Long Distance Real Estate Investing

Welcome to my Long Distance Real Estate Investing book summary!

One-Sentence-Summary: A book for active fix-and-flip real estate investors.

booboo real-time book rating: ★★★☆☆ (percentage of books with this rating: 34%)

The whole part of finding a good RE agent, emailing them, questions to ask them, etc. was not convincing, especially after I found out the author is a RE agent. Everyone knows 99% of RE agents are bad, and the 1% are working with active buyers/sellers who will make them the most money. For individual investors who buy occasionally, we will most likely be our own agents, doing our own research and roping in a RE agent, if we must, or just relying on a quality RE lawyer, who ideally is a RE agent, too.

If you get a RE agent, make sure they are an investor. Easier said than done, but otherwise it’s like going to the dentist with crooked teeth.

This book has a HEAVY real estate agent bias with sentences like this, “I must admit that what is unfair is allowing my agent to spend time and effort working on my behalf without ever compensating him or her for it.” (p. 96)

In fact, the best portion of the book was when the author advised buyers not to use a RE agent, instead reaching out to the listing agent. Let me share a real-life story with you which highlights why using a RE agent is more likely to hurt than help you.

While searching for a property, I did what most new buyers do: click some buttons on Zillow until I got connected with an agent. The vast majority of these agents were next to useless. Fine. So I pushed them back to the end of my process even further. Then I wondered what the hell my RE agent was even doing besides slowing down the communication? Does it really serve my benefit to tell my agent something, for her to tell the listing agent, for it to get to the seller? The telephone game ensures this communication mutates over this process.

Then I read this book where the author says that as investors who are offering a lower price, it’s in our best interest to only use the seller’s agent because they become more interested in selling to us. After all, they earn 2x the commission.

On top of that, as a student of negotiation, I realized there are so many subtleties with negotiating that my agent, who probably is not a great negotiator, will not be great at and sure enough…when I was ready to make an offer, I explained the following to my agent, which I wanted her to communicate to the listing agent:

I have been looking in this market for a few months and have various properties that interest me. I’m now ready to make an offer. While I hope the owner accepts the offer outright, upon a rejection, I invite the owner to make one counteroffer which I will deny or accept. But if I deny, I’ll move on to the next property, avoiding a back-and-forth negotiation.

At the end of the call, I asked the agent to repeat back to me what she was going to stay to the listing agent and she repeat nothing of what I said. Nothing. I repeated it again, and then she got 50%.

From here on out, I will not be using a buyer’s agent instead opting for a RE attorney and title company.

You are reading my book review and summary by David Greene. Be sure to check out my digital bookshelf for 100+ book summaries.

“What I’ve found through every profession, game, challenge, or understanding is the longer you consistently seek to understand the process, not just the result, the better you will be at understanding patterns that emerge.” (p. 18)

Did you know I’m an author? I wrote four books on real estate investing, travel, and language learning.

There is way too much attention paid to the poor attitude, work ethic, time management, etc. of contractors. Seesh. Sounds like a fucking nightmare to flix-and-flip…because it is…and for $24,000 which the author states in the book. No thank you. One of the valuable tips given here is to inform the contractor that you will be selling the property, and his name will be given to anyone who asks. There will be many detailed pictures taken for the listing but also for social media. Hopefully they are smart and understand you, as a client, can directly lead to more business…but something tells me this may or may not, probably not, work.

Thanks for visiting and thanks to David Greene for writing Long Distance Real Estate Investing!