Hiring a Real Estate Coach for Your Investment

Hiring a coach seems to be the thing to do. Whether getting us over a personal hurdle or a professional one, more and more people are using coaches to help them achieve.

But real estate coaches are still relatively rare. Perhaps some of us still see an awkward alignment between our high school coach and today's real estate advisors: "Those loan papers aren't filled out? Drop and give me 20!!" Still others might wonder whether a coach in real estate is redundant, perhaps duplicating the efforts of a good agent.
Yet both real estate agents and real estate coaches agree that it makes sense to work with both in a number of circumstances.

"Those who say it's just one or the other are missing an opportunity," says real estate coach Loral Langemeier, owner of Get REAL, Inc.

Langemeier says that, particularly for market knowledge and comparable properties, or "comps", a real estate agent's involvement is key, particularly for someone buying a home for the first time, or buying their first investment property. "As you grow, there's a middle period where an agent may not make sense," she explains.

But on the other end of the market, Langemeier believes that an agent is definitely needed. "At the high end, yes. For example, we bought 170 houses in New Jersey and Pennsylvania as an investment. We had so much to do, it would be foolish not to use a realtor," she explains.

In fact, Langemeier says that often, she tells clients who believe they can work without a real estate agent that having one is key. "The important thing is, just get a deal done, regardless of who you use," she says. "The number one error with newbies is that they were told not to use an agent but then they don't close the deal. I say to them, 'If you're scared to death, maybe an agent can help.'"