A case worth studying: paying $3,000 for off-market deals and getting four MLS listings

Asking what an agent owns is one of the best filters available. Owning property does not automatically make an agent good, though it usually tells you whether they have ever sat on the other side of a vacancy. An agent who owns a few duplexes tends to talk about rent in real numbers, because they are the one collecting it. Worth pushing back on one point. The retainer itself was not really the failure here. Six months with him would have been wasted time regardless of the fee. The real failure was six months without a checkpoint. Setting a rule at week six, something like show me one property that isn't publicly listed or the arrangement ends, would have limited the exposure to $500 instead of $3,000.

I nearly did the same thing at a meetup last month, different arrangement but same feeling of saying yes because I liked the person. What does off-market actually mean when it's real? Is it a seller who hasn't listed yet, or is it something else?

@kevin_lombard what this looks like in practice is an agent who has a seller not currently on the market, usually because the agent has a relationship with them and knows they want to sell in the spring or want to avoid showings. The agent brings the listing before it's public. Everything else, expired listings and wholesaler blasts and pre-foreclosure lists that can be purchased, is public information with a delay on it. @angela_burke worth adding to that list, ask for the name of one investor client you can call. A real sourcing relationship will produce two names without hesitation.