Finding the right real estate field agent

- [Narrator] When we connect with license to real estate professionals, we want to build a relationship with them as a field agent. This just means they are an agent working with us out in the field, or in our target market area. Let's review the criteria for finding and screening the right field agents for our team. Number one, any potential agent must be a licensed real estate agent, especially when representing us in a real estate transaction. Number two, look for an agent who has a healthy business with other clients. Don't be the sole client of an agent because sometimes there can be periods without any purchase transactions and your agents shouldn't be desperate for you to do a deal. Number three, find an agent who is an expert in their farm area, which is a particular location in your market. Number four, find agents who are tech-savvy. Since you will have to make up for your agent's weaknesses or deficiencies in this area, if they can't communicate and do deals electronically, it means that you have to make arrangements for a lot of in-person meetings. Number five, work with agents who live in the area that you are looking to buy and invest. When deals are time-sensitive, the closer the agent lives, the more likely they are to visit the property. Number six. They must be a member of their local MLS board. This is the way they get access to all of the MLS properties and tools. Make sure they have access to all the MLSs available in your area since there can be multiple ones that cover your market. Number seven, agents must have access to get into the properties listed for sale. Usually this is with an electronic lockbox key. You want to make sure that they have that. Besides these recommendations, what else makes a good agent to work with us in our investing business? A good fit for field agents, are newer agents looking to build their business, but not brand new agents with little experience. Expert agents may be too busy to devote the time needed to evaluate deals for you, or they may not be open to the needs of an investor client. Another good fit are agents looking to learn about real estate investing. Broker price opinion, or BPO agents, maybe great agents to add to your team. Typically, these BPO agents work with banks to give prices for short sales and REOs or bank owned properties. They usually don't get paid much and are looking for extra income. They're already trained by the bank to evaluate repair costs and as is value. They already live and work in the area where you want to invest and many times have access to REO or bank owned properties before they are listed. Once you have identified your field agents, use a customer relationship management or CRM software to maintain consistent contact with them. I recommend sending monthly emails to your field agents or potential field agents. Realeflow is a great tool to use for this purpose that includes a contact database and lets you customize email messages to send automatically. When you discover who your good field agents are, incent them for their participation, like consider giving them the back-end listing after the rehab is ready to go on the market.