Property Investing Secrets 6

Property Investing Secrets:

What No One Ever Tells You-How Real Estate Agents Size Up Buyers

Here is the most important rule you must know about property investing: present yourself with confidence to the real estate agent. If you're property investing and trying to buy your first property and you have never really dealt with a real estate agent, you're probably not going to get a bargain. Most likely later, after you've made offers and gotten them accepted, will you then get better deals.

You see, the first time up you're going to have to sound the agent out and see how much experience they have. If you're dealing with the young pup in the office that has only been in the business 3 or 4 months, you don't need to know a lot. You can probably even bluff them. But if you're dealing with the principal, the owner of the business, who has been around for 20 years, they're going to know that you're not experienced property investing or more importantly that you've never bought in their area and then it becomes a real matter of brinkmanship with the real estate agent.

When property investing, you must convince the real estate agent that you're serious. You can say, "Look I'm only in town for a couple of days." (Even if you live locally, have flown in or driven from out of town.) "I've got to make a decision in a couple of days. I'm looking at a property in the $250,000-$290,000 price bracket."

If you say, "I just want to buy a house, I don't care where it is and I want a bargain." The agent thinks this buyer has no idea. But the wise person who is property investing will say. "I want to buy in this price range, I want this rent and I want the property in this particular area." The real estate agent will think, okay this buyer has done their homework. They know what they're looking for. You can also say, "Look, I don't pay full retail price, I expect a bit of a discount. What is the best property you've got that fits my criteria in that area?"

I've found when property investing, the more confident and specific you can be with a real estate agent by telling them what you're looking for, the more the agent will give you credibility as having done your research and not wasting their time.

Rick Otton is the director of We Buy Houses Pty Ltd. He has been property investing full time for 14 years. Rick has completed over 351 property transactions in Australia and the United States.

Rick specialises in creating positive cash flow through a variety of strategies he perfected in the United States and adapted to Australian conditions. He sells home study courses on vendor finance, one year mentoring program as well as a yearly 3 day boot camp on the Gold Coast. Go to http://www.rickotton.com for more property investing information ring 1800 003 588 in Australia.