How to Overcome Lack of Knowledge When Just Starting out in Property Sourcing

When people first start off working in property investment and property sourcing, there can be an element of fear and worry attached to dealing with owners. Thoughts like “What if they ask a question that I can’t answer?” or “What if I sound like I’m hard selling?” It can be a very anxious time for some people who lack knowledge in property sourcing, until they start to feel more confident as they build up more experience. Whether you are working on rent to rent deals or any other strategy, the approach is pretty much the same in respect to this.

Prepare to be Unprepared

The first piece of advice to follow here is that you can’t prepare for questions that you don’t know you will get asked. Really, the only thing you can prepare yourself for is being unprepared! Expect the unexpected etc. When you are first getting into this line of work, it is impossible to have an answer for every situation because there is not really a set list of questions. You will get the frequently asked questions coming up but sometimes there will be a curveball and you need to know how to deal with those.

The biggest mistake here is to try and blag it by making something up on the spot to try and sound knowledgeable. If you have to go back later and tell them that you gave them the wrong information, they will lose trust in you. It is much better to say ‘To be honest, I think you know the answer but I’m not entirely sure and I want to double check the answer with my business partner’. This gives you some time to go away and find out the answer maybe through a group like our Facebook group, or from a mentor etc.

RELATED: Property Investing 101: How To Negotiate with Landlords

When you come back with your offer, you will then be able to provide the answer to the question they asked. It works better when you have that reason to give them the call i.e. to provide the answer but then to come in with the offer, it tends to be more successful. Next time you will obviously know the answer and you will keep learning along the way when it comes to negotiations.

Pitching to a Landlord

In regards to feeling like you are selling to a landlord, this side of it is largely related to the excitement of doing your first deals. You are so keen to tell them all the things that you can help them with that you end up reeling off a long list of benefits – guaranteed rent payments, no maintenance costs, we take care of repairs etc. And this is where it sounds like you’re trying to push a sale.

What will work much better is if you try and get to understand the specific situation of the landlord. Have they contacted you because they have problems with voids? Problems with bad tenants? Then you can talk solely about the solution to these problems rather than listing benefits that are not really beneficial to them. So ask them open questions when you speak to them to get that info. Questions like ‘How long have you had the property?’ ‘Have you had to pay a lot of maintenance?’ etc.

Then you are just outlining what your services are in relation to the problem that they have, so they are more likely to take up your offer.