In my quest to find the best deal possible for my first park I’m asking a lot of questions the broker “Should” know like:
Do you have the expense sheet?
Will seller carry?
Any Major issues that you know of?
They are taking on average of 2-3 days to answer any additional questions I have. I found the owner of the property is it illegal or frown upon to go straight to the owner?
Anyone done this before?
It’s not illegal (as far as I know), but you can expect to get a terrible reputation within the local broker community if you circumvent the broker. You’ll have to weigh the risk of losing access to most brokers in that market with getting this deal done.You could have someone else (or use a different name) if you decide to cold call the owner. Most park owners have been cold called before so it won’t be that unusual to get a call about their park.
Good advice… Thank you
We have found that turnaround time for brokers is no better than for bankers, lawyers, or other professionals. One or two may be 24-hours but generally you can expect an update about every week if you don’t ask. My experience anyway. And progress twice that fast, maybe twice per week some development or news.
Many industry brokers seem to have very poor skills in customer service, and I get calls on this all the time. There are some brokers we know that can take literally a week to return a call – I have no idea why. But you are always better off staying the course with the broker than going direct to the owner. Word will get back to the broker and you are screwed. Just remember that those brokers treat everyone the same and don’t take any personal offense at it. Also remember that 75% of potential buyers will give up trying to reach the broker, so it really improves your odds. But it is annoying? Absolutely.
Lol this forum is the 3rd best thing ever invited just after the Banana split, and the buffet line!
As a Realtor myself, I can’t understand it either. What do brokers do in those offices all day? What really get’s me with most brokers is the lying / aloofness. Client - Do you have an offering memorandum? Or PL?Broker - I will shoot you an email with everything. Two days go by, and then you get an email with “everything”. A copy of the listing, an electric bill, the tax bill, and a hand drawn map of the property. Later the broker will remind you how low the properties expenses are!
To make an offer you do not need that much stuff. You can request the details after your under contract. If you know some basics you can estimate the expenses and adjust your purchase price in the inspection / resolution process. The rubber meets the road when your under contract and people have a set number of days to supply you with the data you have requested. Then rebuild the financials and see where / if issues exisit.
Broker I am dealing with is slow too. Daily calls to their office by me seem to be bothersome. I don’t understand it. Then he takes 2 days to get back to me.
call the broker / owner and tell them your trying to make an offer on a mobile home park but your having trouble getting in touch with your agent. Ask if they can offer any help in getting your offer turned in. If your dealing with the listing broker- it could be they ahve another deal in the pot… In that case, I would contact another agency or submit my own offer through the Broker.
Called the owner, she stuttered a bit then told me it wasn’t her, and that I was to work through the broker, then CLICK. I don’t think there is another deal in the makes, I could be wrong though.
UPDATE: In my situation I had a conversation with the broker regarding the park I am interested in. Was told at the time that park is listed at X, broker tells that owner will take Y, I say okay send me a contract for an attorney to look over and we can go from there. Broker tells me I have to make an offer, seller will then counter-offer and once we decide on a price we can move forward to a contract from there. End of phone conversation. Fine I look over the park info again, next day call broker, leave message with offer, price Z and email offer to broker. He calls today, informs me he has offer but now I have to come up with terms, 3 sets of them, based on a lump sum cash offer, terms with seller financing and terms with a bank loan as well as a bank authorization stating that I qualify for the loan amount and have financing in place for the deal. Fine called my bank’s business loan officer today and he told me that the whole process broker has laid out is backwards. Am I just getting cocked around by this broker or is this the way these things are supposed to go? And my favorite line from broker today, I should hurry as a couple others are interested in park as well. I am sure they are, it has been listed quite some time now.