Realtors would be in violation of the National Association of Realtors and in most cases their state laws for being paid for a CMA or BPO. Licensed appraisers have made a lot of noise about it in the recent past.
The best way is to become friendly with an agent, buy him lunch once and a while and discuss your local market with him, maybe even enlighten him on some of your creative methods. Once a rapport has been established he probably won’t mind doing the occasional CMA for you, especially if you refer him business from time to time. Local investors that have done business with me in the past are more likely to get me to spend some of my time on them, than someone that I don’t really know and don’t anticipate any business from.
That isn’t meant to be rude, but if an agent/ broker makes any kind of living from selling real estate he knows exactly what his time is worth and is not very likely to spend it on someone he doesnt’ know very well.
In an earlier post someone was asking about taking a salesperson course in order to access the MLS listing. Honestly, I have entertained the same idea, mainly to perform a CMA and obtain a list of comparable properties that have sold. Here in Indiana you are required to take continuing education course, which would cut into my investing time thus reducing profits, so I don’t think I will pursue that route.
Does anyone know of a way to obtain sales data (quickly & efficiently) on-line? I work with several brokers, but many are reluctant to provide CMA if it is not a property listed in the MLS (ie a property they will get paid for).
I live in a town of 6500 and only one of the real estate offices is a realtor. All the rest are just brokers. All of the agencies just traded their info with property info sheets to each office.
However just the other day I called my agent at one of the non-realtor agents and he told me the one that is a realtor is not sharing any more with the other non-realtors. So the only semblance of a MLS is between the non realtors and if you go to the only realtor well they can give you info on just their properties or from the MLS over in Kentucky.
So this question about getting a license to access the MLS always makes me laugh. I have considered it though to buy properties with an instant 3% equity stake
I got the license. It was a 30-40 hour course, two tests and a licensing fee. I then found an investor who has a broker license and, more importantly, was not going to RiDE ME TO PRODUCE. I signed on with him.
So far, it is working out. I am becoming known as an investor first and then as an agent. I get calls from people who are looking for HONEST answers about their properties and this opens doors for listings that I take at a discount.
Overall, I enjoy having the license. I am planning on getting a broker license and cutting out the middle man but that is over time.
For me, it was worth it. Continuing ed can be handled in one day and only costs around 99 bucks. Then there is renewal fees but that is deductible.
Be advised, in my state, in order to use the MLS you have to be licensed (i.e. have found a broker to sponser you) and be a member of the Realtors Association which means paying dues. These are usually very expensive and for a CMA not really worth while. Have you tried just offering the agents some money, a CMA only takes 5-10 minutes. Offer 10-20 dollars, hell you don’t get offered a dollar a minute very often.
