You may not believe this but trust me it works…
What if I told you that there are people with millions of dollars out there just waiting to spend it on you? Sounds crazy right? Well, it isn’t and I want to tell you why. If you want to learn how you can make it an as a real estate investor (and by make it I mean be incredibly profitable), you have to learn how to leverage O.P.E. (i.e. other people’s everything).
Don’t Wait – Learn Now
Robert Kiyosaki said once that “the richest people in the world look for and build networks; everyone else looks for work.” So since that quote is coming from a guy who’s net worth is in the $80 million range, I think you (and I) should take note.
Making a lot of money in real estate isn’t difficult if you approach it the right way. And the right way is heavily reliant on building a network of like-minded people around you to help you reach your goals. Sounds cliche right? Well it’s true.
And please don’t believe the hype about “flipping homes with no money down” or “no credit needed.” Every deal is funded somehow. Whether it’s your money or somebody else’s money, you’re not going to get anything for free.
So now for the meaty part.
I want show you how to find one very specific type of person who will make your job as a real estate investor a lot easier (and more lucrative) by cash flowing your deals if you’re just starting out, or, if you’ve been doing this for awhile already and need another source of revenue.
Meet my friend…
…the builder agent.
The Rise of the Builder-Agent
A builder-agent is just what it sounds like. It’s a guy or gal (for our purposes let’s use a male) who builds, buys, and sells his own stuff. Essentially he’s a contractor with a real estate license. You see, a lot of real estate agents don’t do a good job, they just piggyback off your success and steal your equity for very little work. So along come these builders who have to buy and sell properties all the time, and end up giving away huge chunks of commission to realtors all the time.
They want to keep their money and not deal with the BS, so what do they do? They get their real estate license, and keep more money in their pocket at the end of the day. Pretty damn smart actually. Why give away tens of thousands of dollars every year when they don’t have to? Just do the math. If your average house SELL price is $200,000 and the Realtor makes 3%, and you do (like I currently do) 4 houses per month, that’s like what, $288,000 in real estate commissions. Yikes.
How to Find These Guys
If you’re just starting out in real estate investing here’s exactly what you should do…
…find builder agents and get them to invest in your business.
I wish someone would have given me that advice when I started almost 10 years ago. These guys have money and they’re more than happy to invest it with you which makes them passive income and in turn, solves all your cash flow problems as a newbie.
So here’s where you find these guys:
- Network your ass off – join the local REI Club and see what kind of groups are getting together on com. Go to the events, schedule coffee with people, talk to other investors, agents, builders, and make sure you ask around. If you’re active and make an effort to meet people you will find builder agents. You don’t have to be weird or lie about it either. When people ask what you do, tell them that you’re just getting into real estate investing and looking for people you can work with.
- Use the MLS – If you’re not a social butterfly, you can find builder-agents on the MLS. “MLS?!” you ask. Yep, the MLS. So here’s what you do:
- Get MLS access or have your realtor sit down and go through it with you
- Find “new construction” or “to be built” in your area (brand new or being built) and make a list of guys who look like they might be independent builders and contact them.
- Use the state – You can even go to the county courthouse or hop on the Secretary of State business entity website, and find out who owns properties. It’s public record. Now it takes some digging on your part and you’ll have to make some phone calls, but you will find builder agents this way.
All of those methods work, and all you need is one or two guys and you’ll have your entire business cashflow.
Get My Help
By the way, if you don’t know how to find and leverage money, or are stuck on how to get MLS access (amongst other things), I go into it in great detail in my paid course and for readers of this exact blog post only, you’ll a discount when you sign up through this link. And if that’s not appealing, I’m also giving away (2) memberships to my course when you enter my contest right here.
Ok I Found ‘Em. Now What?
So here’s what you do: get on that thing you use to look at Facebook and browse Instagram and make some phone calls with it. You’re gonna have a list of people who you think might be independent builder-agents you got from the methods I showed you above, and you’ll start calling. Now you’re not going to call “Century 21”, or “Capital Builder Group” etc.
You want individuals and oh yeah, this entire method presupposes you have some sort of funding to throw at the deals you’ll be working on together (a.k.a. some cash or credit to help fund the deal). Most of these guys won’t bite if they have to take all the risk.
You need to have some skin in the game. Cash, credit, loans, private money, your 401k, money you saved up or inherited, a HELOC, whatever. You have to bring cash to the table (or be able to).
Once you get on the phone you need to ask questions and be 100% up front and honest. Ask the person who picks up:
- Who owns the property?
- Do you work for a broker?
- Are you a contractor?
- How many homes do you build a year?
Just play detective and you’ll quickly be able to figure out if you’re talking to the right person or not. And once you do find the right person (an independent builder-agent who works for himself), say something like this:
“Look man, I’d like to do some building, rehabs, flips…I’m always looking for properties. I see you have a whole lot of listings and I like talking to people like you because you’re the kind of person l like to work with. Can you tell me your story? [They talk and tell you how they hate drama and are sick of agents so that’s why they got their license, etc. LET THEM TALK & be interested]. Wow, it sounds like you know what you’re doing, really cool to hear. So I’m trying to make money, hustle, and do it all with no drama, so if you see anything i could do that you don’t have the bandwidth for, let me know and we can work together, share information, and both make a lot of money together…”
Of course this is just an example conversation. The bottom line is that you have to know how to sell yourself. Don’t lie, don’t be a kiss-ass, just be honest and offer him the opportunity to work together on some deals.
Why These Guys Will Want to Work With You
“But, why would they even want to work with me?”
Well, here’s what you need to realize- these guys see deals all the time (land, lots, houses) and they don’t have time to chase them down because they’re busy building new stuff.
This is how I use builder agents:
- He see deals and he doesn’t have the time to rehab it or do it (he’s busy with new construction)
- He wholesales it to me (meaning, he acts as the middle man) for more than he bought it for, so for example, he’ll buy it for $80k and sell it to me for $90k
- I use him as the buying agent
- I rehab the property and also use him as the selling agent
- He makes money on the commission on both ends (plus the wholesaling fee)
- I make money when I sell the property for a profit
- We both win.
How to win even more:
- Most of these guys have tons of cash behind them
- When you have a good relationship, you can get them to floats deals for you
- This way you leverage his cash to secure the property and tell him you’ll repay him in 30 days @ 12% (or whatever you fee is). So now you don’t have to come up with $90k (from our example deal above)
- Now his cash is tied up in this deal, not your cash
- This frees you up to use your $90k elsewhere, AND he now get’s a 12% payday from his $90k in 30 days on top of his commission and wholesaling fees
Bottom Line
This method solves cash flow problems for you if you don’t know how to find deals, and makes them a nice stream of income as well. When you can show a builder-agent that you can provide them with a consistent stream of income where they get a healthy ROI for not doing any rehab or leg work, they will work with you, and you’ll both make a lot of money together.
How do I know? Because I’ve been doing this for several years. So…what do you think? Jump down in the comment section and let’s chat.
Thanks for reading,
Cheers,
Nate
Nate Pyles is a long term Real Estate Investor who made it through the crash in 2008 and spends his week buying and selling houses for profit in the Boise, ID area. He runs House Flip Mentor, has 4 kids, a gorgeous wife, owns 2 airplanes, loves to fly, and even built his own Irish pub on his property. To learn more about how you can get started in real estate investing, download his free ebook, The All in One Guide to Buying and Selling Houses for Profit.