How to beat other buyers to hot, new listings (Before they even know about them)

Buyers want three things when they’re making a purchase:

1. Selection: Have the largest number of options from which to choose
2. Price: Get a smoking hot deal on what I want to buy
3. Ease of doing business: Don’t make it hard for me to buy it

It doesn’t matter if they’re buying shoes, a toaster or a house, all three of them matter and they usually matter in that order.

And when it comes to buying a home, you can be sure that a well-priced home in just about any price range is going to get snapped up if you don’t get it in time.

The key to making all three of those things happen, though, is to make sure that you’re the first one to hear about the hot deals when they come available.

There’s a real strategy behind beating out other buyers to hot, new listings. (Hint: it’s neither searching the Internet endlessly for hours or hitting up your family member who’s a real estate agent to send you listings of homes for sale).

If you’re going to get the best and hottest listings in the market and beat other buyers to them, there are a few things you need to do.

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• 1: Get with the right real estate agent

A real estate agent telling you to get with the right real estate agent. Shocker, right?

It’s the truth.

Notice, however, I said the right real estate agent. Not all agents are the same and not all of them provide the same level of service or access to listings.

There are plenty of agents out there who are happy to get some basic information on the home you desire, enter it into their automated MLS search, press the start button and then hope that the home you’re going to love will hit your inbox in time for you to see it.

Or, conversely, they’ll pick only a few listings that they like and try to sell you one of those.

Neither of these options gets you the hottest listings in the area because the process is not geared towards serving you at the highest level. Rather, the process is geared towards getting listings into your hand and hoping you buy one.

The right agent is going to take time to meet with you, find out exactly what you’re looking for and set you up on an ongoing, automated search for homes that specifically meet your criteria.

To add value to the process so you don’t miss out on anything, they’ll then monitor what you receive on a regular basis so they can point out the hottest deals as they come up and set up time for you to see the home as soon as you can possibly get there.

Being the first to see a hot new listing is often the difference between getting your offer accepted and missing out on the deal altogether.

It’s not just enough to get listings, you need someone who knows what a good deal looks like and is then willing to notify you (and help you see it) as soon as the opportunity arises.

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• 2: Look at everything

Here’s a little secret: you don’t actually know if you’ll love something until you walk into the home.

As an agent, I often hear people say they don’t want this type of home or that type of home, even though they’ve never lived in one before.

If you want to get access to the hottest listings and beat other buyers to them, you need to be open to looking at everything that’s remotely close to what you think you want in a home.

Styles, tastes, layouts, upgrades, amenities, etc. vary from home to home and the only way to truly appreciate how much you’ll like or dislike the home has to do with how you feel and what you see when you walk into the home.

Paint, wallpaper, flooring, fixtures, cabinets, etc. can all be changed out over time. If you like the location, it feels like home and the price is right...then it may just be the home for you.

Start with a wide variety of what you’ll look at and then narrow it as time goes on based upon what you see along the way.

Who knows, you might just be surprised at what you see if you’re open to the possibilities.

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• 3: Virtually every home gets listed with an agent

Here’s the deal, almost any home you’re going to have a crack at has been or will be listed by an agent.

No joke.

Here’s what you need to know:

• On average, only 7% of listings sell For Sale By Owner and that number has been steadily declining Since 2013
• Banks are not real estate agents and don’t want to be: they hire real estate agents to sell their homes.
• Mortgage companies would have a conflict of interest if they sold homes they foreclosed on: they hire real estate agents to sell their homes.
• Federal, state and local governments are not real estate agents and they, too, don’t want to be: they hire real estate agents to sell their homes.
• Real estate investors are sometimes agents, and sometimes they’re not. Either way, most of them list their homes for sale on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS) themselves or with an agent because they know that agents work with the majority of the buyers who are looking for homes.
• Corporations do not want to get into the business of being a real estate agent when they buy the home of a person they are relocating. They, too, hire real estate agents to sell their homes.
• Attorneys can get their real estate licenses simply because they are attorneys, but even the ones who get access to hot deals - divorce, estate and bankruptcy attorneys - refer their clients to real estate agents.
• Listings that have expired in the past are a great source of off-market properties and a great agent will contact these sellers to see if they’ll sell their home to you.
• A great agent will also market to a neighborhood to find sellers - before, during and after they meet with you - to see if they’ll make their home available to you.

In short, if you’re going to get a great deal — resale, foreclosure, corporate-owned home, short sale, government-owned home, distressed sales, etc. — finding and working with the right real estate agent who has an awesome, proprietary home-hunters service is the best choice.

As well, you can be certain that if you look online to try to find homes, the data you're getting is not updated in real time and you likely have missed all the hot deals because other buyers have gotten access to them.

Take the time to find the right agent.