Finding The Perfect House (and Agent!)

Part 1:

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 783.

Chris:
I will say the purpose or maybe the goal of this conversation is to kind of walk through the home buying process, whether you’re trying to invest, whether you’re just trying to buy your primary residence, whether you’re buying even a vacation home or something. If you’re listening and you’re thinking, “I don’t know if I’m ready for real estate investing,” one, maybe you should be, and two, this is going to be applicable to anyone, no matter what type of home you’re buying.

David:
What’s going on, everyone? It’s David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Podcast, here today with my co-host, Rob Abasolo, with a bit of a different episode. Today, Rob and I are sharing the mic with Chris Hutchins, podcast host of All The Hacks, a very cool podcast that teaches people how to hack their way through life, specifically with personal finance. In today’s show, Chris interviews Rob and I getting information that many of you probably never heard about how to save money in real estate through using agents, looking for deals, home inspections, really everything we could possibly think of for those that don’t own a lot of real estate. Rob, how you feeling?

Rob:
Good, good. Yeah, we broke it down really from start to finish. We talk about agents, listings, due diligence, the financing, getting insurance for the properties that you’re buying. This is going to pertain to everyone that’s looking to buy a primary residence, this is going to pertain to everyone looking to buy investment properties. We really do cover everything, and honestly, for how much I’ve heard you speak on the podcast, David, you still amaze me, my friend. You gave one of the coolest tips about disclosures, and that’s all I’m going to say. That is today’s quick tip is just to listen to the entire episode because the entire episode is quick tips, but once you get to that tip about the disclosures, I was like, “Wow, this man is… He’s done it. He has done it. He has figured it out.” Congratulations and kudos, my friend.

David:
Thank you. This episode’s going to be aired on our podcast and Chris’s podcast, All The Hacks, but it was cool that we were interviewed because we got a chance to share some of the knowledge that we have when normally we’re the person interviewing the guests to get to what they know. I kind of liked the change of pace, and I think you will too. Today’s episode is full of actual advice. It’s probably one you’re going to want to listen to two or maybe three times. Make sure that you are using the note app in your phone, or if you still use a pen and ink and paper, taking some notes because there is stuff that is guaranteed to save you money.
Today’s quick tip is listen to all three parts of this episode. There was so much good info in our conversation with Chris that we broke it into three easy 30-minute segments so you can actually absorb all the good intel instead of just being overwhelmed with one long show. If you’re listening to this on the day it airs, then we will see you back here tomorrow and the next day for parts two and three. All right, let’s bring in Chris.
How the turntables have turned. Chris, welcome to our show, and I’ll just go ahead and welcome myself to your show to save you the time there. We’ve got a cool little crossover event going on here today. For those who are unfamiliar, my name’s David Greene. I’m a former police officer who became a real estate investor and is now a real estate broker. I have a mortgage company called The One Brokerage. I run a real estate team, I buy rentals, I write books, and I host the BiggerPockets Podcast.

Rob:
Yeah, and I’m Rob Abasolo. I am the co-host of the BiggerPockets Podcast. I have a goofy YouTube channel called Robuilt where I teach people how to invest in real estate, short-term rentals, tiny homes. I’m a former ad man, if you will, just like Mad Men, the TV show is basically me. I was a copywriter and I quit all that, quit all the corporate dreams about two years ago to focus full-time on real estate and documenting the journey.

Chris:
I’m Chris Hutchins. Thanks for having me and thanks for joining me. I host All The Hacks podcast. As people listening from that side know, I’m all about trying to optimize and upgrade every aspect of your life. I want to do it while spending less and saving more, and I want to really dial things in, and so I’m glad we’re here because I’ve gotten lots of questions about just the whole home buying process and I was like, “Who could I find that knows more about this than I do?” And so I thought, “Let’s do this conversation.” You guys are the pros. I’ve listened to your show, I don’t know, countless times, and I thought this could be really fun for everyone on both sides to go through front to back how do you buy a home and optimize every step of the way.

David:
And for all those listening on BiggerPockets but who haven’t heard about Chris, his podcast, All The Hacks is an award-winning podcast that will teach you to upgrade your life, money, and travel, all while spending less and saving more, which we love because the more money that we save, the more real estate we could buy, which is what most of us are addicted to.

Chris:
So let’s jump in. Someone wants to buy a house. I always tend to ask people before you’re even thinking about this, why are you doing this. I’m curious if you guys have any frameworks you use for thinking about why you would buy a house, what’s important to you. It doesn’t even make sense before we jump into optimizing the entire process.

Rob:
Well, I mean, there’s a lot of reasons to get into real estate. I don’t think that there’s any one particular reason. Some people get into real estate accidentally where they buy a house and they live in that house, and then one day they decide to buy another house and move into that house, and then they have to decide should they sell or should they buy or should they sell or keep the home, and then they become a landlord and then decide, “Oh hey, the flow from this is great,” and then they buy more houses. Some people buy a house and then house hack and rent out rooms in their home to subsidize their mortgage. And then there are also the other side of it where people work nine to five jobs and maybe they’re not making enough money at that nine to five job and they want to create supplemental income, so they get into real estate to help create monthly cashflow. Or, maybe they just want to eventually replace their nine to five income with real estate.
For me, that was really why I got into it. I had a pretty stable career in advertising, never really felt like I was making enough money, and so my side hustle became real estate, and I just started buying more properties as a way to make more money to supplement what I didn’t feel like I was making at my career. What about you, David? What do you think?

David:
There’s a lot of practical reasons why you want to invest in real estate. Even the casual observer sees home prices getting higher and higher and higher. You watch the HGTV shows that show how people can make money in real estate. It’s kind of understood that it works, but not everyone knows the brass tacks of why you can make money with real estate. A lot of it are tax advantages. The tax code, it’s very forgiving for real estate investors, and the money that you make from real estate, you usually pay much less taxes on than if you made that same money at a job because there’s a little bit of risk that’s going to be involved in it. It’s easy to leverage, meaning I can buy a $500,000 house and put maybe 5% down on the loan, so I’ve only put $25,000 of my money, but when that $500,000 house appreciates by 10%, goes up to 550, my $25,000 just made me $50,000 of equity. It’s like I’ve doubled my money relatively quickly where it’s harder to invest in other assets where you could borrow money quite as easily.
And then there’s lots of ways that real estate makes you money. You could buy it for less than market value. You can’t really do that with a stock. You can’t go get a deal on Tesla stock or Apple stock and find some way to get it cheaper. You can add value to the property, you can make it bigger, you can make it nicer, you can fix it out, you can change its use so that it can be rented to people. It creates actual equity which you can’t do with a stock. There’s nothing I can do if I buy Tesla stock to make that company worth more. And then, like Rob mentioned, it actually generates revenue. You can rent out spaces in that home, and when you do that correctly, you earn more money every month than what it cost to own the real estate, and that differences of what we refer to as cashflow and that can replace active income.

Chris:
Yeah, for anyone listening from All The Hacks that hasn’t really got into real estate investing, you guys have done a great job. I’m going to throw out an episode that is about getting started with just $10,000, I think it was episode 730 because I tried to take some notes ahead of time, but that was excellent. I will say the purpose or maybe the goal of this conversation is to kind of walk through the home buying process, whether you’re trying to invest, whether you’re just trying to buy your primary residence, whether you’re buying even a vacation home or something. If you’re listening and you’re thinking, “I don’t know if I’m ready for real estate investing,” one, maybe you should be, and two, this is going to be applicable to anyone no matter what type of home you’re buying, hopefully is what we can get to. I don’t know, that’s a little bit of the why.
For me, I’ve never actually dabbled too hard in real estate investing, outside of like index fund REITs, but I’ve gone through the home buying process as a primary residence and I actually own a fractional vacation home. I owned one-eighth of a home through a program called Pacaso where we bought one-eighth of a home up in Napa. It’s kind of interesting because you can kind of invest, it’s kind of a lot better in my opinion than a timeshare or anything like that so that’s been great. So that’s my experience, and I’ve kind of optimized little pieces of it along the way but nothing like what you guys have. So I’m excited.

David:
Curious, Chris, how well have you done? I think you said you bought a primary residence that you live in, right?

Chris:
Yep. I’ve done that twice now.

David:
And how has that investment, if you just looked at it from a pure investment perspective, outperform some of the other things you’ve invested in?

Chris:
Yeah, I mean, I would say the first time around, yes, but I had the fortunate luck of buying in the Bay Area at the worst possible, bottom-of-the-worst real estate crap. I got quite lucky by timing, didn’t know it was going to do as well as it did. The most recent one, I don’t think it’s been long enough to see anything major differences yet. But the first one, if you layer in taxes and leverage, yeah, it was a great investment, but it’s hard, it’s hard with an N of one in a market that blew up crazy to feel like I know too much based on one success story.

Rob:
That’s how it works though, honestly. It really does work like that sometimes for people where, for me, I think every real estate or every real estate, I was going to say real estator, every real estate investor, they all have this big lofty dream of becoming a millionaire, and it’s super achievable because you can buy five properties that appreciate over the course of five, 10 years and you could just have a million dollars in equity. It wasn’t necessarily because you were a genius or because you were the most, kind of had the most, I don’t know, I already said it, genius strategy, but it happens because you just did it and you kept doing it and you keep doing it consistently, and that’s really the secret sauce.
So yeah, maybe it was by luck that you bought that house in the property or in that market, but what a lot of people end up doing is when that happens, they get a taste for it and then they keep just buying and buying and buying and buying. I think if you do that consistently, no matter what, you’ll always look like a genius 30 years from now.

Chris:
Yeah, but we could have a much longer debate maybe in a future date about debating that strategy, putting it in stock, all these other investments. But I think whether you want to build a portfolio of 20 homes, whether you want to buy multifamily homes, commercial properties, or you just want to buy a primary residence, at the end of the day, you got to find the home, you got to buy the home, you got to decide if it’s a good deal, you got to close on it, you got to fund the purchase, unless you want to buy it with cash which I’m guessing most people don’t. So maybe let’s jump into that process and kick off with just someone who’s like, “I’m not really sure what I’m doing.” You’ve been an agent. Let’s talk a little bit about that process of partnering with someone to help you go through this process instead of just trying to wing it on your own, and when that makes sense or maybe when it doesn’t.

David:
Yeah, and if you’re going to buy a property, you don’t know much about it, you definitely want to use a real estate agent in the beginning. When you’re buying, here’s something people don’t realize, you don’t have to pay your agent. If you’re buying a house off of the MLS, this would be any property you see off Zillow or Redfin, something like that, the seller has already predetermined a certain amount of money they are going to pay the buyer’s agent for bringing you to the property. You have a lot of questions, there’s paperwork you’re not going to understand, you don’t know what the process is, it’s intimidating. You find a real estate agent, and I’ll add they’re not all the same. There’s good agents and bad agents, there’s good lawyers and bad lawyers, good doctors and bad ones. You really want to find somebody who’s good at what they do. They can take a lot of the fear that you have right out of it.
I mean, it’s amazing when you take this scary process and there’s a person like me that does this so often it’s boring to me, like, “Oh, another one of these. I’ve walked this path so many times.” It’s definitely not scary. That’s something that every person who wants to buy a home should know right off the bat. Find a buyer’s agent, they’re going to answer a lot of the questions that you’re going to have and they’re going to protect you in ways you didn’t even know that you needed to be protected. Maybe we can go through what the actual escrow process looks like or the process from start to finish of what to expect would buy in a home if you’d like.
If you’re a little bit more experienced, you bought homes before, one thing that people will look at, especially in a competitive market like ours, Chris, we just realized that we’re neighbors, we live pretty close to each other, probably like an hour and some change away, is you can go directly to the listing agent and you can say, “Hey, I will let you represent me on this deal, but I’m going to need some kind of an advantage. I need you to get my offer accepted over the other people, or I’d like a little bit of a discount on the price if you’re getting to represent me here.” So there are people who buy a lot of real estate that has said, “Hey, I don’t think I need my own buyer’s agent necessarily. I still need someone to handle the paperwork,” but they go right to the listing agent and they look for an advantage, and that is pretty popular in the Bay Area where most listings are getting several offers on all of them.

Chris:
Yeah. Actually, I have bought two homes in the Bay Area and both times I’ve used the seller’s agent. We could talk about that a little bit more because I have some thoughts about it, but maybe rewind a little. You said it’s important, not all agents are the same, you got to pick the right one. Obviously, not everyone lives in the Bay Area, so you’re not going to be the perfect agent for everyone. How does someone find that perfect agent?

David:
First thing to look for, find a person that sells a lot of houses. A lot of agents don’t. In fact, most agents don’t. I’d say 90% of agents sell a couple houses a year or less, and it’s unpopular to say this, the agents get angry because they’re offended right now, like, “Just because I only sell two houses a year doesn’t mean I’m not good.” Okay, I know. However, tell me anything that you do twice a year that you get really, really good at. In general, that’s how life works. If you snowboard twice a year for your whole life, you never really get that good at snowboarding, or it takes you 20 years before you’re as good as somebody that just snowboarded every weekend for the whole first year that they got into it. Repetition really does develop mastery. I talk about that in the BRRRR book that I wrote. So the first thing I look for is an agent that sells a lot of homes, period.
The next thing I want is an agent that owns real estate themselves. At minimum, they got to own their own house, but ideally I want them to own investment property. It gives a completely different perspective when you’ve bought a home and you believe in it and you just get a different set of goggles to look at real estate through. I don’t have any kids. I love kids, we were talking about that before the show, but each of you as a dad, I am sure, sees something different when you look at a kid than I do, right? I don’t immediately freak out when they start putting something in their nose. I haven’t had enough experience of seeing how that could go wrong, right? Rob has seen some of that, so he’s going to have a much different emotional response to that marble or that Play-Doh getting a little bit close to the nostrils.
Real estate agents that own real estate have that sixth sense. They can recognize that’s a bad neighborhood, that’s not the right tenant, that’s not the right floor plan, that’s not the right structure, you really want to go to this house that may not look as pretty in the pictures, but will be a better deal.
The third thing that you want to look for is an agent that understands the financial component of real estate. Many real estate agents are geared to cater to their client’s emotions. They want to be liked. They’re very high on as an eye on the DiSC profile. This is how they make their money by being likable. Most people reach out to the agent who’s the nicest, the friendliest, the warmest. That doesn’t mean they’re the smartest.
So when you’re having conversations, I always want to hear agents that are approaching real estate from a financial perspective. I want to hear them telling me, “This is the part of town that’s being redeveloped. This is the next up and coming area. This is where all the money is going into. This is a property that would function as a rental if you moved out.” Even if that’s not necessarily what you’re looking for, you just want to buy a home. If your agent sees things that way, it is very good to hedge your bets in the future because you never know when you have more kids, need more bedrooms, get a new job, want to move for some reason. You don’t want to be locked into a situation where it’s hard to sell that home or it can’t be used as a rental property if you want to leave it.

Chris:
David, let me ask you something. Does the requirement of having an agent that owns real estate, is that as important if you’re just buying a primary residence? Do you weight that a lot heavier for people that are looking to buy investment properties?

David:
No, it’s the same for a primary residence. Let me tell you why. The first house I ever bought, my agent did not own any real estate, and I bought this house in the very end of 2009, great time to buy real estate, like you were saying, Chris. My agent did not tell me that the property taxes in that area had special assessments assigned to them and were much higher than the normal property taxes. In fact, they ended up being about $250 a month higher. I was expecting 300, they were 550. Now, I was buying this as a rental property, but even if I had buying it to live in, and you got to remember at the time, the total mortgage was like $1,300 so bumping it from 1,300 to 1,550 was a pretty significant chunk. It’s like a 20% increase almost in my overall payment because they overlooked that property taxes were higher.
Now, agents who own real estate themselves would be familiar with the fact that property tax bills come, there’s more expenses than just your principal and interest on your mortgage. They would see angles like insurance can increase in this area because it’s in a flood zone. I really think she missed it because she had never paid a mortgage on her own. She never had her taxes and her insurance escrowed into her mortgage payment.
The next time I bought a house, it was with an agent that had been selling houses for a very long time and sold a lot and owned a lot of real estate herself, and as we went through the process, she educated me. “You don’t want to buy on that part of town because you’re going to pay extra money to get the better school districts. You don’t want to buy over there because the taxes are higher. You don’t want to buy a house like that because with that kind of a roof, your insurance is going to be a lot higher.” I learned so much about investing in real estate just from the person that was getting paid to help me. It was free advice and free knowledge, and it really gave me a different perspective of what to look for and what to avoid.

Chris:
I love it. Okay, so I just sent a link to you and I’m… There’s this guy in Northern California, maybe you know him, Stanley Lo, number one agent in Northern California for 10 years. Looks like and is commonly described in San Mateo County as the Asian Elvis of real estate agents. And so when you first said look for someone who sells a lot of houses, I was looking at, I know this guy. I get the flyers in the mail. He sells all the houses, high volume, high throughput, not just low-income property, all kinds of price ranges. Does that mean that if I were looking for a real estate agent, would he be the right guy? Should I consider him even though it might not feel like someone… Someone’s personality, maybe that’s not the personality I would want as my real estate agent, but do the numbers speak more than a personality? How do you think about that? And if anyone’s curious, greenbanker.com is this real estate agent’s website.

Rob:
I mean, he’s got it down, I will say that. I mean, the marketing, the cowhide blazer and the big circular glasses. I mean, I’m in, personally.

David:
That’s funny because I’d be running the other way the minute I saw this.

Rob:
I’m in.

David:
He does sell a lot of homes, I’m sure, and so he probably does have some experience. My gut would tell me, as someone who has worked with a lot of clients and knows a lot of realtors, this is probably not someone who’s actually going to be representing you. He’s going to have staff that are going to be handling a lot of it. You’re not going to be talking to Stanley, and he’s going to likely make up for a lack of negotiation ability and focus on saving you money or making you money if it’s a listing with his personality. So he’s a great marketer, and the top producing agents are always the best marketers. This is a problem in our industry. The best agents don’t make the most money. The ones that are best at getting the phone to ring make the most money, but that doesn’t mean that they’re the best when it comes to representing you.

Chris:
You want someone that sold a lot of houses, but maybe you don’t necessarily want the person who markets themself as the person who sold the most houses.

David:
Yes.

Chris:
And so it’s that kind of that sweet spot of maybe like the 60th to 90th percentile, but not the very top.

David:
There’s a lot of things people fall for. I sell the most houses in this neighborhood, realtors will use that as a way of saying I’m the best. Don’t fall for that. It makes sense to our perspective when we’re listing to the home. Oh, you sell all the houses in the neighborhood, you know how to get me top dollar. You just don’t realize until you think about it, the buyers don’t care. The buyers don’t care who’s selling that house. They are never going to look at who the listing agent is when they’re writing their offer. They just care about the house.
The buyer’s agent needs to know the neighborhood. The buyer’s agent needs to know the amenities. When you’re looking to buy somewhere, you want an agent that knows the area very well. When you’re looking to sell, it will never matter how many homes in the area that agent’s sold. In fact, the only reason they sell a lot of homes in the same area is they put their sign in all their yards and then they go, we call it farming, knocking on all the doors and meeting all the people, getting their name out there. They’re just able to utilize a listing to build leverage to get more, but there’s no competitive advantage when it comes to representing a seller if you’ve sold other homes in the area.

Rob:
I wanted to add one thing to that, well, A, it sounds like if they’re putting signs in everyone’s yards, it sounds like they’re good marketers, which goes back to what you were saying, but I did want to say that one really important piece to agents just from a consumer side and as someone that relies on agents pretty heavily is them having a really thorough Rolodex of vendors that I can use to help me run my properties, whether I’m living in it or not.
If I’m buying a short-term rental, for example, I know I need a contractor, cleaner, landscaper, pool maintenance person, pest control, and probably a plumber, electrician, and all that type of stuff. So when I’m calling a realtor, and this goes into how many houses have they sold, if they’ve sold a lot of houses over the last five, 10 years, they probably have a pretty thorough Rolodex. I mean, outdated term. If they use the term Rolodex, maybe they’re not with it. But if they have a very big contact list of all these different vendors, that’s what I’m personally looking for in a realtor because a lot of the times I really need a firsthand referral to know that I can successfully either live in a property or execute a rental.

Chris:
Yeah, that Rolodex is interesting. It’s something I never saw in the contract, but once you close, I was surprised that even though it’s not necessarily required, a good agent will spend so much time helping make sure the process from I closed to I moved in, I got the yard done, I even renovated something, they’ve been super helpful there.
We have a lot to go here, but I do want to touch quickly on that negotiating piece that you mentioned earlier, David. When someone’s trying to get into this, what leverage or room is there for negotiating? I did what you suggested. I went to the seller’s agent and said, “Hey, I don’t want to mess around. I know I want this house. I don’t need to go find another agent. I feel good in negotiating. Will you work with me?” It ended up being a great situation because that agent got more commission and was a little bit more biased towards trying to get my purchase over the finish line, and in one case, rebated 1% of their fee back to me. Are there other rooms for negotiation? Are there other tactics someone can use to get a better price or likelihood of getting accepted?

David:
Well, the first thing you have to do is define a win. In a situation where the house is getting 10 offers, a win is just getting it at all. There are times in the Bay Area or other hot markets with restricted supply and lack of inventory that you’re just not going to get a home, period. It’s incredibly hard to get in contract, you’re competing with so many people. In those situations, you’re not going to get a discount from your listing agent, you’re not going to get a better price on the home. You just have to get it.
Now, in other situations, which is what I try to target my clients into, I show them properties that less people are competing with. The listing photos are ugly. It’s been in contract, it fell out of contract. Now the days on market have ticked up and people aren’t looking at it anymore. I look for opportunities to help them get into a property with much less interest, and then we can get them a discount on the price, we can save them some money there. A mistake a lot of people make is they go to the listing agent of an incredibly hot property, they ask for a discount from the listing agent and they go, “No, there’s like 12 other people that want to buy this house. I can get my client a hundred grand more going with a different offer. I’m not going to discount commission just to help you get it.” That’s a big piece is knowing when you have leverage and when you don’t.

Chris:
I want to talk about making that offer now, right? Let’s say someone’s gone through this process, they picked their agent, they’ve figured out what they’re doing, and they find a house and they’re trying to decide, is this a good house. Let’s start with that before we get to the offer. It’s like you have a place in mind. You’re looking at this listing. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t have an agent yet, but what are the things that are really important for someone to be paying attention to when they’re looking at a listing, either online or in person?

David:
If you’re also curious about the things smart buyers look for in a listing, keep listening. The next part of this conversation will drop tomorrow. So make sure you’re subscribed into the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast and go check out All The Hacks wherever you get your podcast.

Part 2:

David:
Welcome back to our three-part Home Buying Hack Series where we are giving away all the hacks at every stage of the home buying process. We’re here with Chris Hutchins, host of the excellent podcast, All the Hacks.

Rob:
In our first segment, we break down insider secrets to finding and working with an agent. And now, we’ll get into what to look for in a listing, signs that you could score a killer deal, inspections, and the myriad of ways that you can get out of a contract if the home isn’t what you thought.

David:
All right. Let’s get into it.

Chris:
And I want to talk about making that offer now. Let’s say someone’s gone through this process, they’ve picked their agent, they’ve figured out what they’re doing, and they find a house. And they’re trying to decide is this a good house? So let’s start with that before we get to the offer.
It’s like you have a place in mind. You’re looking at this listing. Maybe, you do. Maybe, you don’t have an agent yet. But what are the things that are really important for someone to be paying attention to when they’re looking at a listing, either online or in person?

David:
Rob, what do you look for?

Rob:
I like to find stuff that needs a little bit of work, a little TLC personally on my end, just because I don’t really paying the premium of someone else’s fine-tuned work that I probably don’t like anyway. So I don’t want to go in and usually do a full rehab. That’s not really my space, but I’m looking for something that I can really spice up with a nice paint job, maybe doing a lighter cosmetic renovation like changing out the floors or something like that.
So I’m not necessarily looking for top tier. I’m just looking for something that I can come in and kind of add my touch to. I don’t really like paying for turnkey properties personally. But it all comes down to what your buy box is. What about you, David?

David:
In a hot market like where we are today, it’s usually a good time to buy real estate because when there are more buyers than there are product to buy, the odds of prices increasing are favorable because you’ve got a favorable supply-demand ratio there.
However, it becomes harder to get into the asset in those environments, which is why most people get discouraged. There’s also an element where people aren’t educated so they all chase after the same homes. They want the ones with the best listing photos, the best locations. They’re moving ready. That gives you that emotional tingle that you just love. Those are the houses everyone looks for.
You really want to go against the grain. Sometimes, bad smells can really benefit you when you’re trying to buy a home because it’s going to turn off a lot of your competition. Ugly floor plans, people don’t realize it’s usually not as expensive as you think to move walls around. But when it’s got a closed-off kitchen, you can’t see what’s going on in the family room. The wife’s thinking, “I can’t see what the kids are doing. I just don’t like it.” That’s as far as they go.
They don’t realize that you can spend $2,000 in move a wall. You can see everything that’s going on there. Then, painting and flooring, you can fix homes up for a lot less than what people think today. But you have to see the opportunity, not the move-in ready product.

Chris:
And so, how long the house has been on the market play into this? When you see something that’s been on for a while or we’ll get to something that just came on after?

David:
Hey, I mean it’s just online dating, right? I don’t do online dating. But I know how the thing works. If she’s been single for six days, she’s probably not in a rush to take your response to go out with you Friday. But if she’s been single for six months, she’s probably going to give you a little bit more attention when you send that message.
When a seller first puts their house on the market, they have all the leverage. They have tons of interest. People are going to look at their home. Showings are being scheduled. Agents are calling all excited, “We really love the house. Do you have any other offers?” It’s this frenetic, crazy emotional pace where the sellers are trying to think of how can I leverage this to get as much money as possible, which is really where I’m trying to guide my clients away.
I don’t want you in that feeding frenzy. If no one buys that house after 14 to 21 days, interest is starting to slow. By day 30, day 40, they’re getting worried. Okay. It’s not who’s the best guy that gets to take me to prom? It’s am I going to prom at all? I just want a date. Does anyone want to buy my house? I’m stuck. I might not be able to move.
And I write about this in some of the books that I’ve published for BiggerPockets for agents. There’s this spectrum of fear and greed. We usually all start off on the greed side. And as you slide across, you end up in the fear side, and you’re worried, “I might not sell the house at all.”
So in most markets, depending on what your average day is on market, this wouldn’t apply in an area with $7 million homes that tend to sit on the market for six months before they sell. But for your regular starter homes, they should be selling in less than 30 days in most markets in the country. So the minute you get past that point, you’re going to start seeing some worry in sellers, and they will be open to more aggressive offers or terms that are more favorable to the buyer.

Chris:
What happens if you are in a hot market? And let’s say you’ve identified a neighborhood. You’ve looked. Maybe, a house comes on every two or three months, and you know this is what I want. You say the moment that house comes on the market, it’s hot. It’s the worst time. Is there a way to get ahead of that? Is there a way to find homes before they get on the market and buy them? Is that finding the right agent or how do you get what might be a hot home before it’s hot?

David:
Rob, what have you been doing? You’ve gotten a couple deals this way.

Rob:
Yeah. So there are definitely a few. Let’s see. There’s the creative finance and the subto deal. And that’s effectively where you’re cold calling a bunch of property owners and also wholesaling where you cold call property owners and basically try to buy the property directly from them versus going the realtor route. That’s a very popular niche within real estate.
But honestly, I think having a really big network of realtors that you’re friendly with is super important. And more than just having a bunch of realtors in your network, finding a realtor that I… And this is sort of where the marketing thing comes into play too. But finding a realtor that’s very good at marketing and having a vast network of realtor friends that can pass each other deals to you or pass deals to each other, that to me is super important because if you find someone that’s very new and very green in the industry, they probably don’t have a lot of other real estate colleagues necessarily. But if it’s someone that’s been working in the industry for a while, they have the opportunity to find all these deals before they ever hit the market.
So I have realtors that are texting me all the time that they’re like, “Hey, my bud just sent me this. It’s going to hit the market next week. They’re interested in selling it before even going to market. Are you interested?” And I’ll look at a deal much quicker, much faster, and much more intentionally knowing that I’ve got first dibs on it.

Chris:
Do you think that applies for kind of consumer? If I’m looking to buy a home in a neighborhood, should I just talk to all the agents in the neighborhood and say, “Hey, I’m looking to buy a home. There’s nothing on the market I want right now. But I just want you to know if you could find me something, I’m ready to go and just talk to 10 agents.” Do agents like that kind of behavior or-

David:
No, not really because you send the message that you’re looking for an open relationship, and they’re wanting a committed relationship. So it doesn’t benefit me as an agent if you come and you’re talking to 12 agents in the area, say, “If you find me the deal, I’ll buy it from you.” That sounds great, but I don’t need to sell it to you.
If I get a listing, it’s so hot right now, everyone’s going to want to buy it, right? I don’t have to discount my commission. There’s people that would probably give me extra commission if they wanted to get that home, or I want to be able to go to my seller and tell them I got 10 offers on their home, and I want to look like a rockstar to them. So I don’t think the go wide instead of deep strategy works, unless it’s a buyer’s market.
When you are in those situations where it’s very difficult to find someone to buy a home or talking 2010 when there was for sale signs everywhere, listings were all over the place. REO inventory was massive, but there weren’t a lot of pre-approved buyers that were willing to step in and buy a house. Then, that strategy makes a lot more sense. That’s where you’re reaching out to all these agents saying, “Hey, if you get a deal, bring it to me, and I’ll buy it because you’re the prize in that situation.”
They need a buyer, and you’re basically saying, “Listen, I’m one of the few buyers that’s out there that could do this thing. But if you want my business, you’re going to have to make it worth my while.” That works a lot better than in a market like today where you’re just one out of a whole bunch of other people that are all struggling to try to get a house.

Rob:
Yeah. I’m actually really glad you asked that, Chris, and I’m glad you clarified David, because Chris, for reference, I’m in about 16 different markets around the country. So I actually have a massive network of realtors in different cities. They’re all very aware of exactly what I’m looking for. So when they get a pocket listing or an off-market listing, they text me directly.
When I’m working in a city specifically or in a market specifically, I do want just one realtor. And that’s why I say, “I want to find a realtor that’s got a lot of realtor friends that can help find some of those off-market deals.”

Chris:
So it’s about finding someone that’s connected. Is that as simple as just seeing whose name pops up in a neighborhood most with the for sale signs like who represented most of the sales or any other tactics for finding that super connected agent?

David:
I see why it would look that way. But there are so many real estate agents, Chris. It’s like the ones you see are the tip of the iceberg. There’s so many of them. There’s way too many agents. We don’t need this many. It reminds me of a scene in the office where Dwight and Michael are walking through a crowded room, and Dwight says, “There’s too many people, we need another plague.”
There’s just so many agents that have flooded into the real estate space, like people coming to California in 1849 thinking they’re going to strike gold. They’re all fighting to try to get that seller to think of them. It’s just this massive marketing campaign that every agent is throwing themselves in front of people.
And now, you’ve got investors that are also sending letters to those same people saying, “I want to buy your house. I want to buy your house.” Most home sellers know. In general, they have what everyone wants. Their home is valuable. You’re probably not going to put things in your favor by just talking to every real estate agent that’s out there and saying, “Hey, I want to buy a house if you get one,” because if they can get a listing, it’s guaranteed to sell. There’s no reason they’re going to go to you particularly.

Chris:
And then, this is a very short question, but it’s important. How much does the brand behind the agent matter? Is it all about the agent or is it all about the agency they work at or the brokerage firm they work at?

David:
The only people that think a broker matters is the broker. Your clients never care who your broker is. It’s a 100% the agent.

Chris:
Yeah. So if you’re trying to find someone and they’re like, “Oh, you can work with my colleague on the…,” that’s like red flag.

David:
It used to be really useful, just a little history lesson, because there was a time where if you wanted to buy a house that RE/MAX was listing, you had to go to a RE/MAX agent at that office to buy that house. So RE/MAX had their listings. Coldwell Banker had theirs. Century 21 had theirs. And you would jump from broker to broker and look at their inventory.
When we created the multiple listing service, this was an agreement between all brokerages that they would all put their listings into one central location that everybody could see, which eventually morphed into the online listing portals that we all see when we’re looking for homes. That eliminated the value of going to an individual broker because now you can see everybody’s inventory in the same place.

Chris:
And if people that you know had success using those kind of online brokers that are like, “We’re just going to cut your rate and give you huge discounts,” I know Redfin does that. Have you heard success stories there? Is the savings worth it?

David:
In our industry, Chris, I’m just going to tell you the brutal truth, I look for a Redfin agent to be on the other side of the transaction because I know I’m going to destroy them in negotiation, because they don’t make hardly any money on these deals. They usually go there when they’re desperate for food.
They’re, “I’m starving. Please, Redfin, give me some deals or whatever the discount brokerage is.” I’ve had massive success, particularly targeting listings that are Redfin listings because those Redfin agents are… Not all the time, I’m sure there’s going to be a Redfin agent out there who’s going to say, “Well, I’m a Redfin agent, and I’m good.” Yes, they do exist.

Rob:
I sell the most Redfin homes in this neighborhood.

David:
Yeah. In fact, that might even be an advantage to tell people to look for those because your agent is going to have a field day with their agent if you have a good one.

Rob:
Yeah. And last tip, I got one more tip here, if the listing says, “Run, don’t walk,” it’s probably not that great of a listing.

Chris:
Oh wow.

David:
We were just talking about this yesterday. Every listing agent is putting that their house boast of five bedrooms, boast of amazing light, boast of a great view. These houses are just boasting all over the place. Bay Area real estate has become very arrogant.

Chris:
Okay. Let’s say we find this house. Whether it’s hot home, whether it’s kind of the home you’re not sure about and you want to rehab a little bit, what do you do when you’ve got someone and you’re like, “I want this home, or at least I want to consider it,” and you’re going through that diligence process of trying to figure out doing inspections. How do you optimize that part of the process to make sure you’re getting the right home at the right price?

David:
First thing for uninitiated to understand, writing an offer is not a commitment to buy a house. A lot of people get stuck dragging their feet. They don’t want to write an offer. They need time to think about it. They need time to pray about it. They need time to talk to their mom. They need time to analyze it. By the time they get comfortable to write an offer, someone’s already bought the house. This happens a lot of the time.
When you write an offer, most of the time, you’ll include a contingency, which is an allowance to back out of the deal and recover your earnest money deposit if you find something you don’t like. The main three contingencies are inspection contingencies, appraisals and loans. So if you can’t get your loan, the house doesn’t appraise at value or something is revealed when you’re inspecting the home, which can, in most cases, literally be I looked at the front lawn and I didn’t like the way the grass looked when I inspected it. I want out.
You can use that contingency for just about anything. It’s okay to rush to put a house in contract, and then slow down when you’re in contract and order your pest inspection, order your home inspection, order your pool inspection, order your roof inspection. Whatever it is that you’re looking to do, take your time from that point. And if you decide you don’t like the house, you want to back out, you can without penalty.

Chris:
What about hot markets where there’s no contingencies or people are saying, “We’re not accepting offers with contingencies?” Are there secret contingencies you can kind of put in? Are there ways to get out, or what do you think about those?

David:
Here’s a couple hacks that I’ll share with you that normally you got to be my client, if you want me to know this. There’s a rule in California that once you receive the disclosures on a property, you have seven days to back out after receiving them. It gives you time as a buyer to review these disclosures. That is not a part of the contract that realtors use. That is a state law that cannot be waived in a contract.
Many times, listing agents, because like I said, they’re not all good, you get that discount agent, you get the person that hardly sells homes, they’re arrogant like, “Oh, I’m going to sell this thing because everybody wants my listing,” but they don’t know those little rules.
So we’ve had times with our clients where the listing agent did not provide the disclosures upfront. They just didn’t have their clients fill them out. The client didn’t want to fill them out. They didn’t know why they were important.
If I see there’s no disclosures, then, they make me waive contingencies. I will put the house in contract, wait for them to give me those disclosures. And then, the timeline starts. I have a certain amount of time after they’ve been… I’m trying to remember if it’s three days or seven days. I believe it’s seven days, but I have three in my head. That might be something else.
Anyway, we then have a period of time to decide if we want to move forward on that house. And we backed out, and they said, “Well, you don’t have an inspection contingency.” We said, “Yeah, here’s the disclosure law. There’s nothing you could do about that.” That’s one loophole that we’ve looked for.

Rob:
That’s good, you dirty dog. Everybody go back 30 seconds and listen to that again. That is so good. I can see why you didn’t want to necessarily say that on the podcast. You don’t want people to know.

David:
That’s exactly right. And so, when I’m selling homes as a listening agent, we have our people fill these disclosures out. And if you write an offer to buy the house, the first thing I do is say, “Review these before we even accept your offer. I want it to be signed that you’ve looked at them to start that timeline as fast as possible.”
Also, it’s why I want people to come to me to be their agent because, like I said, when you use an agent that doesn’t sell a lot of homes, they don’t know that. And even more importantly, I know that they don’t know. And when I sense that as the agent, that’s where I start shifting everything to protect my client. Another one that people don’t think about, usually when you buy a house, you have a period of time to send in your earnest money deposit.
So there are certain times where there’s two houses and you like them both, and you don’t know if you’re going to get one. So you write offers on both houses. And then, you get lucky and end up with two of them. What am I going to do now, right?
Well, if you don’t send the earnest money deposited and you cancel the contract, there’s really no recourse that the seller has to come back after you and say, “No, you have to give me money for this.” There is no money in the escrow to take out.
So when you’re a buyer, either put more money… or put a longer period of time before you have to put in your earnest money and use that time to do your inspections, do your praying, talk to your mom, go through your due diligence or, in some cases, I will admit, I bought houses out of state, and the listing agent and the escrow company literally did not ever check to see if I sent the earnest money in.
I’ve closed on several houses in Tennessee that I never sent the earnest money for the entire escrow. And nobody even asked about it. I just sent the whole money into clothes. And I was fascinated that that happened. But it probably happens in more markets than people think, or with agents that aren’t experienced selling houses like this hypothetical Redfin agent we talked about, that doesn’t even know they’re supposed to check.
You might make it 10, 12, 14 days before a escrow officer realizes, “Oh, we don’t have earnest money,” and they contact your client about looking into it, which is plenty of time to get some of those inspections done without a contingency.

Chris:
I love that. And it’s funny because I took that strategy we mentioned earlier where I used the seller’s agent. And, in fact, we made an offer, and they set disclosures two hours before we made the offer. It’s like quick cursory glance.
And, fortunately, everything worked out, but I did not get reminded by the seller’s agent that I might have some time to back out. And I think that’s one of the risks when you use the seller’s agent, is that they might give you a little bit of the edge to try to get the deal done because they might make a little bit more, not at the risk of completely tanking the purchase price for their seller. But they’re certainly not going to try to come up with creative ways to save the deal and get you out.

David:
Yeah. Of course not. Those bros ain’t loyal, not to you.

Chris:
That’s awesome. Any other things when you’re going through inspections, things that people often miss, things that you learn. I feel like every time… And it’s only happened two times, but every time I bought a home, 30 days later, I’m like, “God, how did I miss that?” Any tips for finding all the thats?

Rob:
Yeah, sure. So I think one thing to keep in mind, and David kind of hit the nail on the head with this one, is if it’s your goal to get into a property, get into escrow as fast as possible. I typically run two sets of analytics, especially with rental portfolios. I have my back of the napkin analytics where I just want to know, does this property feasibly work? If it kind of does, okay, great. I go into escrow.
And then, I run my deep dive analytics for that, right? The reason I say this is because a lot of people, like David said, will spend so much time just getting analysis paralysis. And then, they’ll lose out on the deal. One of those things that typically give me a lot of analysis paralysis back when I started was this little phrase in the listing that says, “As is. Seller not willing to make any repairs to the property.”
And so, that held me back from ever buying properties or ever making offers until I figured out that that really doesn’t mean anything. Really, you can buy a property as is. But David, correct me if I’m wrong, there’s no actual legal paperwork that is signed that says that you can’t actually ask for concessions because what’s happened for me 100% of the time is I’ll make the offer on an quote-quote “as is house.”
And then, I get the inspection report, and guess what? I asked the seller for $10,000 worth of repairs or a $2,000 credit or whatever. So just because something says as is doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to take that at face value. And that’s something that I think a lot of people miss when they’re buying their first or second or third property.

David:
100% correct. I laugh in the face of as is. It means nothing. Nothing. As is a completely toothless claim. When someone says, “I’m selling my property as is,” what they’re saying is I don’t want to make any further concessions.
But no seller wants to make concessions. It just doesn’t matter anything. The only time someone could say, “I’m selling a house as is,” is if you have no contingencies and your earnest money deposit is so high, that you would not want to back out of that deal because you could always back out of a deal. You’ll just forfeit the earnest money, and the seller will get to keep it.
So let’s say, Chris, you asked earlier, what if you just can’t get contingencies, and all the things we’ve mentioned you don’t have or any wiggle room? Well, what if you just make your earnest money deposit really low?
All right. No contingency, short escrow. I’ll give you everything you want, $3,000 earnest money deposit. You find something you don’t like in the house. Worst case scenario, you lose three grand. No one loves it, but it’s better than closing on a house that has a bunch of problems.
So don’t ever believe as is. Rob and I bought a house together actually. He got to see behind the scenes of, I was kind of working the negotiation through our realtor. So it was like me telling Rob to tell our realtor, “Hey, say this.” And he saw some of just the angles and the experience that when you’ve been through these escrows you develop, sellers always start off with a hard stance, “I’m not taking less than three and a half million.” And then three weeks, four weeks later, all of a sudden, three million is starting to look like a possibility.
I’m not giving them anything. Well, we get these inspection reports and, hey, your pool’s got some issues. Your landscaping has some issues. Your roof has some issues. It’s going to be $75,000 worth of work that needs to be done. You give them a week or two of sweating that out, they start to think a little bit differently.
And so, oftentimes, when you’re the buyer, you want to gather as much as you can about what’s wrong with this property, present it to the sellers, and then wait. Let them marinate in their worry that you’re going to back out of the deal or you’re going to find something else and they’re going to have to give you concessions. The knee-jerk response is almost always, “No, I will not do it.”
But if you wait long enough, those nos frequently turn into yeses. So when I’m listing a house, I will have my client pay for a home inspection, which they never like doing because they’re 500 bucks, but it saves you so much money, Chris. You would ask for other hacks that when you’re in escrow. Anytime there’s a inspection that’s done, the perspective is as crazy as this is. Is the buyer’s buying a house in perfect condition? And if anything’s wrong with it, they deserve a credit, or they deserve repair. So they deserve something to put this house back into perfect condition.
Frequently, the house is in much better shape than other houses in the neighborhood, but they still use that inspection to get a discount. Short answer is, if you are buying a house and it’s not a situation where they have another buyer willing to pay more than you in backup position who’s going to jump right in there. Anything absent that, you can ask for credits. You can get a significant chunk of your closing costs paid for by the seller if you wait long enough into the escrow before you ask, almost regardless of the condition of the home.
So when I’m selling houses, that’s how I get people to waive the inspection contingency. You’re going to get a home inspection paid for. We’re going to give that to the buyer up front. We’re going to say, “Here’s what it looks like. Here’s all the reports. If you don’t like it, find another house. But if you want this house, this is what you’re buying, and you’re going to waive those contingencies.”
So when you’re selling, that’s what you want to do. When you’re buying, you want to avoid it. And then, one practical thing to look for that everybody misses is what we call the sewer lateral connection. So there is a sewer line that runs from your home out to usually the sidewalk where it connects to the city sewer line.
Those plumbing lines, if it’s an older home, usually running through the front yard can become infiltrated by tree roots. This is a crazy thing. But when the roots are just pushing against that PVC pipe for years, they will eventually push through there. And then, the roots will grow and these sewer lines can become clogged, and they’re very expensive to fix.
So one thing I tell every home buyer who’s like, “What could I miss? What’s the that thing that I might have missed,” get that sewer line scoped by a plumber before you buy the house during your due diligence and make sure that there aren’t any clogs, because those things could be 10, 15 grand a fix when they get messed up.

Rob:
Yeah. That did happen to me. We did a sewer scope. There was a problem with the sewer. They sent out the plumber to quote-unquote “fix the sewer.” And we asked for the sewer scope an hour before closing, and they’re like, “Oh, we didn’t do one.” But everyone’s hands were sort of tied. It was December 31st. We were all trying to close it that year. It was going to mess everybody up.
So we were just like, “All right. Well, I mean, if they fixed it, then in theory, we should be good.” My wife moved in with our two kids. And then, that week, ramen noodles and poop show up in our bathtub. And it was a whole thing. And so, lawyers got involved. And it was a whole thing.
And basically, what happened was the seller’s agent lied to us about the repair, and basically never even told the plumber kind of thing. So because we didn’t get it re-scoped, and while we didn’t do it while they owned it, it became a whole problem for us. So I would say from a sewer scope standpoint, if you do have to make repairs, make sure you pay for two sewer scopes.

Chris:
And what do you guys think about inspections when the seller’s already done the inspections and they’re in the disclosures? Yeah. I remember when we bought this house, the disclosure’s like, “Here’s the building report. Here’s the roof inspection. Here’s the termite inspection.” They were all there. Do you still recommend people go do them themselves also?

David:
Usually not. The fear is, well, that’s the seller’s inspector. But the inspectors themselves are licensed professionals that don’t really care who the seller is, who the buyer is. They just want to make sure they don’t miss anything, so they don’t get sued.
So what I tell my clients when you’re getting inspections someone else has done, is call the home inspector, and ask them. You can actually do that, especially if you’re the one who pays for the inspection. But even if you’re not, hey, I see in your inspection line 9C2 shows this. Is that something I should be worried about?
You get great information from home inspectors. They give you the context that’s often missing, especially because when you’re first buying a house, or even if you’ve owned a lot of houses like Rob, you could probably admit, we don’t know what a lot of that stuff means.
You see a report, and it lists something. You’re like, “Well, is that a bad thing or not a bad thing?” Just ask them, “Do you see this very frequently?” Oh yeah, every house has that issue with the trusses in the attic or whatever the case is, or no, that’s very concerning. That electrical system should not be wired that way. I rarely ever see that. That’s a big problem.
So having those conversations with the person that inspected the house and then specifically asking, “Is this a common problem or is this concerning to you or maybe when you looked at the house, what stuff from this report stood out to you in your experience?” Now you’re getting 20 years of experience, so that home inspector’s perspective benefiting you as the person buying the house.

Chris:
I like it. I’m going to rapid fire through a few things quick that I’ve done in this part of the process. One, we did get an inspection that said that there were termites. I got another inspection and found someone that was willing to crawl through a smaller hole than the original inspector was to figure out what was wrong and find local treatment that was going to be less expensive. So I think anytime an inspection reveals something that could be expensive, it could be worth doing a second one.
Another one is I’m trying to figure out when we’re trying to buy a home, what the person cares about because, sometimes, there’s sellers that really just want to close fast. Some want the most money. Sometimes, someone might just want to make sure that the house is going to be taken care of by a good… I find that if I could figure that out, either through the agent or some other way, maybe from some neighbors, sometimes, we ask the neighbors about the sellers, you could try to optimize what you’re doing because if you know what’s important to them, if they care about fast close, then maybe, that’s the thing you optimize for.
And my brother-in-law’s tip was always, “It’s a lot easier to extend a fast close than you think.” So if you say, “We’re going to close in 30 days,” you need to push it back. By day 30, it’s a lot easier. I’m going to throw a couple little things that I’ve thrown in contracts or learned and regretted not doing. I’m curious if there are any last things that you try to negotiate for.
For me, I always had this rule when I bought a car that’s like try to get them to throw in the floor mats. And for the home, I always love getting a little extra at the end of the deal.

David:
To hear Chris’s full list of extras he’s been able to work into a deal, keep listening. The next part of this conversation will drop tomorrow. So make sure you’re subscribed to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, and make sure to check out Chris on All The Hacks Podcast wherever you get your podcast.