2023 was a tough year for the real estate industry. High interest rates, record low sales volume, anemic inventory and massive upheaval following the shocking $1.8 billion adverse judgment in the first (of many) commission lawsuits.
As we head into 2024, we’re facing the likelihood of another year of uncertainty in the real estate market.
Upheaval. Disaster. Catastrophe. Hope. Opportunity.
Sounds like the perfect time to launch a new real estate newsletter.
So here it is – The Investor-Friendly Agent.
As the name suggests, it’s a newsletter that helps investor-friendly agents close more deals with private, institutional and prop tech investors.
It figures out where all the investor deals are happening, who are the main buyers and sellers, and how agents can get in on the action and grab a slice of the commission pie.
The newsletter is a standalone publication, containing unique content, delivered by email, once a week, and all content is available exclusively within the email.
Whoa! A Newsletter? Like it’s 1999?
Yes, a newsletter. They’re back in fashion.
It turns out that people still love email and are willing to open and read emails. They want the subject line to tell them what the email is about, the first paragraph to summarize the content (TL;DR) and they don’t want to click a “read more” link and be redirected out of the email to a blog or website.
Fair enough. I can do that.
Why a Newsletter?
The Investor-Friendly Agent newsletter is a top-of-the-funnel tool to provide relevant and quality information to a very targeted audience.
It’s the front door to my creative platform, called the Investor Broker platform, that includes social media, a website and a community, all built to attract and engage investor-friendly agents.
A place where we can all get together and figure out how to be successful agents.
An Audience of Investor-Friendly Agents
My audience is a niche audience of real estate agents (and transaction pros) who work with real estate investors.
The first filter is that I’m looking for licensed real estate agents, brokers and professionals.
I’m not looking for just any licensed agents, but rather agents with the mindset and skill set to close residential investment property deals.
Note that I’m distinguishing residential investment real estate from commercial real estate.
Residential investment real estate is made up of residential property, primarily condo, single family and small multifamily property, that is purchased for investment.
My audience is licensed, investor-friendly agents who close residential real estate investment deals.
How Big is the Investor Friendly Agent Audience?
There are currently around 3 million licensees and 1.5 million registered Realtors in the USA (NAR).
I truly don’t have any stats to back this up, but I estimate that around 10% of Realtors have the mindset and skill set to work with serious investors.
This means that my audience is around 150,0000 investor-friendly agents.
Goal one is to get 10% of the market to subscribe to my newsletter. That’s 15,000 Realtors.
There are Three Categories of Real Estate Investors
Investors are divided into three categories – private investors, institutional investors and prop tech investors.
Private investors are mainly mom-and-pop investors who buy residential investment property. They may buy more than one property, but they usually buy them one at a time.
Institutional investors are corporate investors who buy multiple residential investment properties that align with their business plan. Multiple properties can mean hundreds, thousands and even hundreds of thousands of investment properties. I’m only focused on institutional investors that purchase residential properties and am excluding commercial real estate investors.
Prop tech investors tend to be venture backed investors with a new tech-driven disruptive business model. They tend to buy a large number of properties using creative buying, ownership and use structures.
I’ve identified different tactics and strategies to work with the different type of investors. I share everything in the newsletter. If you work with investors or want to work with investors, I spend all my day looking for answers to your most pressing questions.
Investors are Grabbing Market Share
Here’s the crazy thing – in the past decade, real estate investors emerged as a powerful buying group that closed around 13% of all residential home sales in 2022 (and up to 18% of sales in the 20 largest urban markets).
Sales were driven primarily by institutional investors as corporate America built and acquired single family and multifamily properties to be held and managed as rental assets inside their real estate portfolios.
13% is a sizeable chunk of market share that generated around $13 billion dollars in real estate commission.
That’s a really juicy slice of the annual real estate commission pie.
2023 was a slower market and I’m expecting a significant drop in inventory and closed transactions overall and in particularly in investor sales. Regardless of the ebb and flow of the market, it is still a huge market.
A Transactional Mission
My mission is to help agents close more deals with private, institutional and prop tech investors.
Although the newsletter is designed to deliver content to subscribers, and is accordingly a content-driven product, my mission is transactional as I want my audience to close more deals with real estate investors.
Subscribe To My Newsletter
There you have it – the thinking behind the launch of The Investor-Friendly Agent newsletter.
All that remains is for me to ask you to subscribe to the newsletter and let you know that any and all feedback, good or bad, is deeply appreciated.
What’s in it for you? Hopefully a piece of the $13 billion annual real estate commission pie.
Subscribe to the Investor-Friendly Agent.