Probably the hardest part of investing in real estate is actually getting a house under contract. I’m not talking about the paperwork that’s involved, although that can seem intimidating at first (it’s not really, though). No, I’m talking about getting a motivated seller to actually listen to your unconventional proposal and then go through with the deal. Believe me, even though homeowners may be motivated when you’re talking to them (as you’ll only ever be dealing with motivated sellers), some of them can be extremely stubborn and suspicious. Maybe they have every right to be; maybe they’ve been burned before and are wary to listen to anything they’ve never heard of before. It’s your job to get past the walls they throw up and convince them that you can provide a win-win situation.

I’ve read a lot of books and visited a lot of websites on real estate investing, and they all have different methods for selling yourself. I say ’selling yourself’, because that is what you’re actually doing; you may not be trying to sell them vacuum cleaners, but you are trying to sell your real estate solution to them. As with any sales-related situation, there are any number of ways to get your message across, some more successful than others, and some more, shall we say, ethical than others. This is what I want to focus on for this article.

As I was saying earlier, I have read many books on real estate investing. One of the books I read had some really great content on lease options, and was filled with motivating stories, so all in all I was very excited to try their techniques out. The only section I felt a little weird about was their approach to selling yourself; it involves pretending you’re very timid and meek while on the phone with the seller. Lots of “um’s” and “er’s”, making you sound very unsure of yourself. The theory is that this makes the seller feel like they’re better than you, and therefore makes them feel like they’re in control of the conversation, and thus the deal. All the while you’re really steering them just where you want as it’s all an act on your part.

Since this was very early on in my investing career, I assumed that it must work very well as the authors were certainly doing well for themselves. So, after finding some motivated sellers in the paper, I picked up the phone. It wasn’t hard to fake sounding unsure of myself, as I actually was! Still, what I found was that the sellers I talked to felt that I didn’t know what I was doing and was too wishy-washy. Out of a half dozen calls none of the conversations lasted more than a few minutes.

Needless to say, I was slightly discouraged. I decided to try a more straight forward approach; after all, I couldn’t really do any worse! On the next phone call, after listening to the seller list the details of her house, I came right out and said “Barb, I’m a real estate investor and I’m interested in buying homes in your area in order to rent them out. Do you think your home would make a good rental?”

I was pleasantly surprised. Barb replied that yes, her home would be a great rental as there are others in the neighbourhood. Once we had established that I was an investor, I felt a lot easier about asking her about her current mortgage, how much her payments are, and other financial details that would seem out of place had I masqueraded as just another person looking for a house to buy and live in. Although that particular property didn’t work out in the end, I’ve kept to that strategy and state up front to sellers that I’m an investor and that I’m looking for a good business opportunity. In a very small number of cases this turns people off, but for the most part it opens more doors than it shuts.

To sum up, I’ve found that the best sales technique out there doesn’t involve fancy scripts, acting, or other sales theories. Honesty has worked best for me, and it should for you too. Be proud of the fact that you’re investing in real estate, and make no secret of it. That pride, and the confidence that follows, comes across strongly on the phone and in person, and people will feel more comfortable when dealing with you.

Happy investing!

About the author: Adem Hamidovic is a part time real estate investor and operator of www.ProfitPiggy.com, a website devoted to new and experienced real estate investors alike.