KGCI: Real Estate on Air - How to Use the MLS to Find Deals and Gain Market Knowledge

Episode Date: April 5, 2026

Summary:This episode is a tactical masterclass on how to use the MLS to its fullest potential, moving beyond basic searches to find hidden opportunities and become a true market expert. The discussion covers advanced search techniques, setting up custom alerts, and analyzing data to spot trends that other agents might miss. The episode provides actionable advice for both new and experienced agents on how to leverage the MLS to find investment deals, identify motivated sellers, and gain a competitive edge in their local market.

You're listening to the Investor Agent Nation podcast, empowering agents and investors to collaborate effectively and grow their businesses symbiotically. Your host, Randy Zemnock and Eric Gross, share real-life case studies, trending tactics, and expert strategies that have helped them to accomplish over $1 billion in sales volume. Whether you're a seasoned agent looking to expand your business or an investor seeking to optimize your returns, you're in the right place. This is the Investor Agent Nation podcast. Doing this, I actually did this with one of the first flippers that I worked with. And it was really tough. When I first started working with him, it was literally right after COVID. It was really tough to come by deals, surprisingly, in the Cincinnati area, at least off market.

There was a lot of wholesalers that were trying to figure out ways to get in houses. A lot of people were comfortable with that kind of contact. A lot of people were still trying to figure things out. So me and him were discussing. and there was a hot word search on the Cincinnati MLS where you can put in just what would be in the normal listing description. I think every MLS should be every MLS across the country has something similar, like a keyword, a hot word, something like that. So we actually sat down for a couple hours and just thought of like every thing we could possibly think of, probate, East State, TLC, literally anything you could think of. it continued to go.

You know, handyman special, plumbing needed, stuff like that. We kind of grouped the words together, throw them on there, cash as is. And then what I did is I took that email and that MLS search, I made me the client. And I sent the search to me directly. So every morning our Cincinnati had updates at 3 p.m. So every day at 3 p.m. I'd open up my phone and I'd go through the five or six properties that would fit. And we always went with, we did the zip codes that we preferred.

And then we also did like a price point. So like we weren't doing just to try and keep it reasonable. We weren't doing houses less than like 80,000, 70 or 80,000 because anything less than that at the time was a tear down. And we weren't doing anything more than 300,000 because anything more than 300,000 if it was a flip, it was going to put you at the top of the market in Cincinnati. So just knowing the numbers, that's going to be an Airbnb like 6, 700. You really limit your buyer pool, especially at that time. now prices have gone up. So we did this and we found a ton of deals off of it actually.

I think we actually, one year we did just with him alone, I think we did 26 flips. And I think 17 of them were strictly just MLS. So the majority of our flips. And like every like real estate meetup that we were going to, they're like, how the heck are you doing this? I'm like, well, we get 10 properties a day. Like four of them would work out numbers wise. And we keep an eye on them.

We let the one or two days go by where people were just fitting it up like crazy. And the other one or two properties that remained were like, well, there's a reason they did. So let's go see it and see if we can't solve the problem or figure out something that other investors are missing out on. So we just did that consistently. So now that we're in Tampa, let me see if I can do this. I should just go straight to them. Yeah. So we did this and Tampa.

I do this kind of, I still do it in Cincinnati. To me, it's a great way to kind of get an idea to see where price points are going. So I always, when I do this, I get a good idea of like how quickly homes are moving, investment properties at least so I can keep my investors up to date. I get a good idea on like what price points are. And then I always run the comps on all these properties. So kind of subconsciously what I'm doing is I'm keeping a pulse on every neighborhood in the market. So we're not agents, both in Tampa and Cincinnati.

We're not agents that we only work one zip code or one neighborhood. Like we work everywhere. So to me, being that market knowledge for everywhere, like in Cincinnati, if you were like, hey, this house is located within this pocket. These are, and this is in the trash box from the other day because I was trying to find a good property. So this is how the email through Tampa comes through, and I'll actually, I'll do a bigger screen for you guys. Then I'll exit out of it when I'm done. So this is what it would look like for Tampa. So it's Pascoe and Panales counties.

I just have a search set up. Goes to me every morning. It typically comes into my inbox at 6.18 a.m. So it's usually around 6 a.m. every morning. And at first, when I first started doing this, I was down Randy, I literally had to go into every single one of these properties, and I just ran comps on all of them. And it doesn't mean I had to save the comps or do any analysis with it,

but I would run the comps and say, okay, well, this is the ARV and Newport Richie. For St. Pete, this is probably ARV because it's a three-bed, one bath, 900 square feet, so 325 is probably going to get, there's not going to be a lot of meat on the bones. Again, Newport Richie, it's farther away from Tampa, so it's going to be this price point. So I would run the comps until I got to the point where I could scroll through these, and then one like this, which is in Clearwater, which is voted one of the best beaches in the nation. And it has a ton of Airbnb, long-term rental.

It has a ton of people that are looking to move there. So for a four-bed, three-bath, 1,500 square feet, it was priced at 370. after a while of running these and knowing what was going in clear water, how far away from the beach you had to be and everything like that, I saw this property come through and I was like, okay, this actually looks like it might be one that works. Like it might be one that is worth running.

So what I do is I literally do this on my phone every morning. I take a screenshot of the property. And then later when I get some free time during the day is when I run the comps. So I pulled it up just a quick one real quick. So this is like what the property would look like on the MLS. I just keep it within a quarter mile. I know that the Tampa MLS is pretty good with like letting me know the last time it's sold and everything like that. I know that they tried to list it and it canceled so I can go back to that original listing and see why.

They were at 350 and they tried it. It's active at 370. This one's actually still active, which is kind of funny because it's been on and off quite a bit. But it's back active. It's a four bed, two and a half bath, 1,500 square feet. So typically when I'm running these comps, I'm just going through and looking for something that's similar. similar bed bath and square feet count and then I'll click it

once I get into there and I have it over here so let me find it real quick here we go we're just going to leave that don't do this to me and move that off to the side I know yeah I just don't want to hit the night

because it's not going to say it this is why I don't if anybody wants to know I hate Apple this is this is like top five reason for me so these would be the Compside run now again this is a little bit easier of a form just like running comps down here compared to Cincinnati. I can run a comp down here in maybe like five minutes, like two minutes. And Cincinnati it takes like five to ten.

So the information sounds readily available. So here's the active. We got a four to a half bath, one half bath, one half bath, one car garage space, no pool. So anything that has a pool like this, Cleveland, I would take out of it and everything like that. So I ran these properties. I would run them in the morning. And then what I would do, because I don't need that anymore, pull this up here, is I actually created this spreadsheet for all of my investors. I have no problem sharing this. It took us a while to get it up and running.

But I have this spreadsheet that I created for all of my investors. So I put the address in there, and it's just, it makes it easy because I can share it off to them pretty quickly. So they have access to it. They can jump into this whenever they want. So it has the address. It has the list price. It has what we offered, because some of these we actually offered on, just sight unseen, whether the offer was rejected, counteroffer, and like some of the status, we just have, like,

comps sent because some of them we didn't submit an offer on it. We have, so I actually went out to the property on these, and I don't want to play it, because I'm sure you guys don't want to listen to me talk, but I actually went out to the property on these, the ones that worked that we had a counteroffer, that it made sense, and just took a day, went out, took a, took a, quick five minute video on my phone, uploaded into a Google folder, and just full transparency.

Cincinnati, I could probably go in and get, you know, right on the head for a rehab budget. And Tampa, the costs are more expensive and the contractors are more expensive. So instead of doing that,

what I've been doing is I'm actually taking these videos, I'm saying it to the investor and I'm saying, hey, new floor, new paint, new cabinets. I'm taking like my old Cincinnati rehab numbers, and I'm just literally almost doubling it just to start out. And I'm saying, hey, have your contractor, go take a look at it and they get back to me

on what you think the numbers are. So Eric, I want to ask you something. So on this particular example, right, on row seven, three, you just lost, what is it? Go up. Yeah, so three, nine, one, 16. having you. So you went to the property at what point? Because I know you don't go out to the property right away. You go there when, what? Once we got the counter, that made sense. So our

original offer on this was 190. They countered back. It was listed at 224. They countered back and they got like 215. And I said, okay, we're at least got some like wiggle room. So how did you determine what to offer? Did anyone go look at it or you just did it all based on your experience now in terms of like okay and we know the ARVs around here and based on the pictures it's probably going to be roughly X amount to rehab and here's the offer that our investors is willing to pay that you know after reviewing the photos like how did that take us through that yeah so the way we determined the offer was so like 350 i know that most of my investors want to be all in about 70 75 so i took the 350 multiplied it by the 75 looked at the photos and just said i don't see this being more

like a 60K rehab. So, or I'd say like, you know, just off the top 60K rehab. Now, I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing this. I don't like the offering side unseen, but some of the investors that have access to this folder really don't care. Like they'll do it. They'll lose the earnest money for one. Like they're just like what it is, what it is.

$1,000. I don't care. $2,000 non-refund one. It is what it is. I don't necessarily recommend it, but with a lot of these, like they're going to counter. They're not going to accept it. because we're low-balling them.

So when they counter, if it's like one of them, and I was telling you, Randy, one of them literally countered at, like it was listed. Let me see if I can find it. Let's just stick to the 190. So they countered back from 190 to 215. And then that's where you were like,

okay, let me go now, take a look at it because we're close. And we might come back with a 200 or 205, and maybe the numbers will still make sense. Honestly, to spread on. that one, the 340 to 350, the investor was actually okay with offering their ask. Because it was a pretty minor rehab. It wasn't very big. So he was okay with actually offering their ask on that. He was like, let's see if we can get some more numbers down. Now,

Palmetto, just part of Tampa, it's closer to Bradenton, not very great. The street was 50-50. I still feel pretty confident in the ARV, but we went and walked the property and like landscaping needed a lot. Like it was pretty bad. Whoever left, It just literally left it. It's wood siding. So down in Florida, you don't necessarily want wood siding. It rains a lot. It's very high humidity.

So once we got that counter, we just ended up letting it be. Because I went and walked it. And I was like, hey, you know, honestly, we're probably a little bit off. Like, this was going to be a lot more than we expected. So then what happened on that one? Then you finish. I want to know. So we ended up, we, after we ended up walking it.

So we ran it, we offered on it. We were comfortable with asking price. They came back with a little bit down. And he said, he was like, you know, I'm kind of comfortable with where it's at. Let's go take a video. So I went and took a video. I had a hard time getting in the property. But I gave him an idea of what the scope was going to be.

I went back to the agent. I said, hey, we're pretty much going to be at that 190. He was like, for now, we're probably going to stick. And then we color coded the spreadsheet. So somebody else ended up coming in an offering on it. So it's pending. And then we go in and check these and see where they're at in terms of their status. Because, let me find this North Cyrus one.

Like I said, it's gone on and off multiple times. This is one that was highlighted red, went back, not red, vice versa, just kept happening. So what does that way? What does red mean or not? Yeah. So red means pending in the mispurple. mean sold. Okay, got it.

Yeah, and we're going to put a sold in here as well. Sold 173-9. So I think they took off like $1,300 from the list price. It was next to nothing. And then for these notes, like I had stuff too. So we did put pending in years before we decided to color code it, but not offering only part ownership being sold. So this is actually this West Marjorie was a really good deal numbers-wise.

I don't know. Yeah, this West Marjorie one was a really good deal numbers. wise. And the more we dug into it, it just kept getting weirder and weirder. Like it's, you only were buying 88% of the property ownership. So there's still going to be somebody who owned 12%. So when you go to sell, you'd have to like figure out a way to get them to release that 12% either with a payoff or something. It was just a bunch of stuff. The septic failed, the well failed. So they had all that on the notes. So go back.

I want to just kind of bring this home, this topic here. So based on what I'm hearing is that you have the spreadsheet, right? You're not going to these properties. And I agree. Like once you get good on market analysis and you start understanding the rehab numbers that your investors are using, we stopped going to properties as well until we got basically a counterback or, you know, to that nature. then we would go and look at it and re-inspect it. So that's really the only way you can scale that, right?

Because it's impossible for Eric to go to all these 25 properties. Like, that's ridiculous, right? And it seems like you submitted offers out of these, whatever, 25 on the spreadsheet. You submitted one, two, three, four, five, six. Six offers were submitted. And then where it says comps sent, then the investor, chose not to submit offers. Is that?

Yeah. Yeah. And some of them, so some of them we submitted an offer, like this one, this West Marjorie, the offer was sent and we literally just rescinded because there was so much with that property, the more we just kept taking into it. Like as we're writing, like, as the offer was being finalized, once we finally got the property disclosure from the agent and everything else, I'm like, this is the worst thing I've ever seen.

So we were just like, just take it off. So, but yeah, like Sixth Avenue once we offered, we went out and looked at it. Radcliffe, once we offered, we went and got a counter. We went and looked at it. Monitor once we offered and got it accepted, we went and looked at it. And this one actually was a weird one too because we had the conversation with our investor that, hey, this is actually a duplex, not a single family. It's listed as a single family.

So I'm like, we're still keeping an eye on this to see if it falls out. but they had it listed way lower than they should have. And when we sent the original offer and got the counter, that wasn't something we expected. By the time I made it out there a day later, they had an offer accepted, but we would have been much higher had we known that. Yeah.

So like how many weeks, it would be good to kind of know, like, what are we looking at? This is like a month or two of you being out there looking for good opportunities. What is this equal to roughly? This is all about two weeks, actually. So when we came down to Tampa, we actually took a little hiatus.

And then once we started with our investors, we were just gathering numbers, getting on wholesalers list. The other thing I'm going to start adding into this, as something I've thought about recently, what I want this to be is like any investor that we work with, I want this to be like their main hub, almost like an investor in the less.

I want them to be able to come in and have our comps, which they're sent via email to these investors, but I'm going to attach them right here to there's going to be another field beside photo video. I wanted to have comps. I wanted to have photo video if it's a good enough deal where we'll just go out there and take a look at it, have the numbers, have the list price, have everything we can in it. And then investors can go in and just call us and say, hey, this one looks like a good deal. Let's go ahead and write an offer. Hey, this one looks like a good deal.

let's go ahead and write an offer. And how long did it take you to, you know, learn the market values roughly, right? I mean, let's say you're not an expert, of course, of Tampa yet, but area. But what did that take you? How many months or, I don't know, weeks, like, were you felt comfortable? I would say just a couple weeks because you'll start to notice, like, and that doesn't mean that even in Cincinnati, like there's pockets that are really tough to nail down. But it doesn't take much more than a couple weeks to understand.

that like a 3-1 in this location is going to go for roughly this amount or with the square footage. You'll learn pretty quickly how much a pool actually adds in the market. Garages and some locations, garages aren't important. And Florida, just with storms, a lot of people prefer a garage. So that actually does have a pretty large impact on value. Same with Cincinnati. It's cold, it's snowy. A lot of people want garage just for storage. So here, I mean, really, we, you know, we feel pretty comfortable, at least on the locations we focus in on. Okay, cool. So it's good because, I mean, we literally did something very similar. We did it, you know, in-house for ourselves. We were the investor, you know, submitting offers and had spreadsheets like this and we still do.

Now we use Podio. I don't know if you guys heard of Podio, but it's a software that you can customize it like tremendously with a lot of different tasks. You can put in their notifications that just kind of thinks for you, right? Versus a Google sheet, you have to kind of remember to check it and follow it and, you know, color code it. So like literally that's what I had similar to what Eric is saying when we were starting out. we had a Google sheet with just a bunch of color coding, right?

And we only went through a small percentage of those houses, right? But you could only really do that when you start having confidence in market values, a little bit of context on the rehab numbers, so you can start understanding what your investors, you know, rough numbers are. And those numbers, honestly, you can find out from those serious investors. Like, hey, if I showed you this property, would you, you know, off the MLS and you're looking at photos, assuming he needs this, this, this, this and this, what number would you throw out? And the serious ones, they will be able to.

Like, oh, yeah, that's like typical, whatever, 80 grand, right? Perfect. And eventually you're going to start having that number gauge and where you can literally do that on their behalf, because at the end of the day, there's not much they're going to, there's not much on the risk, like, risk factor. Like, if they just submit an offer, they see an offer in an inbox from Eric, they're going to just trust him that he ran the numbers based on their experience and conversations that they've had leading up to it. And they're going to just start signing offers, right? And then boom, Eric is submitting these offers like it's every week, few offers go out, few offers go out. And then what I know from my experience, and I want to ask you, Eric,

We found that most of the properties we ended up getting are when the first one falls out of escrow. Like it falls out and it's the prime time for the investor who follows up, which in this case is you or it was us. And then boom, snatch that property up. Right. Yeah. Ours was definitely following up. But too, like there's a lot of sellers out there that just love the like there's a lot to an investment offer, like an investor's offer that is a huge. we close in seven days.

We do no inspections. And this was in Cincinnati down here. Investors are a little bit different just because of insurance reasons and stuff like that. But you can kind of make the offer stand out. So we'd be one of the lowest offers on the pole. And I was like, that's the least amount of stress. Like I'm going with that one. Or it was a situation where they had to get out and they had to move somewhere so they

would go with us. So that, I mean, that was probably our biggest thing. They were just like, you're not going to do inspection. or anything like that. I, yeah, so I want to share something on that. And after I'm done, I want you to share what you share with me a few days ago about how you go after, you know, the ones that are sitting there longer, right? Because I love that strategy.

And I think most investors don't pay any attention to it. So keep that thought. But what I was going to add on what you were saying is one of the things that I know work for us too is when we're, you know, wanting to submit an offer, one of the questions we can ask the agent, like, look, how much time, you know, would we have or can you give us if we were to submit an offer that has no contingencies, close in seven days with no contingencies for our investor who's really serious, can you give us three days to run our inspections, right? When are you reviewing offers?

And how much weight will that carry for the seller if they saw an offer with no inspection contingency? Basically, that's it. If they accept it, it's a done deal. And if you of the agents will tell you like, oh, look, like they would love that because they actually just fell out of escrow and they just had a terrible experience with this first investor. they just want to be done with it. So if you can be anywhere close to this number and you wave inspections, I can tell you're going to rise to the top, right? And that's the nuggets I'm looking for.

Like, what is it that's going to allow my offer to rise to the top, maybe not as the highest offer, but the best terms, right? And then boom, that's the magic words I want to hear. And then I would literally go and that's where you do want to then go to the property at that point, right, including with your, you know, GC or whoever you're using. So you can with confidence, remove all your contingencies and then submit an offer that you have to then buy at at that point, right? And that has worked for us over time many, many times, but you need to make sure that they give you that, you know, time and tell you that, look, we're not going to review offers. The next offers

are coming in for the next three days. So if you can get me that offer before that, I feel like, you're going to have a really good chance because of coming in as is with no inspections. Because I know most investors, they will submit a seven-day closing, 10-day closing, and most will have a three- or four-day inspection contingency. So it still gives them that out. So it still leaves that doubt for the seller or the listing agent as well. And that is sometimes enough to bump them in second position, especially if they just lost an escrow if they if the first investors backed out like they they don't want to deal with it anymore

you know so that's something i wanted to share that really worked for us but i'm going to go back to you eric talk about that like how you use that other strategy uh that i started talking about of properties that are sitting on a market longer yeah so the thing we ran into after doing this for a while um because like i said we did most of our deals uh off of the mLS deals was then it got so competitive like right after the COVID. Like there were so many investors out there that we just, we kind of lock anything up on market. We're like, what is going on?

Like these other people were willing to outfit us. They were willing to do. So what we ended up deciding to do was I would go on there and I would actually start looking at stuff that had hit on day market targets. So, and it just depends like Cincinnati right now are on day market averages two days. So if something says for two weeks, then I would say there's probably a good chance. that, you know, there's, it's going to take some sort of offer less than. And then if it's been on for like down here, our average days on market is 50.

So if it's been on for two weeks, it's still in a prime bang when the seller's like, hey, we've got plenty of time. So we try to look for ones that have been sitting on the market for a little bit longer. And we find out why. Like sometimes it's, you know, the monitor one that I was showing you in Sarasota. It's a duplex. Sometimes agents just list things wrong. Some people see opportunities that they miss.

Some people run their comps incorrectly. Sometimes they have a high scope. So there's a lot that kind of goes into it that we would look at. Yeah. And what do you call that? But when it comes to those in particular, what do you? I guess, you know, did you ever hear? I'm sure this is part of the story.

Like, because usually it's overpriced, right? When it's sitting there longer and the seller is stubborn for the first, let's say, month or more. have you heard those stories and then all of a sudden the agent is giving you the insights about it and then say look i think the seller is kind of getting fed up a little bit and it's all about more it's more timing at that point more than anything and you can slip right in and then get it for let's say a hundred thousand dollars less than what it's listed for which would shock more people right yeah and two sometimes when stuff is overpriced like sometimes when stuff is overpriced nobody

offer. It's like the sellers overpriced and I can throw in an offer. It's like what's the worst they can say? But typically if we knew that it was sitting just because it was overpriced, like maybe scope wasn't that crazy or anything like that. It was just sitting because it was overpriced. What we would do is we just talk to the agent and they would typically, you know, they complain to us sadly where agents and they're like, hey,

there sucks. Like I want to get this listing sold wherever price. Like obviously you can see that. So I would always talk to the listing agent and say, well, do you want us just to throw in an offer? That way you can, you can submit it to your buyer. buyers and that way you can say, hey, this is what people think their property is work. And I was like, we're not just going to like throw in some crazy super low offers or a legit offer,

but would you like us to throw it in? You can take it to your buyer and see what they think of it. And then it kind of gives that buyer like a, oh, this is what, or that seller, this is what my property is. This is what people think it's work or this is the offer we have on the table. Maybe I was to have. Yeah, got it. Yeah.

I know. So don't, I guess what I want to make sure everybody gets out of this. Like, don't disregard those high price list homes where numbers completely make no sense because you never know what the story is. And I know a lot of times it's the agent that's getting more frustrated than anything, but they didn't want to say no to the listing, right? And they sit on the listing and then eventually they start basically getting feedback for their own client and be like, look, here here's one offer we just got.

It's $100,000 less or $50,000 less. So most likely this is where we're going to land, but the seller might still be in denial, right? And all you have to do is stay in touch, stay in touch with that agent until eventually that seller gets to reality. And the truth is there is a high chance. There's no other offers on the table except yours. Yeah. There's one that we, I've told this one before, but it actually fits perfectly with this. There's one that because we did this, I kept appearing in my email up in Cincinnati.

And I'm like, this house just like, it won't sell. I don't know what it is. So I checked the days on market for Zillow and had been on for like 300 and or maybe even 400 days. Like it had been on for over a year. I know that. So it was like 309, like 400 days. So I called the agent. Like what is going on with this?

So the property was being sold by American homes for rent, which is just a company that, you know, they buy en masse and they just rent it out. It's usually just a bunch of hedge fund money purchasing it. So the property had literally the listing description said, cash only property cannot be financed basement has major foundational issues so we went and walked it it was listed at 230 we went and walked it the basement was fine the sum pump was not turned on nobody had it plugged in or operating so there was moisture sitting down there so they were like foundation is shot like it's over so it was at 230 we offered 150 they took 165 we put 10 into it we sold it for 240 and the appraiser was like we just saw it

was like recently bought and i explained it to him like dude this is like they listed it wrong and like the foundation's fine we have a structural engineer report right here that says there's nothing wrong with this foundation they didn't have a sum pump plugged in and there's moisture in the basement because of it so and it was just sitting there and been on for like 400 days people wanted an offer on it they were scared people see foundation issues and they freak we went and looked at it and it was a sum pump not plugged in so wow that's not yeah yeah and it was i didn't think our offer was going to get accepted. I was mad at my investor because like after we walked and I'm like, dude, we can offer like 180 on this and you're still going to get out clean.

And he's like, let's do 150. And I was like, why? Like, don't do this. Like this is. And we did 150 and they're like, they came back like 170. We're like, okay, 165. We'll call it a day. And it was just a home run deal. Cool. So any questions on that? Because I want to actually show my MLS a few things I want to show on it. But anybody has any questions for Eric, anything he shared so far? Because I know he, you know, we talk fast at times. I have a couple of questions. It's definitely me.

I'm sorry. So, Eric, I might have missed this at the beginning, but the ones that you're making offers on, who's making those offers? Are you doing it or are you working with an investor? So we're working on, we're working with an investor and making the offers. But I'm honestly at the point now where if the deal, deals fits I might just offer on it. If the deal has enough numbers are like has enough meat on the bone, I might just offer on it and then figure out a way that just double in or double close a wholesale.

Because there's ones that run across where investors, the one thing that you'll kind of learn with some investors that they love to drag their feet, like it's like hurry up and wait. So like some of my investors are like, oh, I love it. I love it. And then it's like, okay, let's get an offer. And it's like four days later we're submitting an offer. And like what has happened in this timeframe? So, but yeah, it's my investors that are offering. So as an EXP agent, you haven't run into any issues with wholesaling yourself, assigning contracts? It's different to every state.

We're not necessarily assigning it. We're just riding as buyers agents. And then if we did, if I did purchase them and wholesale, I would double close or I would wholesale. So I'd purchase it in my name with the cash we have. and then get it over. And Philip, too, I know your question is very specific, and I know we have a mix of agents,

so this is not just for EXP agents. But to answer your question in general terms, you should not have issues, and let's talk offline. Okay, okay, cool. There's ways to do it without getting in trouble. And then somebody else asks, are you writing all assignable contracts?

Some of my investors do what? Florida's really weird, if you look at the way the contract is set up, up you can have you can it's a field on the contract it's assignable and with uh with release and then assignable without release so and the with releases you're releasing all of your you can assign the contract and have no risks so it goes on to if it falls through you don't lose your earnest money or anything like that without risk or without release is like yeah you'd get in trouble or you could be sued or lose your earnest money okay cool and then i i have to

had another quick question. I was at an investor event, a networking event a couple weeks ago, and I met this wholesaler. And he was interested in working with me to get access to my MLS account. And he was telling me that if you allow me to use your MLS account, then I, if I find deals, then I will use you or I will have whoever the buyer is, you would be representing that buyer as the agent. And it sounds like you're essentially doing that with your working, you're researching on the MLS. You're essentially doing that yourself. Yeah. I couldn't, I didn't feel comfortable giving some other third party access to my MLS. I wouldn't give it to somebody you don't trust.

I will say that my MLS access in Cincinnati, hopefully nobody from Cincinnati is watching this, is shared with many of people. So my login, that people I trust, like my hard money lenders and stuff, if they need to run comms, I have no problem throwing my MLS access to log in to do it.

Wouldn't give it to a third party person. We're kind of doing it in a way, but also you, the way I would pitch it to him would say, hey, we can't give our MLS access. I can get in trouble. trouble by my board. Why not instead, if you find a property, I'll run the numbers necessary. All of the, it's an IDX feed. All of our properties that are on the MLS are also on Zillow.

I mean, honestly, half the properties I found weren't even the email search. They were literally just on Zillow because I would, and out of bored and would start searching Zillow, find a property that have been sitting for a while. So why not, hey, you look at Zillow or something like that or I'll bring some properties to your attention. That way you can build that relationship. And if you're not comfortable with it, you're not just kicking the guy to to the road. So, Philip, I've had that happen a lot, right? Because the investors in my area know, like, I'm not going to go out there and do what Eric is doing. I choose not to do that. That's not my business plan where I'm going and hunting for opportunities for them, submitting offers. That's just

not my style. But, and I tell them, look, you've got to build as many relationships with agents as possible, right? And even go through the listing agent, if you can, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's my way of doing business, period. And then I end up getting the listing usually on the back end. That's what I'm after, right? But what I would say is like the ones that I got to know and I built trust with and I like them and they're serious, I would not give them an MLS access one because most MLSs have a IP tracking and eventually they might actually find you.

So that's common. but some states allow an MLS assistant login. So you're in California, right? Philip? Right. Right. So California, at least Southern California, they allow it. So you have to check with your board, right?

And you can actually sign up that investor as your assistant for the MLS. And then they're going to have their own login and that they pay for. And it's like cheap. It's like one thing. 50 a year, right? But now you're completely kind of removed from doing something that you're not allowed to, right? Because now they have their own login. They can do what they need to do, right? But again, would I do that with like someone I just met on, you know, a networking event and then set up an MLS login next, you know, assistant next week? No, right? I would get to know them. I would

understand the business model. I would build that relationship. And then with those, I'm fine. Literally, when I had my own brokerage years ago, I mean, we probably had like 20 MLS assistants. Like, and I, we would spread them out through different realtors, you know, that were working with investors. And then like, yeah, because if I, if they find stuff, because that cuts a lot of work from you, the agent, right? If they can go on there and they could do their own comms, they can do all the research that takes a lot of time, which that's why I'm like, man, Eric, what he does is amazing. you have to get good at it in order to be able to do what Eric is doing. And you can't go to all the properties. Like that's impossible, right?

But check with your state and then check, really check with your board if they even have that as an option. And that you can always kind of have in the back of your pocket, Philip with the serious investing. We're like, look, I can't give you mine. However, here's what I could do. Right. Yeah, I think that's what he was proposing,

was that he would be set up as kind of an assistant. Yeah. So then get to know them and then that could work. That's not that big of a deal. Like there's very little he could do and mess up because he's not a realtor. He can't go and look at houses. He will not get access to the key cards. He will not get access to contracts.

He literally only will have access. It's like imagine Zillow had a password. Like that's all it is. So it's like, I don't. really see a much of liability for you, right, with that person, but I also wouldn't just give it to anybody. Right. Yeah. Okay. I would say our MLS is like, at least Cincinnati's, is like, it's just so it's literally no different just with some search tools. So like if it had any personal information there, it'd be a no-go, but I don't put my clients in there or anything.

I do all my searches through my website. But I mean, I'd do it. It's a good way to, I mean, the assistant route, but it's a good way to build a relationship. that have a conversation with him. And you could also probably figure out how often he's in that MLS or what he's looking at and follow up with him that way. And every time they log in, they think of you. Yeah. Right.

Like, oh, I have access to it because of Philip. So there is a high chance that then that investor will think of you and include you when he can in their transactions. Right. So, yes, I think it's something to really consider, but build a relationship. And then we have a we have another person to chat. Lois said she's concerned about it in Illinois. I'm assuming the assignable contracts wholesaling. Yeah.

I already, I talked to Louise. Yeah. So her and I had several conversations about it. So we're. Yeah. States are cracking down on it a little bit. Every brokerage is going to have their own rules and guidelines. And I can tell you some big brokerages, just straight up saying no wholesaling as an agent.

And that also was the way it was at EXP, but things are changing. And they're being open to it, but you have to get approved. And I know how to get approved. So just, you know, again, I don't want to take this conversation to a conversation about EXP because there's other agents here from other companies. So let's stick to the topic. We have less than nine minutes left. Here's what I want to show real quick.

So this is more on the market side, like when you're analyzing your market. And, you know, it's crazy how quickly Eric has learned his market and, you know, his new market in Tampa. But it's really truly possible when you have access to the MLS. It's that easy. But one big mistake, I mean, there's few, but one big mistake that I see a lot of new investors and new realtors do is, you know, when they analyze ARVs. Right. And one of the things that I don't know if, you know, everybody knows this, but like if someone, if there is a rehab opportunity on the busy street, I don't just, you know, go and basically,

let's say it's, you know, let's say it's on right here on Crown Canyon Road, the property. And I have to pull comps. And I want to use the map view, which I do a lot, right, to pull the comps. I don't just go and draw a polygon, you know, as close, you know, what they say within one square mile, which I try to be even closer. I don't just do that, right? Because will that really get me the comments I'm looking for? The chances of finding another property by just doing the polygon or one mile radius on the busy street, the chances of finding that are low. So instead, first, what I try to do. Let me

cancel that out. And then I say, okay, how many busy streets do we have around this area? There's a couple. All right. So then I'm going to go and I'm going to draw a bunch of these

polygons. And I'm going to be very, very specific to stay on the busy street. Literally, I keep, I will do this over and over again. And then I would add another polygon. Stay by the busy street like this. And I would have 10 of these polygons all over the radius, right?

Because I'm honestly want to compare apples to apples, right? Because it is so hard to adjust pricing if something is not on a busy street versus being. And if your subject property is on a busy street, like, good luck. Like you can't just use non-busy street and here's how I would do it, right? I would even go to the point where I would rather stay within, let's say, the rate that's close. I like, you know, half a mile radius or less. And I honestly don't even use the radius. I only use the polygon because I know that if I cross over this street, things can change.

If I go over this highway, things can change. And then I, you know, if it's a busy street scenario, then I do literally this. And if still no comps show up, then I would rather go back more than six months, like even 12 months, then go further out. And here is why, because markets, I mean, the regions can change dramatically if I go further out. But if you start understanding your market and how the market has appreciated in that pocket over time, I can easily adjust a comp that. sold, let's say, 12 months ago on the busy street compared to what it should sell for today because it's on a busy street. And I also know the appreciation factor for that market in general. And at least I'm comparing a busy street com versus a busy street com. So the only thing now I

got to figure out is what is the appreciation that has taking place in 12 months in this area. For more insights and to join the Investor Agent Nation community, visit investoragentnation.com. If you like this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a five-star rating to help Randy and Eric continue delivering valuable content that resonates with you. Thanks for listening to the Investor Agent Nation podcast.