In each market, you can use realtors to find lower real estate market transactions. Most of them are presented in the form of “pocket lists”.
What is a pocket listing? A pocket list is a property specified by the agent, but not yet placed in the Multiple Listing Service (MLS). In other words, the whole world does not know about it. Therefore, there is less competition and more chances to get a deal. I personally made hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result of pocket lists.
How it works? There is usually a period of time between a week and a month, from the moment when the agent receives a listing, until they advertise it and put it in the MLS. Before they do this, they need to prepare the house, remove it, stage it, promote it in the office, prepare leaflets and signs, etc.
Most agents will occasionally find out about these properties. It can be either their pocket listing, or it can belong to someone else in their office (or company, if they have several offices). Of course, if you work with a sufficient number of agents, you will sometimes hear about pocket lists. You will often be the first to know about deals before they are widely advertised. Can you see how important it is to first learn about a deal? Again, working in a very competitive market (in the San Francisco Bay area), I chose some great deals.
Below are instructions for calling Realtors® to search for pocket lists:
Get a list of local Realtors® from the Yellow Pages, ads, realtor.com, Google search, or any of several sites.
In many cities, more than 5,000 agents. Lots of walking, and new all the time. Choose a place where you live or want to work. You will probably be surprised to see how many agents there are, even in small towns. Most of them have the phone number listed on their website.
Start calling them! If you call enough, some will have deals.
When you call, this is what you should say:
“Hi, is this true?
Hi, my name is ______________, and I am a real estate investor.
I invest mainly in single-family homes for ___________________ [name of area]I buy and sell several houses every year. I usually try to add value, so I make fixers, as well as additions to the room, as well as thinning out old houses and building new ones. [Modify this based on your niche]I have several contractors I work with.
I focus on properties that are not in the MLS. Do you have something like that? Sometimes agents get pocket lists or hear about them from college. Do you sometimes meet them? Can you call me when you do this?
I am very interested and will pay a fair price. Do you know anything right now and not on the MLS?
[Pause! And wait for their response. Hopefully, at this point they say "Well, as a matter of fact ..." or "Ummm ... there may be. Let me check"]
Well, please call me as soon as you hear about something not on the MLS. We also sell homes and can provide you with listings if you can help us find deals. Thank you. "
If they say that they will have something soon or they want to work with you, write their name and number and call them in a week. Like most things, part of the system is a continuation. You must constantly remind them that you are there, looking for deals, so that when they come across them, they will think about you first.
Many realtors will ask why you don’t want to work with MLS properties. Tell them that you have invested for some time, and in your experience, the best deals are those that not everyone knows about. Since MLS is easily accessible to any user, you can search for it yourself, but they need their help in identifying transactions that are not yet widespread. This is a reasonable question, but if after you answer it, they still insist that you should work with MLS or try to tell you that you cannot find a deal not on MLS, then they can not work . Thank them for your time and go to the next agent.
Remember: you can call several agents in the same company, but NOT in the same office. This will only be the opposite effect, because sooner or later they will find out, and they will be uncomfortable (and, perhaps, against their official rules) so that they work with the same client as the guy with two cabins.
This is a great way to find deals, but a word of caution: not every Realtor® wants to work that way. Most of them are used to doing simple and simple ways - by clicking a few buttons to find properties on the MLS. They will either say that they will call you, but they are not really interested, or they will tell you about themselves. I prefer those who tell me that they will not work this way, as it saves me.
In my experience, the brute one of the seven Realtors® will try to find deals in this way. So call seven. No, call 70! If you call number 70 and follow it (I can’t emphasize that part confirming the next steps), you will have 10 realtors who call you with pockets.
By the way, when I say that they will call you, it does not mean that you will hear from them every week or even every month. Yesterday I made a proposal for a house. It was a pocket listing. The agent who bought me the deal was the one I met once and did not hear after five or six months. I did not think they were serious, so I stopped watching. It took me some time to even remember a meeting with this person. I forgot about him, and I thought he forgot about me. But he did not. He remembered that I was looking for pocket lists, and when he found it, he immediately thought of me and called.
There is a principle here. Very important, therefore I am going to make it bold. If you want to make money on real estate, learn this, live it, and in the end you will love it! Put a word there, enough people that you are looking for a deal, and a deal will come your way. Good hunting!
