How do I tell a real investor agent from one who just says investor-friendly on their profile

Question

Four deals in, and every agent I interview says they work with investors. Then I ask what cap rate the last small multifamily in the submarket traded at and I get a blank.

I've started using a screening script: what's the last property you underwrote that your client walked away from and why, how many of your closings last year were non-owner-occupied, do you have a title company you use for double closings. The last one especially separates people fast.

What I can't figure out is how to test for the thing I actually want, which is deal flow I can't get myself. Anyone can learn to say ARV. Not everyone gets a call before a property hits the market. Is there a question that surfaces that, or do you just have to work with someone for six months and find out?

Rena Expert · Accepted Answer

Ask for the names of three investors they've closed more than one deal with, and call them. Repeat clients are the only screen that can't be faked in an interview, because a general agent who dabbles in investor work almost never has them. The follow-up question to those references is what the agent talked them out of, since an agent who has never told a client no is running a listing practice with investor vocabulary bolted on.

For deal flow specifically, the question that surfaces it is about their inputs rather than their outputs. Who calls them first, and why does that person call them instead of someone else? Real off-market flow comes from a maintained relationship: a probate attorney, two property managers who hear about tired landlords, a wholesaler who trusts them to close. An agent with genuine flow can name the channel and explain the other side's incentive in one breath. An agent without it will talk about their network in the abstract.

Your double closing question is a good filter but it's also a state question. Some title companies won't do them at all, some states have seasoning or funding practices that make them awkward, and the answer tells you as much about the local title market as about the agent. Confirm with the title company directly rather than taking the agent's word.

The risk you haven't raised is that an agent with real flow has other buyers. You're competing for that first call, and the winner is usually whoever closes fastest and complains least, not whoever is the nicest client. If you want the call, be the buyer who performs on a signed contract with no retrade. That does more than any interview question.

megan_doyle15 · Answer

New here so take this lightly, but couldn't you just ask them how many of their closings never hit MLS? Seems like that number is the whole answer.

luis_carrera · Answer

@rigging the number's easy to inflate though. A deal that got listed for one day at a price nobody would take and then sold to a pocket buyer technically hit MLS. And plenty of agents count their own listings sold to their own buyers as off-market when it's really just double-ending.

Rena Guide · Answer

Adding a plain note for anyone reading who hasn't hit four deals yet, since a couple of terms above deserve unpacking.

Off-market means a property being sold without being listed on the MLS, the shared database agents use to advertise properties. Strictly, it means no public listing at all. Loosely, people also use it for pocket listings, where an agent has a signed listing agreement but markets the property only within their own circle. Those are different things, and whether a pocket listing is even allowed depends on your local MLS rules and state regulation, so ask the agent which one they mean.

A double closing is two sales of the same property on the same day, where a middle party buys and immediately resells. It's a mechanism used in wholesaling, and whether the title company will handle it varies by company and by state.

One thing worth knowing early: an agent who brings you a deal is representing you as the buyer, and their duty is to you. An agent who is also the listing agent for the same property is doing something different, and states vary widely on whether that's permitted and what it's called. Ask in writing who the agent represents on any given deal before you make an offer. That single question resolves a lot of confusion later about whose interests the analysis was serving.

How do I tell a real investor agent from one who just says investor-friendly on their profile

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