Real estate agent best practice
This question is a bit off-topic, might be better moved to another SE site. But I'll answer anyway: Sounds like the problem is that your wife is potentially being taken advantage of by people who may not really be prospects. Keep in mind no one can take advantage of you without your permission. There are also some things you and she can do to reduce the amount of wasted time while minimizing the risk of giving up on a potential sale. Qualify your leads: make sure these potential clients are really, truly potential customers. Ask whatever questions you have to ask in order to qualify them as real house hunters. It doesn't have to be binary: you can have hot leads ready to buy now, and lukewarm leads who may not buy for 12 months or more. Treat each one accordingly. Set limits: a lukewarm lead is not allowed to call you 20 times a day. Answer their calls just once per day. By answering the phone every time they call you are training them to call as often as they like! If you only return calls once per day they'll quickly learn to save their questions up and ask them all at once. Showing 10 houses sounds a bit silly. How can you remember any details after seeing 10 houses? By asking more questions and learning more about what your clients want in a house, you can reduce the footwork. Me, I'd flat out limit it to three houses per outing, and I wouldn't even hesitate to tell the client why. I think all these things will come in time. Like any new venture, she needs some experience to learn how to maximize her efficiency and effectiveness. Keep in mind it's better to have the phone ringing too much than not at all! "There are people that make up a small segment of the population that have an unsatisfied need to see the insides of other people's houses.  There's also a segment of the population that don't quite understand the ""big picture"" of how service professions work... for example, any group of friends going into a restaurant and requesting a table and sitting at it for over an hour, but feel they don't need to leave a tip because they only ordered espressos or shared a desert.  Sure, you're paying for the service of a service professional, but it should also include their time and resources you consume outside of the actual service but many don't have that perspective.  Why should I pay you if you aren't providing your actual ""service"" to me even though I'm consuming your time and resources that would be earning you your expected salary otherwise, is their justification.  So when you encounter an individual from both small segments of the population mentioned above, the result is the problem your wife faces with perspective buyers. I look at the Agent / Buyer relationship from a different perspective when I encounter these no-harm intended individuals.  I don't see it as the buyer is hiring the agent... for if that was the case, a contract of some sorts would be involved detailing the menu of services provided by the agent with associated costs, the buyer would make selections from the menu, pay the costs, and services  rendered.  but that's not how it works.  so its important to understand the perspective of the agent looking to hire the buyer.. you're not paying the buyer to be your client, but you are looking to select the prospective buyer that's going to generate cash flow.  In a commissions based work force that is also your main source of income, you have to look at prospective clients as that.. simply prospects..but who are a vital component of your salary.  So when allocating your time and resources, especially if you're dealing with several prospects, you literally have to turn away these cold leads who are just looking for design tips  and paint color pattern suggestions and you as their escort.  If I was in the shoe-making business, i wouldn't hire a walk-in, give him access to materials and  work space with the assumption that if its to his liking, it'll generate profit towards my salary needs, if the only thing he's interested in doing is looking around at all the other shoes, a behavior that requires my presence, time, and resources.  You almost can't even justify it as ""looking at it as possible income in the future"" if it's costing you revenue now, whether its in the form of having to neglect actual buyers or you could be investing your time in things that would impact salary needs, such as advance course work (attending optional trainings offered by your broker), or investing time finding more serious leads."
"I very much agree with what @Grade 'Eh' Bacon said about townhouses, but wanted to add a bit about HOA's, renting after moving on, and appreciation: HOA's HOA's can be restrictive, but they can also help protect property values, not all HOA's are created equal, some mean you have zero exterior maintenance, some don't. You'll be able to review the HOA financials to see where the money goes (and if they have healthy reserves). You'll see how much they spend on administration, I think ~10% is typical, and administration can be offset by the savings associated with doing everything in bulk. A well-run HOA should actually save you money over paying for all the things separately, but many people are happy to do some things themselves rather than pay for it, and would come out ahead if they didn't have an HOA. And of course, not all HOA's are well-run. Just do your best to get informed Transitioning to Rental If you are interested in trying your hand being a landlord after living there for a while, a townhouse typically exposes you to less rental risk than a single-family home, because the cost is typically lower and if the HOA maintains everything outside the house then you don't have to worry as much about tenants keeping a lawn in good shape, for example. Appreciation Appreciation varies wildly by market, some research by Trulia suggests in general condo's have outperformed single-family houses over the last 5 years by 10.5%. The same article notes that others disagree with Trulia's assessment and put condo's below single-family houses by 1.3% annually. My first townhouse has appreciated 41% over the last 3 years, while houses in the area are closer to 30% over the same period, but I believe that's a function of my local market more than a nationwide trend. I wouldn't plan around any appreciation forecasts. Source: Condos may be appreciating faster than single-family houses My adviceYou have to do your research on each potential property regardless of whether it's a condo/townhouse/single-family to find out what restrictions there are and what services are provided by the HOA (if any), your agent should be provided with most of the pertinent info, and you may not get to see HOA financials until you're under contract. Most importantly in my view, I wouldn't buy anywhere near the top of your budget. Being ""house-poor"" is no fun and will limit your options, don't count on appreciation or better income in the future to justify stretching yourself thin in the short-term." THANK YOU so much! That is exactly what I was looking for.  Unfortunately I'm goign to be really busy for 7 days but I'd love to tear through some of this material and ask you some questions if you don't mind.  What do you do for a living now? Still in real estate? Did you go toward the brokerage side or are you still consulting?  What's the atmosphere/day-to-day like? Sounds like the seminar is about using OPM (other people's money), which means you're going to have to find not just real estate, but investors.  Those investors are going to need a business plan, contracts, and a lot of work from you to provide as much equity as possible before the property is sold.  If you're serious about Real Estate, I suggest finding the most successful broker/agent you can, buying them a beer, glass of wine, or cup of coffee, and picking their brain about it. It'll be cheaper then a scam seminar. I pulled it off. I did my own searching and so took a lot of load off my agent. As a result my agent agreed to work for 1% commission instead of the normal 3%. Got seller's agent to agree to take 4% instead of 6% and pay my agent the 1%. Seller and I pocketed the difference (I forget how exactly the split went). As it happened, my agent only had to process offers on two houses (one I got outbid on and one I got to buy). Hi I am assuming you are doing this in the US?  I run a social media / content marketing agency in the UK,  Some of our very first clients were real estate agents, the idea we had was to market properties through Facebook using interior and exterior video shots to commercial music,  This took off with some estate agents and not so much with others,  My biggest piece of advice find a chain and start there that way you will get a hell of a lot of recognition by the smaller firms,  You need to find a realistic price point for your clients that is measurable on the ROI and ultimately pays for your lifestyle. I started at £200 which is $257 dollars - arguably very underpriced but it gave me the opportunity to work with a cluster of people,  I even went to the extreme of offering free work so I could get work for the portfolio!  In terms of who to contact and how to find them.. enter Linkedin.com your new best friend - connect with real estate developers, buyers, owners you name it then informally introduce yourself and ask when they are free for a coffee. Post an article about why video and drone footage is the next big thing for real estate, don't be afraid to ask for the business at the end of the day you are providing cold hard value.  I've always tried to get retainer deals with clients in the real estate sector but to achieve this you have to talk to the big boys and not independent firms. I could be wrong though I haven't done business with a lot of people in the states so definitely something to keep in mind.  A good lot of this business idea is trial and error but I agree with it 100% just go and do basically,  Hope this helps - I am happy to show you some of my work if you want to shoot me over a private message! "I agree with Joe Taxpayer that a lot of details are missing to really evaluate it as an investment... for context, I own a few investment properties including a 'small'  10+ unit apartment complex. My answer might be more than you really want/need, (it kind of turned into Real Estate Investing 101), but to be fair you're really asking 3 different questions here: your headline asks ""how effective are Condo/Hotel developments as investments?"" An answer to that is... sometimes, very. These are a way for you-the investor-to get higher rents per sq. ft. as an owner, and for the hotel to limit its risks and access additional development funding. By your description, it sounds like this particular company is taking a substantial cut of rents. I don't know this property segment specifically, but I can give you my insight for longer-term apartment rentals... the numbers are the same at heart. The other two questions you're implying are ""How effective is THIS condo/hotel development?"" and ""Should you buy into it?"" If you have the funds and the financial wherewithal to honestly consider this, then I am sure that you don't need your hand held for the investment pros/cons warnings of the last question.  But let me give you some of my insight as far as the way to evaluate an investment property, and a few other questions you might ask yourself before you make the decision to buy or perhaps to invest somewhere else.  The finance side of real estate can be simple, or complicated. It sounds like you have a good start evaluating it, but here's what I would do: Start with figuring out how much revenue you will actually 'see': Gross Potential Income: 365 days x Average Rent for the Room = GPI (minus) Vacancy... you'll have to figure this out... you'll actually do the math as (Vacancy Rate %) x GPI (equals) Effective Potential Income = EPI Then find out how much you will actually pocket at the end of the day as operating income: Take EPI (minus) Operating expenses ... Utilities ... Maintenace ... HOA ... Marketing if you do this yourself (minus) Management Expenses ... 40% of EPI ... any other 'fees' they may charge if you manage it yourself. ... Extra tax help? (minus) Debt Service ... Mortgage payment ... include Insurances (property, PMI, etc) == Net Operating Income (NOI) Now NOI (minus) Taxes == Net Income Net Income (add back) Depreciation (add back) sometimes Mortgage Interest == After-tax Cash Flows There are two ""quickie"" numbers real estate investors can spout off. One is the NOI, the other is the Cap Rate.  In order to answer ""How effective is THIS development?"" you'll have to run the numbers yourself and decide. The NOI will be based on any assumptions you choose to make for vacancy rates, actual revenue from hotel room bookings, etc. But it will show you how much you should bring in before taxes each year. If you divide the NOI by the asking price of your unit (and then multiply by 100), you'll get the ""Cap Rate"". This is a rough estimate of the rate of return you can expect for your unit... if you buy in.  If you come back and say ""well I found out it has a XX% cap rate"", we won't really be qualified to help you out. Well established mega investment properties (think shopping centers, office buildings, etc.) can be as low as 3-5 cap rates, and as high as 10-12. The more risky the property, the higher your return should be. But if it's something you like, and the chance to make a 6% return feels right, then that's your choice. Or if you have something like a 15% cap rate... that's not necessarily outstanding given the level of risk (uncertain vacancies) involved in a hotel.  Some other questions you should ask yourself include:  How much competition is there in the area for short-term lodging? This could drive vacancies up or down... and rents up or down as well How 'liquid' will the property (room) be as an asset? If you can just break even on operating expense, then it might still make sense as an investment if you think that it might appreciate in value AND you would be able to sell the unit to someone else.  How much experience does this property management company have... (a) in general, (b) running hotels, and (c) running these kinds of condo-hotel combination projects? I would be especially interested in what exactly you're getting in return for paying them 40% of every booking. Seasonality? This will play into Joe Taxpayer's question about Vacancy Rates. Your profile says you're from TX... which hints that you probably aren't looking at a condo on ski slopes or anything, but if you're looking at something that's a spring break-esque destination, then you might still have a great run of high o during March/April/May/June, but be nearly empty during October/November/December.  I hope that helps. There is plenty of room to make a more ""exact"" model of what your cash flows might look like, but that will be based on assumptions and research you're probably not making at this time." "I would also suggest finding the training resource within your state for real estate agent license exam prep...  When I was getting started, I took the ""101"" level course and it was worth the few hundred bucks for the overview I gleaned." "Get everything in writing. That includes ownership %, money in, money out, who is allowed to use the place, how much they need to pay the other partners, who pays for repairs, whether to provide 'friends and family' discounts, who is allowed to sell, what happens if someone dies, how is the mortgage set up, what to do if one of you becomes delinquent, etc. etc. etc. Money and friends don't mix. And that's mostly because people have different ideas in their head about what 'fair' means. Anything you don't have in writing, if it comes up in a disagreement, could cause a friendship-ending fight. Even if you are able to agree on every term and condition under the sun, there's still a problem - what if 5 years from now, someone decides that a certain clause isn't fair? Imagine one of you needs to move into the condo because your primary residence was pulled out from under you. They crash at the condo because they have no where else to go. You try to demand payment, but they lost their job. The agreement might say ""you must pay the partnership if you use the condo personally, at the standard monthly rate * # of days"". But what is the penalty clause - is everything under penalty of eviction, and forced sale of the condo and distribution of profits? Following through on such a penalty means the friendship would be over. You would feel guilty about doing it, and also about not doing it [at the same time, your other partner loses their job, and can't make 1/3rd of the mortgage payments anymore! They need the rent or the bank will foreclose on their house!] etc etc etc Even things like maintenance - are the 3 of you going to do it yourselves? Labour distributed how? Will anyone get a management fee? What about a referral fee for a new renter? Once you've thought of all possible circumstances and rules, and drafted it in writing, go talk to a lawyer, and maybe an accountant. There will be many things you won't have considered yet, and paying a few grand today will save you money and friends in the future." You are planning on signing a contract for, likely, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and plan on paying, likely, tens of thousands of dollars in a deposit. For a house that is not built yet. This isn't particularly unusual, lots of people do this. But, you need a lawyer. Now, before you sign anything. Your agent may be able to recommend a lawyer, but beware; your agent may have a conflict of interest here. RealConnect is a unique independent real estate company which connects residential &amp; commercial property owners &amp; investors to real estate agents and property managers. We operate Australia wide &amp; have registered agents waiting to offer their services from most areas across the country. We have a keen passion to create an easy to use, low cost system to benefit everyone dealing in the real estate industry. We aim to increase profits for property owners as well as real estate agents by lowering the business expenses for the agents and allowing them to offer the same service to property owners for less. "I'd suggest changing the subject when your friends talk about real estate to save your sanity and friendship.  There's a difference between ""belief"" and ""knowledge"". Arguing with a believer isn't a very productive course of action, and will ultimately poison the friendship. Reality is a harsh mistress." People in the United States in the mid-2000's thought that real estate was safe.  Then they discovered that when the bubble burst the value of their house dropped 10 to 50%. Then they realized that they couldn't sell, even if they had the cash to make the lender whole. Some lost their houses to foreclosure, others walked away and took massive hits to their wealth and credit scores. When it is hard or impossible to sell, that means you can't move to where the jobs are. While it is possible to make money in real estate, treating your house as an investment vehicle means that you are putting not only all your eggs into one basket; you are also living in the basket. In general you should assume that all investment involves risk. So if you are trying to avoid all chances of losing money then the safest form of investment is via your bank account and government bonds. Your national government has a program to insure bank accounts, you need to understand the rules for that program, including types of accounts and amounts. You should also look into your national programs for retirement accounts, to make sure you are investing for the long term. Many people invest via the stock market or the bond market. These investments are not guaranteed, though there may be some protection for fraud. The more specific your investments (individual companies) the more time you need to invest in research and tracking. Many investors do so via mutual funds or Exchange Traded Funds, this involves less of a time investment because you are paying the management comp nay for the fund to do that research for all their investors. "I work for an international real estate consulting firm in Shanghai. After graduation I worked in their Research Department for two years before switching to Commercial Brokerage 3 months ago.  Since my background was in Economics, I had to learn a lot about how the industry worked. I found this book to be very helpful:  ""Commercial Real Estate Analysis &amp; Investments"" by David Geltner.  I will admit that it's probably more than what you want to know, but it seriously gives an in depth breakdown of the entire industry.   About one year into starting, a major Real Estate iBank commissioned our company to due diligence on an office building acquisition in Shanghai. I was the only person capable of doing it as everyone else was either busy or couldn't speak English properly. With 1 year under my belt in Research and that book, I took the entire thing on. Had to walk into that meeting by myself with all the big wigs from New York, London, Hong Kong and Shanghai questioning every single number and assumption. I fucking nailed it. While credit towards understanding the market through work is deserved, a lot of the development of that report came from constantly consulting that book. It's worth every penny if your interested in commercial real estate investment.  That being said, if you want to track deals, the best place is called Real Estate Capital Analytics. Unfortunately you have to fork over a decent amount of cash to get access. For your situation I would recommend the following:  - ""The Urban Land Institute &amp; PwC Emerging Trends in Real Estate"": I believe you need to be a member but I can always find it online for free.  - Brokerage firms: I work in one and we cover residential, commercial and retail reports on cities throughout the world (I actually wrote the ones for China for two years). You can find a wealth of information in them. If you are seriously looking at buying with capital, call up the research department and ask if they have some time to discuss the market face to face; if you don't have capital, they won't talk to you. Fortunately however, most let you download their reports for free from their website so here's the list of the major ones in the US: CBRE, Colliers, CRESA, Cushman &amp; Wakefield, Jones Lang LaSalle, etc.  - The Loop - www.loopnet.com has a wealth of information from Commercial properties on the market to previous deals.  Please let me know if I can further advise." "That sounds like a particularly egregious version of exclusivity. However, the way that you could handle that is to include a ""contingency"" in your purchase agreement stating that your offer is contingent upon the seller paying the brokerage fee. The argument against this, and something your broker might use to encourage you not to do so, is that it makes your offer less attractive to the buyer. If they have two offers in hand for the same price, one with contingencies and one without, they will likely take the no-contingency offer. In my area, right now, house offers are being made without very common contingencies like a financing contingency (meaning you can back out if you can't finance the property) or an inspection contingency. So, if your market is really competitive, this may not work. One last thought is that you could also use this to negotiate with your broker. Simply say you're only sign this expecting that any offer would have such a contingency. If it's untenable in your current market, it will likely cause your broker to move on. Either way, I'd say you should push back and potentially talk to some other brokers. A good broker is worth their weight in gold, and a bad one will cost you a boat load. And if you're in Seattle, I'll introduce you to literally the best one in the world. :-)" "Here's a formula;  I had to go over to SEMath, use their MathJax to compose the answer and then paste this screen shot. As a result, I can't fix a typo:  ""ST"" is the same as ""St"""