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Showing Real Estate Investment Properties
On Friday, I encouraged you to get properties that you are selling ready for the weekend. I didn’t mention anything about showing the houses, but today I will share a mistake that a lot of real estate investors make and that is they make appointments to show their own houses.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with going out there and meeting somebody to show your house to get it occupied or to get it sold. But, if you’re in this for the long haul, then I would highly advise you to try to switch to this method that I’m about to share.
It is so much easier if you go to some hardware store and buy a $30 lockbox, and put the lockbox on the front door or the side door. Put a key in the lockbox. And then when people call you asking you about your house, or they call your system, or your 24-hour voicemail system if you wish then you can provide the code.
You can give them the lockbox code to go inside the home and walk through and take a look at it and view it at their own time. This way you don’t have to spend an hour or two wasting your time going out, showing these people the property, which the majority of the time the numbers show that they will not buy.
So, if your time is valuable to you, then this is definitely something I want to try to push you towards because it’s a huge timesaver. It’s not only convenient for you, it’s also convenient for the buyer because a lot of times they’ll call you and they’re in front of the home. And they would much rather go and see the house right then and there if they can and not have to wait on you, and not have to have somebody walk through the house with them looking over their shoulder, asking them questions, poking and prying them and trying to get them to buy.
It’s much smoother if they can go in and do it at their own time. The only caveat is when we talk to these folks is we politely ask them to call us back immediately after they have finished looking at the home to let us know that they were able to lock it back up and put the key back in the lockbox. It’s a really simple request and people will respect you for that and 80% of the time people will call you back. Just let them know you want to be sure the house is secure.
Now, before we give these people the code, then we also ask for all their information. So, we’re not putting people in there without getting their information. We’ve captured their number on caller ID, we know their name, first and last, we pre-screen them a little bit on the phone, sometimes even before we give them the code.
So, if you have any doubts or concerns about letting people go through the property, and if you don’t like how you pre-screened them, then simply don’t give them the code because you can tell them point blank based on the information that they just told you that they won’t qualify.
And I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking, “Well, you’re telling me these people are going to go through my house alone? Well, they’re probably going to steal stuff.” Well, the likelihood of that is slim to none. I’ve been doing this for many, many years and I’ve never had anybody steal anything from my properties when they were given permission to enter a home, except one thing.
And you know what that was? That was a couple plug-in air fresheners in the wall. Why people took my plug-in air fresheners I have no idea. It doesn’t matter to me. Obviously they needed those more than me.
So, long story short, to save your time and theirs and make it convenient for everybody, I would really urge you to try to switch to this method of showing properties. So, that way, you do not have to have all your time sucked up by making appointments and showing properties to your tenant buyers and your buyers.
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