to pay for a home warranty policy. Many times, there were gray areas as to whether or not systems would be covered in the policy. Since I was a major provider of warranties to the company, these gray areas were always resolved in my favor. Once again, this was another example of my real estate business allowing me “insider” benefits of my own personal transactions.
Other affiliates that I benefited from because of my ability to provide business to them were accountants, attorneys, insurance providers, home inspectors, and appraisers.
The last group, appraisers, was probably a group that helped me the most. As you know, appraising is an imprecise science, and there can be great swings regarding values among many different appraisers. As a business provider to certain appraisers, I was afforded every consideration by their checking and re-checking comparables for values. It is this attention to detail that allowed many of my transactions to be completed.
It is important that you utilize the relationships that you develop in your real estate business and apply them to your new “insider” investor business. It is a great benefit that should be cultivated.
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