My license application is pending. Two investors want me working next month.

Application is in, exam is scheduled for six weeks out, and in the meantime two investors I met through a rehab crew both want me sourcing off-market houses for them starting in March. Neither wants me to represent anybody. They want addresses, owner contact, and a read on condition.

Investor one offered $500 per delivered lead he accepts, nothing at close. Investor two offered $2,500 at close only. Both operate in the same three zip codes, which is its own problem I haven't solved.

What's on my desk is the sequencing. Once I'm licensed, my understanding is that compensation rules and disclosure obligations change, and in most states a licensee taking a fee tied to a transaction has to run it through their broker and disclose their status. So the arrangement I sign in March may need rewriting in May, and I'd rather write it once. Exactly how that works varies by state and I have a question in to the commission, plus I'll be asking whichever broker I hang with.

The other thing is the overlap. Two buyers, same three zips, and I'll be the person deciding who sees a house first. That feels like a reputation problem waiting to happen even if it isn't a legal one. Alternating seems fair and stupid, since one of them pays on delivery and the other only pays if he closes.

So: sign short term with both and rewrite after the exam, sign with one only, or wait six weeks and start clean as a licensee. Waiting costs me the momentum and maybe the clients.

Answer

2nataliehsuSO1BPRO7

Sign with one, and sign with the one paying on delivery.

The rewrite problem solves itself if you write a 60 day agreement instead of an open-ended one. Everybody signs 60 days, nobody thinks twice about it, and it expires right around your exam date so the renegotiation happens on a calendar date rather than because you asked for it. That's a much easier conversation than going back in May saying my situation changed.

On choosing between them, the $2,500 at close is a bet on a buyer you've never worked with, using your time as the stake, in zips where you don't yet know how fast anything moves. Investor one pays you for delivered work in March whether or not anything closes, which means in April you know your actual cost per accepted lead and you can price investor two properly instead of guessing. Get the data first.

And rigging is right that the overlap is a disclosure problem more than a legal one, right up until you're licensed, at which point how you handle two buyers competing for the same property is governed by your state's rules and your broker's policy, so ask the broker before you take on the second one. That's another reason to be single-client for the next six weeks.

The momentum worry is real but overstated. Investor two isn't going to forget you exist by May, especially if investor one is closing houses you found.

3 replies

1megan_doyle15 Get yours

The overlap thing seems solvable without any legal question at all. Just tell both of them up front that you work with two buyers in those zips and here's the order rule. If either one objects you've learned something before you started.

1chriswalton8CC1CPRO8

plumb's 60 day expiry is the cleanest part of this. I'd only add that you should agree in writing now what happens to a lead delivered in April that closes in June, because that's the exact deal that'll be sitting in the gap when the agreement ends and the license starts.