What would you actually put an investor agent through before signing anything

The walk-away question, easily. I'm planning one purchase and I'm slow about it, so the agent's incentive and mine point in different directions from day one. Anyone who can tell me about a client they lost a commission on because the septic came back bad has shown me something a spreadsheet can't.

Can I ask a basic one. When you say "tell me what you'd offer," what is the agent supposed to be solving for? Is there a standard formula, or is the point that they explain whatever formula they use? I've read the 70% rule twice and I still can't tell if it's a real thing or a slogan.

juniper, it's a rough shorthand for flips, and how much of a slogan it is depends on your market and your rehab cost. Ignore it for rentals.

sextant, my test is cruder than yours. I tell the agent to write an offer 22% under ask and I watch what happens in the next ten minutes. Half of them start explaining why the seller won't take it. The one I use now says fine, do you want an inspection period on it, and it's submitted before lunch. I don't need her math. I need her to not be the friction.

Two references from clients who bought more than once with them. Repeat buyers are the whole signal, and it takes one phone call.

In the county I look at there are maybe four agents who'll answer a call about a $70k house and one of them is also the auctioneer. Interviewing implies a pool. Out here you take the person who picks up and you do all the numbers yourself, and the fee conversation is short because nobody has a script for it. Not saying sextant's test is wrong, it just presumes a market with choices in it.

hollow, that's kind of my problem too, from the other direction. I don't know which strategy I'm running yet, so I don't know what to test for. The agent who's great for a BRRRR person and the agent who's great for someone buying a stabilized duplex don't look the same at all. Does anyone interview for that first, meaning do you tell them your strategy and see if they push back on it?

Rehab numbers, and I'll be blunt about why. Every agent estimate I've ever been handed came in low, usually by 30% to 40%, because they price cosmetic work and forget that opening a wall is a decision, not a cost line. So I ask for a past client's estimate next to what that client actually spent. If they've never followed up to find out, they don't know what their own numbers are worth.

For small multifamily I ask two building questions and listen. Which of these units are separately metered, and where's the boiler. An agent who has walked mechanical rooms in this stock knows immediately, and an agent who hasn't will read me the listing back. That tells me more than an offer price would, because the offer price on a 4-unit is mostly a function of the expense line I'm going to argue about anyway.

Nobody's mentioned the financing side. Ask them how many of their buy-side closings last year used a DSCR loan versus conventional, and what the appraisal came back as relative to contract on the last one. An agent who has never sat through a rental-underwritten loan will blow your timeline, and the terms and appraisal treatment shift often enough that you should get the current version in writing from the lender rather than the agent. That's still a fair test of whether they've been in the room.

Do agents even show up in note deals, or is that a completely separate world? Reading this thread it sounds like the whole job is property access, which I don't think applies to what I'm looking at.

I'd vote for the live listing test and I'm suspicious of myself for it, because it's the test I'd enjoy administering. sextant is right that I'll redo the numbers anyway. What has actually cost me deals is being slow, and no amount of agent underwriting fixes that. quarry's ten minute test is probably measuring the thing that matters more.

My test would be about the paper. Show me the buyer-broker agreement you're going to ask me to sign, before we talk about houses. Term length, what triggers the fee, how it works if the seller side offers nothing. If they can explain their own agreement without going to get their broker, they've thought about their business, and if they get defensive I've saved myself a month.

Five deals in, what turned out to matter was none of the above. It was her plumber and her property manager. The underwriting I do, the access was medium at best, but she handed me people who show up and that changed my hold costs more than any offer price she suggested. So maybe the test is ask who you'd call for me at 7pm on a Sunday, and see if a name comes out fast.

harrow's answer is the one I'd trust, coming from the tool side of this. I've walked houses where the agent's number for a kitchen was less than the cabinets. If I were interviewing one I'd ask them to price a specific thing I already know the cost of, panel upgrade or a sewer line, and see how far off they land. Being off is fine. Not knowing they're off is the problem.