The buyer side is the weak side. It is a refuge for agents who don't prepare. I know these are harsh statements; however, agents who continually think about this business, practice in this business, and are successful in this business consistently carry large listing inventories. As I have said many times before, having listings is your least expensive and most effective way to find buyers. Even the top agents, who loathe spending their day as a tour guide and hire a buyer's agent at 50% of gross, still work with the occasional buyer generated from a listing.

I'm aware that you have to work with buyers because you have sellers who become buyers. You have referrals that need to be pampered. You have past clients who might not be willing to work with anyone else on your team. For over thirty years, I worked with buyers; however, it was a much lower number than sellers. I never spent any money in buyer lead generation. We have proven over the years the listing agents make more money than buyer agents.

When I did work with buyers, I always tried to do it as quickly as possible. I would accomplish this goal by first showing the best properties, slowly causing the buyer to long for those properties they saw early on as the day progressed! Of course, I only worked with the most motivated buyers. My other articles at www.waltersanaford.com will go into these strategies.

I also didn't show any short sale properties or REOs unless it was absolutely necessary. Why would you show inventory that you cannot control? You can't control an REO until the bank finally signs the contract and that could take weeks. If it was a good deal in the first place, it won't be after a few weeks when the listing agent shops your deal around town. And short sales? Who knows when they will close? Why waste a perfectly good buyer and your time on inventory that might not close? I want you to be aware that showing the best inventory first to a motivated buyer and showing the worst inventory last is a major ingredient to ending the tour guide job as soon as possible.

So, if you have to work the weak side of the business, don't be a wimp in getting the contract signed! Much to my dismay, some of my current coaching clients are still emailing their offers. They wait patiently (sometimes impatiently) for the listing agent to present to their seller then wait again for the listing agent to get back with a counter or acceptance.

I never played the waiting game and for good reason. When you give an offer to a listing agent, they have an opportunity to "shop" that offer to their "in house" compatriots or to "possible" buyers. Also, by not being in attendance during the offer presentation, you don't know the seller's "hot buttons," which might be easily satisfied with your buyer's abilities. If you are not there, you don't know what those buttons are! If I received any grief from the listing agent because I wanted to represent my buyer in front of their seller, I would explain that the buyer signed an agreement requesting my presence for all offers. If a personal presentation wasn't possible, I would request a teleconference. If that was not enough, I would contact their broker directly regarding the lack of cooperation of the listing agent. I wasn't going to lose a transaction based upon either slyness or ineptness of the listing agent.

I also knew that I did not want to walk away from the table without either an acceptance or a counter-offer. Once those goals were accomplished, I could simply walk outside to the waiting buyers, have them sign the agreement, and walk back in with a signed contract. Yes, I know this is aggressive real estate. In today's real estate, you most likely will have spent tens or hundreds of hours on developing a buyer transaction. Don't let it come down to whims of the listing agent.

To recap: we get the buyers interested in inventory that can actually be sold! We quickly show them the best inventory FIRST. We make certain that both the buyers and sellers needs can be met by attending the offer presentation. Present the counter-offer to your "buyer in waiting," and get their signature.

This is efficient real estate! It is also what needs to be done so you can get back to the best business of listing real estate.

Published: May 3, 2010

Use of this article without permission is a violation of federal copyright laws.

Beginning in the late seventies, Walter re-wrote records in real estate particularly in number of transactions and dollar volume. His best year was 1992 with $72 million in sales. In today’s economy, that would equal to over $133 million dollars per year in personal production sales! He sold a house a day for seventeen years. Now, he is one of the most requested trainers in real estate. Franchises request and mentor his systems, which he has developed. Delegation, net-profit strategies, working hard and still having a life are a few of the easy to implement, low-cost strategies that we are proud to bring you. Some industry decision-makers believe Walter Sanford was one of the top agents in North America during the ‘80s and early ‘90s. To contact Walter, you can email him at or by calling 815.929.9258.