Working With An Agent – Part 2

The question that Zack Childress poses on every podcast is how do real estate investors build real wealth and freedom without access to millions of dollars in capital? His mission is to help you find the answer.

Today’s episode is part 2 of 2 about working with a real estate agent. Zack has local agent Tim Knox on the show so we can get the info from the agent’s side.

Tim’s company, Revolved Realty, is a flat-fee listing company in Madison, Alabama. Revolved has 2 offices and 19 agents that deal with buyers, sellers, investors and builders.

All agents are not the same. As discussed in part 1, many agents know only retail buying and selling. Investors have different needs.

Investors should ask agents about their experience level, consider personal compatibility and generally treat the first meeting like a job interview. Often the most suitable agent is also an investor.

Zack asks Tim an important question, “What bothers you the most about investors?” Turns out that it’s lack of preparedness, wanting Tim to teach them how to invest.

Zack adds to that. He warns investors not to have several agents doing the same thing and not to look at agents in any way other than as a partner/colleague. The goals should be the same for both parties.

Don’t go to an agent too soon. If you’re not prepared to buy, don’t have an agent out looking for deals. You’re wasting their time and losing credibility.

Tim’s company is a flat-fee brokerage, which simply means the fee is lower than most. That’s particularly important for volume users like investors.

“Never forget how you reach success and always stay humble.”

Watch and learn…

https://youtu.be/-ggKZ6qA_Vo

Listen and enjoy:

What’s inside:

  • Trust between investor and agent is paramount
  • Value/respect your agent
  • What is a flat-fee brokerage?

Mentioned in this episode:

Transcription:

Download episode transcript in PDF format here…

So, the big question is this, how do aspiring real estate investors like us escape from the rat race and build real wealth and freedom without access to millions of dollars in investment capital and start to live the life that we know we deserve? This is the question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Zack Childress and welcome to Real Estate Investing Talk Show. Zack: So our discussion today is really about what that looks like working directly with an agent and what it is they look for and what it is you should be looking for when you’re out there looking for an agent or one of the things I definitely want to talk to you about is when an investor wears both hats, an investor hat and an agent hat and what should they be looking for when it comes to hanging their license. And so I want to talk about that as well, but I want to introduce and let Tim introduce himself really, but Tim tell him who you are, tell them what you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and so forth.

Tim: Sure. My name is Tim Knox, born and raised here in Madison, Alabama. I am a, uh, I guess you could call a serial entrepreneur. I’ve had my own business for about 30 years here and for the last couple of years that business has been real estate. And so with a partner we started a company called Revolved Realty. We cover all of North Alabama. We are a flat fee listing company, a flat fee listing company. And we’ve been just growing like wildfire. We’re going on about a year and a half old. We’ve got, I think 19 agents in two offices and we work with buyers, sellers, investors, builders, you name it we work with them. Zack: And that’s important for you guys to understand because when you, we’ve talked about this a lot, like building your power team who needs to be on your power team. And one of the questions we get all the time is, hence why we did the show is what type of agent do you need on your team? Like, what type of agent, you know, should you be interviewing or qualifying to help you grow your business? And Tim hit it perfect you know, when you, when you’ve got somebody that understands builders, not just builders, but understands investors, but is an investor yourself, family is investors, your daughter’s an investor, been on HGTV had the show. That was a plug for Chelsea Fixing to Flip on HGTV. He’s a proud father.

Tim: Very proud. They did not let me on the show. I was the gopher, but I got no credit.

Zack: Got no airtime. Not even when you brought coffee to the producer.

Tim: No, I was told dad get off the set.

Zack: Oh really? That is so funny. She knew you’d still the limelight.

Tim: Pretty much, it’s kind of a gimmie.

Zack: So anyways, back to the point is, is that when you’ve got an agent that knows all those worlds, plus they understand the retail buyer, right. That’s really a mash up of what you’re looking for when you’ve got somebody that understands the whole aspect of it. From what an investor’s mindset is to knowing what that investors trying to do with that property, to the point of taking that property and then knowing what the end buyer’s looking for. You really got kind of like the perfect storm with an agent.

Tim: Well you do and that’s why it’s really important that you. You pick your agent wisely.

Zack: Yes, and we’re going to talk about that.

Tim: Not all agents are well versed. Well I don’t want to say equal but not all know the investment back ground or the flipping or especially the new agents, they’re more focused on just residential sales.

Zack: Yeah. They want listings, they just want listing. The more listings we get the more properties or I should say the more opportunity they will have in theory. That’s a good one, but my first question is this, Tim, when we’re looking, my question that I wrote down was the best practice when working with an investor, meaning if someone is watching this and they’re an agent, because we get a lot of agents that are thinking about becoming investors. What’s what is some of the best practice for an agent when they’re working with an investor?

Tim: That’s a great question. I think if you’re an agent who’s going to work with an investor, number one, you’ve got to know how it works, how the entire investment process works, because it’s very different from working with an investor and just working for someone that you’re trying to find a house. So what I always try to do is have a conversation with that investor because I want to get to know you. I want to know what your goals are. I want to know how much money you have to invest, very important. It’s one of the things where whether I’m working with an investor or a buyer, I want to know how much you can buy, okay? Because that is going to determine what I bring to you.

Zack: And that’s a very important question too, because there’s a lot of new investors coming into the market right now. Everyday, they’re all just like, you’re probably seeing with agents like I think what last month, like 70 agents?

Tim: You know, we’ve got something like 3,200 here in Madison County, and you know, New York, they’ve got 90,000 so it’s not tremendous but it’s a different market, thank you Jesus.

Zack: But there’s a lot of new investors coming in and sometimes they’re directed wrong. They’re told, hey, go find an agent, go find a deal, but they haven’t even done the primary things. Like where’s their money coming from? Can they buy, are they qualified? Are they using bank loans or asset based lenders? Which for you, from what you’re just, what you just said was, is I need to know how much money they’re working with.

Tim: Well I do. I need to know if they have money, how much money they have. If they don’t have money, do they have a way to get money? Can I help them get money? Because I work with investors who all they want to do is just lend money to other investors. So I think the key there is before you can honestly say you are a real estate investor, you need to learn what that means and how to do it.

Zack: Correct. Like not just say, I’m an investor because I went to a weekend seminar.

Tim: You know what, I’ve got a $20,000 in savings I’m an investor. No you’re not, you’re someone who’s going to lose $20,000.

Zack: Right. Because when you don’t have the education to know how to build the relationships because it, it really works both ways so that an investor isn’t wasting an agent’s time and an agent isn’t wasting the investor’s time. They need to be on the same page. I say it like this all the time in any new relationship, whether it’s business or personal, you got to talk about the divorce first, you do. It’s a hard conversation.

Tim: At least keep it in mind.

Zack: But you know, like I need to be. If I’m going to sit down with an agent, I don’t want it to be cupcakes and sunshine’s. I want to say, what is it you need me to have prepared to work with you? And if I don’t, then we’re not going to work together anymore. That’s that divorce I’m talking about like having that conversation so that you know ahead of time what they expect from you and what you expect from them.

Tim: And a really good point there is, I don’t care if you’re the investor or the agent, it’s a relationship where you work together. I know a lot of investors who just say, I’ve got the money you go do everything for me. That’s their level of involvement. I know other investors who want to be involved every step of the way.

Zack: Which is a little too much.

Tim: And it can be. Yeah. So I think you need to figure out what that balance is. But if you’re an investor, you need an agent you can trust to work on your behalf and do the best job they can. Because if that trust isn’t there, the relationship’s not going to last.

Zack: I agree with that. And talking about that is like, you know, I’ve always had the theory that my agent is part of my team. It is absolutely part of my team. That’s why I don’t go out and get my license. You know, because I’m an investor. I raised money, I do marketing, I find deals. Everything that an agent should do is what my agent partner does and one of the things I never do is try to beat my agent down on their points. And I hear it over and over, oh, just go to your agent and tell him to take less, tell him to take… But why, like that’s killing that relationship because now they look at you as somebody who doesn’t see the value in what they’re bringing to the table as well.

Tim: What it does is it kind of degrades the whole relationship. You know, if you’re hiring me or if I’m working for you finding you investments, I should get paid for it. And I shouldn’t have to discount my service because you’re too cheap to cough up the invest more. Zack: Or you ran your numbers wrong and you’re not going to make as much as you thought you were going to make so now you want to take it out of my pocket. I don’t agree with that, so I don’t agree with that. Tim: It’s a respect factor.

Zack: Hey, so anyways, let’s move on now. So best practices for a investor, working with an agent is really some of the things we talked about already, like not trying to beat them up over their points, but other than that it’s coming prepared well.

Tim: Well it really is. And here’s the thing, and you and I’ve talked about this a lot, is if I’m going to represent you, if I’m going to work for you again, I need to know you and you need to know your goals, I need to know what you’ve got in your back pocket that I’ve got to work with, and then I’ve got to go find deals that fit that mold. I should not be bringing you deals that are outside of your comfort zone, your finances, what have you, you know, if you tell me, look, I’m only interested in single family fix and flips, in this price range, if I start bringing you multifamily or apartments, I’m wasting your time. Basically, if your agent does that, again, it goes back to respect. They’re not respecting you they just want that commission.

Zack: Yes, and they’re just trying to throw anything.

Tim: Anything that you’ll buy.

Zack: And that also goes back to the investors level of understanding what they can do. I call it getting realistic, right? Because sometimes even my students, I’ll see them bring them onto the live show, bring questions and like, hey, my agent brought me this $1.6 million deal, it’s worth two point five and it’s not selling. Well it’s not worth $1.6 then if it’s not selling.

Tim: Yeah the numbers are screwed there a little bit, yeah.

Zack: Then my very next question is, okay, well let’s talk about this. Can you buy a $1.6 million dollar property? Do you have the resources? Do you have the connections? Do you have the network? Do you have the contractors that can, because a contractor to remodel a one point $6,000,000 house is much different than a contractor to remodel $125,000. And then they start thinking they’re like, oh, I didn’t think, but there again, that goes back to the agent and the investor not knowing where they stand.

Tim: See, here’s the mistake a lot of I’ve seen new investors make is they rely too much on the agent. And they, they believe whatever that agent and tells them as gospel and a lot of times it’s not the agent being unscrupulous or what have you, it is a lack of knowledge on both parts. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen new investors and new agents team up and it’s a disaster because there’s no, there’s no experience, there’s no real worldly stuff going on.

Zack: Experience, great topic right there because we talk about it all the time in the education side, right? Like when you’re going to learn, you need to be learning whether that’s learning from an agent or learning from someone who’s been investing, who’s got time in, who’s got history in, who’s got longevity, right. So that’s a good one. Alright, let’s move onto the next question. What should an investor be looking for when they’re out there? Whether our market or any market across the US, what should they be looking for when they’re trying to find an agent to be part of their team?

Tim: Another great question. You do this, you’re really good at this, this is really good. I think again, it goes back to number one is compatibility. How are we going to get along? You and I would work together very well because our personalities are very, are very in sync if you will. If you’re an investor who has a very guarded approach, you’re very cautious. You do not want this aggressive dynamo agent because it’s just a bad match.

Zack: So you’d be questioning it like…

Tim: You would. And again, you look at the motives on each party, but to me it’s about compatibility. It’s about making sure, number one, the personalities sink, the goal sink, the financial sink. You know, there’s an agent or two or three or five on every street corner. Picking one that is best for you is really, and that’s why you see most investors, they have got the same agent they’ve used forever and that’s because you build that relationship.

Zack: You almost train each other.

Tim: Well you do and there is that initial spark and I think the one thing that I’m an old entrepreneur, so whenever I approach a relationship like this, it’s really from not only a personal standpoint but a business standpoint. How are we going to get along as business partners? Because that’s a very big, because you introduce money into any situation in any relationship, it changes the dynamic. So if you are an investor looking for a realtor, interview them just like you would interview anyone else to represent you or for a job. What is their experience? Have they done investing on their own? What kind of investment deals have they done? You know, everybody has to start somewhere, but you know, everybody doesn’t want you to be the first deal. You know what I mean? But again, it goes into what’s that experience? What’s that trust? It’s better if the agent has experience as an investor himself and vice versa. You don’t see that a lot but it is better.

Zack: They know what to look for because I can’t tell you how many times I. I get agents all the time that want to work with me and they’re like, hey, Zack I want to work with you, I want to find you deals, and I’m like, all right, go find me some deals.

Tim: Well see that’s the thing. They will then go look in the MLS and they’re like, oh there must be nuggets of gold.

Zack: Then they start bringing me deals and I’m running the numbers and I’m like, I’m going to lose 40 grand on this thing.

Tim: And the truth of the matter is the best deals never hit the MLS. They, most of them never hit being represented by an agent. So you need an agent that can ferret that, whether it’s riding up and down the roads or what have you. You need an agent that’s not going to just do what every other agent does. Because if that’s the case, they’re not going to bring in those deals.

Zack: And that’s such a good topic you say, because you know, if I look back at let’s say the last 20 rehabs I’ve done, I want to say three of them, we got off the MLS, let me, 17 of them were all through network pocket listings, other sources of properties, but it also has something to reflect on what we’re talking about. I did a market overview show yesterday and we were talking about what the average months of inventory are in our area and right now we’re hovering at four months and that’s actually the national average. It’s been our national average for as long as I can remember. But when you start getting like three months of inventory, two months, you’re wasting time as an investor over the last when you see markets that are holding six months, seven months of inventory, then yeah, there might be some opportunities on the MLS, but typically those are during times when people stop buying.

Tim: Well, if it’s in the MLS, it’s already too much. You know what I mean? There’s already a commissions and everything built in, you’re going to overpay. That’s why most of the best deals, whether it’s from wholesalers or what have you, are from, you know, getting in the car, riding around, networking, that sort of thing, marketing. You know I’m, you know me, I’m a big believer in marketing. I mean, I mean next to you, I’m probably on Facebook more than anybody I know and it’s all marketing, but when you get to the point where people are bringing you the deals rather than you having to go out and find them, that’s when you could make the money.

Zack: I agree with you on that. I see it all the time. Like, you know, it takes, especially when you’re first starting out, so if you’re watching this and you’re brand new and you’re hearing what we’re saying and you’re like, oh my gosh, like where am I going ? Networking is so powerful. It’s, you know, it’s always about being out there. You can’t build a business sitting at home behind a computer, unless you want to do Internet based business or drop shipping. But in real estate it’s really about getting out, doing this. You can shake my hand.

Tim: Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not sure we’re doing this.

Zack: It’s about getting out shaking hands and kissing babies. And so, but it takes time for that network to develop and it’s about being consistent and getting your face out there, letting people know. I mean, you know, it’s a good, it’s a bad thing and I know both sides of it. I mean, when you put your face out there too much, then people either see you good or some can say, oh, you’re that guy that’s everywhere. You know, they don’t, they don’t like that you’re a marketer. They don’t like that you’re good at what you do because in their world they don’t see a value in it, in our world, there’s huge value in that. That’s how we put the food on our table is getting the message out there.

Tim: Oh, I had a guy tell me, well, you’re on Facebook all the time. And I’m like, thank you for noticing. That’s why I do it. My head is on the side of my car. It’s this big, it makes it easy to find your car in the parking lot.

Zack: Oh, that must be mine. Yeah, it’s funny you say that. I know we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re looping around here, but so I read a post the other day and it was such a well written post and it was about a lady talking about one of her friends who’s an entrepreneur and has an online business with just a widget. Nothing in particular, but she was talking about how like these big companies out here get massive exposure through Facebook because people share and like and repost their stuff, but they’re global companies, but yet they won’t do the same thing for their friend who is a realtor or a business when that’s the one that we should be supporting more than anything. It’s like, Hey, here’s somebody we know that’s getting started with a business, like, let’s share and let’s post and let’s help this person get their message out. Which goes back to what you’re saying.

Tim: It’s all about marketing. Facebook is made marketing so much easier than it used to be. YouTube is great. I talk to folks, new agents all the time though they’re like, I don’t want to be obnoxious, you know, I don’t want anybody to know, you know, and I’m like, well, keep your day job because you are going to fail miserably in this business. And you know this, I always say that I always go by the motto of the loudest kid in class gets the most attention. It may not be good attention and it works really well.

Zack: I was that guy.

Tim: You know what me too.

Zack: I’m talking about that. It’s like the squeaky wheel gets the oil, but let’s talk about something else, and this might be a touchy subject for some agents out there, but I’m going to throw it out there is, what bothers you the most about investors? Like when an investor saying, hey Tim, hey Tim, hey Tim. I’m an investor. I’m going to buy some deals, hey Tim, hey Tim, what is it that bothers you the most when that investor comes? Or we’ll call them an investor and you don’t know them and they’re trying to get you to work with them. What bothers you the most? Even an investor that you know out there, you know don’t have to say any names.

Tim: No, I won’t. Yeah, the thing that bothers me the most and we’ve already talked about this, is the, the lack of preparedness. You know, when I have someone who wants to meet with me to talk about being an investor and the very first question out of their mouth is, can you, can you show me how to get some money? Can you show me how to use other people’s money, the OPM.

Zack: They’re coming to you going, find me money.

Tim: There coming to me going, and here’s, and here’s their thinking, Tim, if you will go out or teach me how to use other people’s money to finance these deals, I’ll let you be the agent. I get that more than ever. So that’s, that’s the big thing. Again, it goes back to people who they see a TV show or they watch a seminar or whatever and they want to be an agent and the first thing they do is realize, okay, I’ve got to use other people’s money, which should be really easy because I see all these guys on the internet doing it.

Zack: So let me tell you what bothers me the most. A lot of things.

Tim: There’s a whole list.

Zack: There is a whole list. I got a few pet peeves, but here’s what bothers me the most about investors working with agents because like you said, I appreciate my agents. And I have a quite, have not, I have probably a core of agents I work with, but I have one primary agent and this is something that always bothers me. I’m going to talk about two things. Number one is this, is that when someone goes out and finds an agent, they need to understand, if you’re working with that agent and you’re saying, look, set up all these automated searches on the MLS for me, these are the areas I want to buy in, this is the price range, is what I’m looking for. That’s your agent. You can’t go to five other agents and say, oh yeah, find stuff on the MLS for me because you already have an agent and doing that, and so it bothers me and I say, look, you’ve got to cultivate that with that agent. You got to build that relationship. You got to put some time into it to grow it. One of the guys I work with real close, I’ve been working with him for almost 10 years, but when we first started out we butted heads because I was bringing some very creative stuff to the table and he just wasn’t too sure about it, but I work with so many agents in this market, but my conversation with them is this, look, I already have a primary agent. I don’t need you searching on the MLS for me, but if you get something that needs to sell quickly, call me before you list it, right. That’s that relationship, right? So you can have as many of them as you want, but don’t have five agents all doing the same searches on the MLS for you, it kills the relationship.

Zack: The second thing that bothers me with investors working with agents is just like what we talked about earlier, how they look at them, they don’t look at them as an asset or a team, they look at them as an expense and how can I cut it or how can I get him out of this or how is this or how is that, or one that even gets me more than anything is when they want to sell a property quickly, there’s only so much that agent can do when it comes to marketing based on the Department of Real Estate and what they’ll let them do, and so if you want all this extra stuff, you need to help them. You need to get out there and do it. Like I can put bandit signs all over a market where my agent can’t do that, right. Well, get out there and help that agent sell the property. And so those are some of my things and I’ve got more.

Tim: And I agree every one of those are valid points and again, it comes back to that relationship, working together, having one common goal. Again, it really is a partnership. But if you see it as if I’m the agent and I see you just as a source of income for me and you’re the investor and you see me as just Joe Schmoe out trying to find you property. Yeah, an expense. It’s in the long term, there is no long-term this not going to work out.

Zack: It’s a cut and burn. And the third thing, I told you I was going to slow down, it’s going to be long show. The third thing is, is when an investor is not really prepared to work with an agent, one we talked about it a few times financially, but the other one is when they’re out just looking at houses and say, Hey, give me a CMA report. Go get it, hey give me a CMA, give me a CMA, and they’re not buying anything.

Tim: They’re just wasting your time.

Zack: They’re constantly getting you to send these CMA reports and eventually what happens guys, is that agent does not see you as the real thing and then they start saying, you know what, I’m not going to return their phone calls, I’m not going to return their emails because it’s just a waste of time.

Tim: Yep. I agree. And I think a lot of it has to do with how quickly you can find a deal, do a deal and get paid fast on it. You’ve got to move fast. If you’re working with an investor, you need to bring them a deal as quickly as you can, and it needs to be a valid deal. And if you’re an investor, you need to get involved in and take a look at it and listen…

Zack: And that’s a seasoned investor. Yeah. That’s funny, me and Steve were talking yesterday and Steve said something that I took it as a compliment because he said, you know, one thing I’ve noticed working with you Zack over the years is if I bring you something and you want it, you don’t wait. You know, I’ll take this get the contract together. Like he’s like Zack within three minutes I know whether or not you’re going to do the deal or not. So listen, let’s talk about this real quick. Explained to us what your brokerage really is. When you say a flat fee broker, talk more about that because here’s why, and a lot of the investor community, when we hear flat fee, we think hundred dollars, they going to stick on them.

Tim: It’s very different than, that basically is not really a flat fee. It is just a really cheap discount $200 entry on the MLS. What we do is typically when you have a real estate deal you’re going to do a six percent commission. Three percent traditionally goes to whoever brings the buyer. Three percent traditionally goes to whoever lists that property. What we do is we can’t do anything about the three percent on the buyer side, right. But rather than charging three percent to list, we do a flat fee that is based on the sales price of the home and so we’re typically going to save our clients anywhere from one to one and a half percent, and we do it without sacrificing service. We pride ourselves on this concierge level service. That fee includes photographs, drones, video, signage, lockboxes, MLS, 300 different websites, multiple open houses, and that’s, that’s one of the reasons why we’ve been so successful.

Zack: Your growing like wild fire.

Tim: In such a short amount of time is the flat fee listing gets us in the door, but then everything we do to back that, we just knock it out of the park.

Zack: Yeah. And you guys have some stellar agents working for you.

Tim: You know what we’re about a year and a half in and we’ve got, I think nine agents in Madison and we’ve got nine or 10 in Athens and even though they’re new agents, we do all of our own in house training and support. That’s the one thing that sets us apart from the box companies, the big boxes when we have an agent come on, if they’re a new agent, we’re going to train the hell out of them and we’re going to teach them to do what we do. We’re very low pressure kind of sale. And so, you know, I’ve got, Amy Patterson is one of my new agents. She did I think three deals her first month. And it’s just training and support and it’s all ongoing and…

Zack: Oh, and here’s the thing. I’m sure you guys are going to get a lot more people coming over because I mean everywhere I turn, I’m seeing you guys. I’m seeing it out there, I’m seeing what’s going on.

Tim: We’re a little of obnoxious.

Zack: It’s okay, it’s marketing. That was a long time ago. You market until two things happen. They either say yes or they say, leave me alone.

Zack: Well that’s it. In my former businesses. I always went by, you know, marketing drives, sales. Sales does not drive marketing, so the more you market, the easier it is to sell and that’s what we do.

Zack: So talking about working with an agency like you guys, your brokerage or the flat fee, that actually is very beneficial to an investor because like you said, they’re saving one to one and a half percent typically on the resell, on the listing of the resale. So that if somebody is looking at a deal and it’s tight and let’s say it’s $200,000, well one and a half percent that you’re talking three grand, you’re talking three grand. So if they were like, if there budget or if their minimum is a $10,000 profit and they’re looking at a deal, it’s only given them eight. If they go to a brokerage like you guys well it gives them the bump they need to get the deal done.

Tim: Yeah, it does. And we work with, with all kinds of investors on all levels and what we try to do is we can customize our service based on the client and relationship we have that client or even volume. If I’ve got an investor client that we’ve done 10 deals with, they’re going to get a buddy deal. I mean, it’s just the way the world works.

Zack: And I think that’s how it should. But you know, the big boxes is I’ll say they don’t do it, they don’t do it that way. Here’s the other thing, not only I think what, you guys are doing amazing as a flat fee brokerage, but you’re helping the community grow too because the money homeowners are saving on a sale they could pay off debt or have more money down on another property or put a kid through school. Well maybe not put them through school.

Tim: But could pay for a couple of months.

Zack: Yeah, help get them going. So there’s like this whole give back aspect of that type of work.

Tim: There really is. A lot of that has to do with our founders Zach Walker who is from, from Athens. He’s a very hometown, conscientious kind of guy. And he started the company as a way of giving back to his clients. And you know what we try to do is we put our clients first, we put our agents second and then we’ll put the brokerage third. And that’s the, that’s the way we do things. And it’s working out very well for us.

Zack: That’s why your growing so fast.

Tim: I believe so, yeah.

Zack: So let me ask you this, if an investor, if an investor, what’s going on here? Oh, there we go. If an investor that’s watching this right now, I know they don’t live here, I drive them all to your brokerage, if we have in anybody watching this, that’s an investor or maybe they just got their real estate license and they were looking to go hang their license, what should they be looking for in a brokerage?

Tim: It really depends on what they’re going to do with that license. Are they, did they get their license? Like, like my daughter Chelsea, you mentioned Chelsea got her license because she was tired of paying commissions because she was doing so many deals. So she is a kind of a part time realtor, but she’s a fulltime flipper investor, right? But she still represents other people but not on her deals. So if you’re getting your license because you truly want to buy and sell real estate, that’s a completely different approach than if you’re getting your license because you want to save yourself money. The one thing you need to find out is if you have your own deal and you go to the big box, you’ve go to whatever brokerage, what’s their cut of your deal going to be? Because a lot of them, even though you might go out and find the house, work the deal, do everything, they still want a nice slice of your hard work.

Zack: I had one telling me the other day that when you’re first starting out, they want almost 70 percent of your money.

Tim: Yes, you’re good to walk away with 30 percent.

Zack: That’s crazy.

Tim: Yeah. It’s an interesting business model, but it’s kind of a, we call it sweatshop realty. You go in there for a couple of years, you pay your dues, you don’t make any money, but at the end of a couple of years, I mean you’re a pretty seasoned agent, but you basically starve for and we don’t think it has to be that way. Zack: That’s a model that does not seem to work very well for me either.

Tim: The answer to your question is it depends on what your purpose is for getting your license, but you need to clarify with that broker. If this is my property, my deal, my buyer or my seller, what do you get? A lot of times they’re still going to have the, the big chunk.

Zack: It just doesn’t seem fair, but who says life is supposed to be fair.

Tim: There is nothing fair in real estate. Zack: Who said it’s all supposed to be fair. So. Well listen, Tim, I appreciate you being here. I don’t know how many people are in this local area or how many people are looking to come down here to buy real estate, but if they are, what’s a good starting point for them to find you?

Tim: I am all over the web. You can go to Revolved.com is our website. Go to Facebook, search for Tim Knox Revolved and I am everywhere. Also on YouTube we’ve got a couple of hundred dollars in training videos and real estate videos on YouTube.

Zack: Revolved Realty, no Revolved.com, right.

Tim: Revolved.com

Zack: Revolved.com and you can find him on Facebook at Tim Knox. So Tim, thanks again for being here.

Tim: Yeah, buddy anytime.

You’ve been listening to the Real Estate Investing Talk Show. I’m Zack Childress and I’m on a mission to create 10,000 real estate bosses over the next year. Will you be one of them?

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