Step By Step Buyer Checklist For Real Estate Agents • Breaking Down Ali’s Systems • Ali Garced

Welcome to Breaking Down Ali’s Systems mini-series with Ali Garced.

In this mini-series Ali will be explaining how she built her systems both for buyers and for sellers. In the first episode, Ali describes how she breaks apart her process working with buyers into 6 different segments.

Please follow Ali on Instagram here.

If you’d prefer to watch this interview, click here to view on YouTube!

Ali Garced can be reached at ali@garcedrealty.com and (914) 318-4918.

This episode is brought to you by Real Geeks.

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Transcript

D.J. Paris 0:00
Hello and welcome to a very special episode of Keeping it real the largest podcast made by real estate agents and for real estate agents. My name is DJ Paris. I am your guide and host through the show. Why Is today a special episode? Well, in just a moment, I’m going to be turning it over to Ali gar said Ally’s actually been on our show, actually recently. And she had such a great reaction from our listeners and fans, that we asked her to come back to do a couple of special episodes for just for you guys. And so today, she is going to be going step by step through her buyer checklist. And this is probably the best buyer checklist presentation I have ever seen. So guys, this is a literally step by step instruction to help level up your buyer checklist process. So without further ado, and by the way, we’re going to do more of these from some of our guests like Ali, please let us know if you want more of this because I think this is really really cool stuff. So I hope you guys enjoy it. Let us know your feedback. And now let’s turn it over to my friend Ali gar said also follow her on Instagram, Ali, the agent, its ally underscore the underscore agent. So we’ll have a link to that in the show notes. But let’s turn it over to ally. This episode of Keeping it real is brought to you by real geeks. How many homes are you going to sell this year? Do you have the right tools? Is your website turning soft leads and interested buyers? Are you spending money on leads that aren’t converting? Well real geeks is your solution. Find out why agents across the country choose real geeks as their technology partner. Real geeks was created by an agent for agents. They pride themselves on delivering a sales and marketing solution so that you can easily generate more business. Their agent websites are fast and built for lead conversion with a smooth search experience for your visitors. Real geeks also includes an easy to use agent CRM. So once a lead signs up on your website, you can track their interest and have great follow up conversations. Real geeks is loaded with a ton of marketing tools to nurture your leads and increase brand awareness visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and find out why Realtors come to real geeks to generate more business again, visit real geeks.com forward slash keeping it real pod and now on to our show

Ali Garced 2:40
Hey everyone, it’s Aligarh set again or ally the agents on all social media that spelled a Li and I am back with my first segment of the buyer checklist. I promised DJ that I would share everything in my checklist. So originally, you know the checklists were the buyer’s checklists, the seller checklist, the investor checklists, the onboarding checklist. Originally everything was for my just for my downline, but I really want to I really hope that this helps just better the industry altogether. So I am giving away my buyer checklists, my seller checklists, my 200 Step onboarding checklist for agents, no matter what level or like level they’re at is still just for my downline, but I am giving away my homebuyer checklist and my seller one so this is part one of maybe two or three for the buyer side. We’ll see how it goes. And then I’m also going to have a two part buyer or two part for the seller checklists. So I am on Trello. And I am going to be walking through how I have everything set up on Trello. If you want to follow along, watch this on YouTube because I am sharing my screen. And if you can’t, that’s okay, I’m going to make it I’m going to vocalize as much as I can. So in that way, it’s as if you are following along. So I’ll start with what is even Trello right Trello is a free project management system. You could use your CRM, but I started using Trello because it was free. And I kind of just stuck with that. So I’m going to show you and vocalize how I have this laid out. Starting from the very left side, I have a whole section for sellers and then a whole section for buyers and then a section for referrals as well. And what I do for those in my downline is I give them access straight to this Trello checklist they can copy and paste it but for those that are outside of my downline, I will be sending you a link to it. So that way you can have access to but not the full access that I have given that I’ve poured my heart and soul into for my downline specifically. So on the left hand side here I have it I have sellers and buyers broken into three different columns. So one is like far out sellers and I’m calling like see sellers be sellers is you know, three to six months out, again to make sure that you’re hitting everyone on that specific tempo, then I have the third column is a seller’s getting ready to list, you know, you need to go on an appointment today and meet with them. Then I have one week before going live. The next column is once they are live on the market. The next column is once they’re under contract. Because again, as you start getting more and more, you know, properties under contract and working with more buyers and sellers to scale, you’re gonna get overwhelmed. So you need to have this organization in the beginning. So as if you’ve never used Trello, you can like drag and drop little cards. So you can you know, as soon as someone’s under contract, and then they’re they’re out a week out from closing, just drag and drop the card. Now, you know the numbers change for how many are about a week out from closing. Then the next column is the size of for sellers, then on the buyer side, which I will be focusing on today is how I work through my buyers. So again, see buyers about a year out but be buyers about six months out ish. And then a buyers, hot buyers or hot leads talk to them today. Then, of course under contract has its own column one week out from closing, once they’re closed for 2023, or whatever year we’re in, when you’re listening to this, then an archived one close but in the past, you know, before are further out than a year ago, if that makes sense. And then I also have a dead lead column as well. And then I go into the referrals. I have everything consolidated onto this Trello board. Again, this was for this is for the downline so they can just see how I organize things, I will show you mine, he is crazy. It has the same exact thing. But in order to make this as clear and easy for you to follow along. And for the agents to follow along. In my crew, I made it as simple as possible. So this is a template. So let’s start. Let’s open up this Trello checklist. And in the beginning here is the source. That’s the first thing you need to be tracking is who is giving you business where’s your business coming from because that is what you want to replicate double down on, you know if it’s all coming from Zillow, then double down on Zillow, if it’s all coming from a couple people that you know that consistently give you business, you show them some love, give them some gifts. And, and say thank you. So you need to know you need to track X I’m such a huge proponent of tracking everything, a track where your leads are coming from. So then, of course, I have like just the typical questions of of what you’re going to be asking what you need to know once you’re starting to work with the buyer. I have some attachments here, they might not apply to everyone because this is a buyer broker specifically for our area. critical dates list. Of course, this might not apply to you, but that’s okay. You can include your own attachments. And then buyer initiation. This is the first portion of the checklist. So I have my checklists, sorted into different segments and segments. So when we first start talking to a buyer, first thing is add them to your calendar, add them to your CRM. So that way, you know to follow up at what tempo what are the notes of what you previous previously said. The second for the second portion here is take the intake from the Calendly. And this is what I used to have as buyer email number one. For my buyers, I have buyer emails one through six, it’s canned, it’s template, it’s evergreen. So I just copy and paste all I do is just change this who the recipient is for, but I used to have this as buyer email number one. Now what I do is I send all buyers to my Calendly Calendly is a paid service. It’s about $160 a year, I highly recommend you sign up for it in case you haven’t already. But and if you want to follow along there too, with whether you’re looking at the screen or not. I you can go on mine and copy the exact questions that I have. It’s open to the public. So if you go on calendly.com/guard said Realty that’s spelled G AR C Ed Realty slash buyer will see exactly what my buyers are filling out before they meet with me. So I’ll show you here. Go as if you’re going to be booking an appointment. I’m getting their name, email number, I have a next up is the box that says you know, will you be selling another home before during this this next purchase? Yes or No? If yes, what’s that address what the zip code of the home you’ll be selling? Because when we meet at the time that they scheduled for, I’ll be asking if they want are a realtor in that area to help them sell their home before they purchase with us? What’s the reason that you’re buying and selling? Then I also have I also ask, what are the top three must haves? Very important, as you all know, what are the top three wants? What are the top three deal breakers? And the catch all? Is there anything else that you’d like me to know to be better prepared for our meeting? So this they might come out with something out of left field better that they put it in this Calendly now before your appointment with them, instead of you know, on the fly, where you might not know the answer, and you could have researched it beforehand. And this last section is for them to send text messages for calendaring to send text to the whoever’s booking the call. What this is only portion one, right I’m not, I’m not going to go into Calendly. Today, although I can on a on a next meeting, if you guys wish. But in the back end of Calendly, I also go into the work flows tab, because I want to make sure that I’m not going to be stood up. So I have the automatic email and texts sent out to the buyers or sent out to anyone who books with me saying thanks for you know, confirming you know we’re on for XYZ you scheduled this, this specific type of meeting. And then I also have a 24 hour out meeting in case they book out more than a day out. And then I also have the hour before it sends them a text it sends them an email saying hey, we look forward to seeing you in one hour for the home buying consultation. So let’s go back to my Trello checklist. That is what I have all the buyers fill out this is what used to be in my buyer email number one, so I will not be covering Berryman number one because instead now I have Calendly save so much time.

So you take the information of what they put in the buyer appointment, and you start looking you know, you already start thinking about what kind of homes are looking at, who’s going to be in the meeting, etc. So then going down this checklist here, ask the buyers before going under contract with them. This is while you’re meeting with them over zoom, and I meet with everyone over zoom. Because a lot of my a lot of my meat and potatoes clients are actually out of state. So because I do have a military background. So a lot of them our PCs thing is what they call moving in the military. So but then I got used to that. And I figured that that was such a better time spent, even if they are local in the area. Nobody wants to drive to an office, nobody want this was a power move, I think. So save the time for them. And for you meet over zoom. And that is where you go over a couple of questions, even more questions, because Calendly only allows 10 questions. So that’s where you ask them? How often do you expect to hear from me? What how can I be the best agent for you? And a lot of agents have issues with that question because it kind of like shifts the power dynamics, if they if you want to call it that. But don’t forget that not only are they interviewing you as an agent, you are interviewing them as clients do not work with someone that doesn’t make you feel good. You know, there’s so much business to be had, especially now that so many realtors are leaving the business, scoop up the rest of the business. Don’t Don’t be afraid to say no, because they’re every single client that you take on, I’m probably preaching to the choir here. But every single client that you take on, that you don’t feel good about, you know, you have like that. Like those bad butterflies in your stomach, whenever they call you or text you that is a sure sign that you are not meant to be working together. And that is okay, let them go. Because all the time that you’re spending with them is time that you could be spending with other clients that make you feel good. So anyway, then also ask them what’s the best method of communication? Of course, because some people only like phone calls. Of course, as you guys know, I don’t, I don’t like phone calls. But if they do, guess what I’m doing phone calls, text, email, whatever it is, what I like about Trello is I can add these notes to the very, very top. So as your Trello board gets busier as you’re adding other clients here you can easily you know, see, say Emma buyer in this city, this type of property, text or call, so that way you don’t have to remember who does MLA tax. Let me look at that calendar and let me see that email that came in. No, it says right there, Emma likes text messages. Then add them to your CRM over here. I have KB core and I love KB core. I didn’t in the beginning but wow. Like I really really like I only know about 30% of what it handles and I’m actually testing this out too. So if if you want a copy of this checklist and you haven’t already reached out to me on on social media, text the word checklist to Oh 520-341-2552 more than happy to send it to you. Then of course, you want to contact the lender or connect them to a lender, I usually do like a group chat with the lender, then of course, set them up on a search. Next on the Trello checklist is check in three days after setting them up on the search. And this is I also have setup on my CRM. So as I add each client into the CRM, in Cavey, core specifically, and I’m sure others do the same thing. I add tasks. So in three days from when we met, I’m going to add a task to notify me to reach out to the client saying, Hey, did you like everything on the on the search? Is there anything I could switch super easy for us to do? So just let us know want to make sure we’re not sending you trash? So then, here, as you can tell, next step is I had to send buyer emails one and two. Now, of course, by email number one no longer exists. So let me know let me change that right here. Send Email number two. Let me show you email. Number two, what does buyer email number two have? Ally? Well, let me show you. I use superhuman, it’s a way to do a lot of shortcuts. But you can do the same thing. With just saving this as a template on either Gmail or Outlook, whatever you use, but templated emails, do not be copying, or do not be writing the same email over and over again, that’s not a way to scale. And you want to be able to scale I imagine if you’re listening to this. So right here in two seconds, I pulled up buyer email number two. And it’s the title is we’re excited to work with you. Because what buyer email number two is, is the confirmation that you and I are working together exclusively, you’re not going to be using another realtor. So therefore, buyer email number two is very important for me, because this is the mean potatoes, everything I poured my heart and soul into this email, and to everything really that I do checklists, everything. And this has this is the way ahead, I show them the eggs, I show them everything of what buying a home is like in this market. So I started off with a video this video is evergreen, it’s not specific to I don’t say any names. I don’t say any specific information because I want this video to be evergreen and used for every single buyer email number two, in this in this video, you’ll see that I actually all I do is go over all of the words in the email. Because if buyers are to get an email like this, nobody likes reading anymore. So even if you make a video of you reading what you are sending them, they will watch that better, you know, they will watch that they will feel better. Instead of giving them homework, hey, read this whole long email. And you know that’s it. So I go over in this video what exactly I’m relaying to them in words of that email. Starting with number one what to do right now I give them homework, you know, buyers want to be told what to do, even even if they are investors that have you know, purchase multiple properties before they want to know think about it as a buyer. What is the next step? What do you want for me? What do I need to do? And what’s next? Always think about that, like what do they need to be hearing from me a lot of agents are too scared to add their to assigning them homework and I tell them straight up buyers, this is your homework. So what to do now is complete the buyer or open the complete buyer client PDF. This contains the entire step by step on how to purchase a property and boy does it you’ll see number two before I open an l open all the attachments at the end. Number two is message me if you’ve already had other agents show your properties we do not overstep or steal clients because if they have that if for some reason they really don’t like them, then I want to reach out to that agent and make sure because that agent might not even know and a lot of agents are too scared to do this. I don’t care. I do not steal clients. I tell everyone in my crew like we do we do. There’s so much shady madness that happens in this industry. Don’t make it worse. If you are working with another agent, excellent. Then work with that agent. We are going to focus our time on other clients that only want to work with us and I have no issue saying that and believe it or not at all. I’ve only ever lost to clients because of that and that’s okay. Number three is walkthrough, the purchase contract was which is attached. And with this video that I made for you this needs to be reviewed before we place offers. Number four is check your junk folder in case the listings that we send to you through the through our website through the MLS is sent to your junk. Number five is review the seven ways to make your offer stand out video. Number six review the buyer advisory on due diligence best practices and numbers Seven send us your pre approval or proof of funds, we cannot take the next steps without that. And then following us email here I have once again, whenever you have a property that you like, based off the emails that we send you please do the following. This is what you do. Once you find a property that you like, one, make sure it’s in a location where you’d like it to be, I cannot talk about you know, as as you know, realtors cannot talk about what area is safe. So instead, what we can do is give you the resources for you to figure that out on your own. So this is a list of schools, for you to do your research, if schools are important, is a spotcrime.com maps.google.com dropped a little yo guy walk the neighborhood virtually in case you’re not already there, make sure it’s within your pre approval amount, ensure your spouse or all other buying parties approved. And sure the numbers work for you. Let’s connect it with your lender. That’s why I do a group text with the lender. And if you’re serious about it enough to make an offer, and I tell this over the Zoom call with my buyers, if it’s a level seven or above out of 10, like 10, is you really want that property, if you want to make an offer on it, that’s when you send it to us, that’s when we start taking a look. So otherwise, there’s no point of seeing a house that you only halfway are interested in anything under seven, don’t send it then I told them that.

Then number six, I’ll look up all of the agent notes, I’ll send all the information to you any attachments that they have read it over. That’s number seven, and number eight, let’s get you in there ASAP. I tried to kill the deal before it even starts if you can’t tell, because there’s no point of seeing a house of contacting the listing agent. If the buyer is a VA loan, and they’re not even accepting VA loans. Of course, you’re going to ask Hey, was that was this a fluke? Was this a typo? But I tried to kill the deal before it starts, save your time save your sanity. Then as again, I reiterate it, there’s no point of driving to view a property that’s out of your budget and an area you don’t like. So make sure it is a hill. Yes. And the purpose of this video is to make sure is because I wish I had more information when I was a buyer. So I want to send you as much information as I can. Hopefully not talking too fast. Then, of course, in every single email that I have, I have a way ahead. This is what to expect next. That’s always what clients questions are, what to expect next. So next expect next by your email number three, which will be sent as we get closer to drafting your offer. I have 1234566 attachments in this buyer email number two, that might sound like a lot. But again, I’d rather I’d rather send them all the information now. So that way they have it and they can review at their own leisure as opposed to later on when they’re rushed. Let’s start with the beefiest one buyer client PDF. Now, as you can tell, if you’re following along here, this took a lot of work. I did not make this PDF, I hired somebody to do it because I am not digitally creative like this. But it’s in in pretty in prettier format. You know, there’s colors on here, it’s a little photo of me what I’m about that I used to be the military i inverse, these are some podcasts that I’ve been on in case you want to just learn a little bit more about me. Then I have another video on page two, page three of just a welcome introduction. This is me, I’m excited to work with you. Page four is what you can expect what the buyer can expect from me. Communication guidance, local knowledge, market expertise. Number five, page five is what I could expect from them submit a prequel, you know, before viewing properties, we cannot do that until I have your pre qual. And it’s you know up to date, that I also expect that they drive the neighborhood if they’re in a local area. Before we view that property that on the inside, I expect that they see the property on the outside. A lot of people might think oh, you know, you’re you’re telling the buyer to do too much. Trust me. I’ve only ever gotten positive feedback about this, like, oh, wow, no one’s ever told me to do that. That’s a good idea. It is. It’s a great idea. I got that from my dad, because I’m an investor as well. So I want to know what’s going on at 11pm on a Friday. And I tell them hey if you want to go extra credit if you go at at midnight on a Saturday night to see if you’re actually comfortable in that area that you’re interested in. So of course you can follow you can win if you text me again, the key word is going to be text training for a copy of everything here 25203412552 So following along general information, my work hours, this is how you know we’re going to be communicating then the real process starts where I have video after video three videos per page on talking them through the whole buying process, buyer client expectations home buying process. But what it’s like to buy a mark to buy a house in this market shopping for a lender. It’s exactly what I do when I shop for a lender Purchase Contract Overview and what is the specific market well Right now, then four steps that buyers forget to make when placing offers. And guess what, guess where I thought of these four steps, my own personal mistakes, so don’t make the mistakes I was making. So make sure that that your buyers see this seven ways to make your offer stand out. Now I should probably be up late update this one because this last one had the love letters which I do not do anymore do not recommend. And then under contract, I’m under contract. Now what? That’s always a question, right. And then at the bottom, you know, follow me on my socials. I’m telling the buyers these I’m not telling you this, although you can if you want to it’s ally, the agents. So that’s the BPS attachment. Next is the word doc, which I think my computer might freeze if I open so but what I have here is the what you can expect from me. Now what do I have here, it’s a video that is already on the buyer client PDF, that PDF has everything in a video series of what the buyer needs to make, to make an offer and to work with me. So the what you can expect from me attachment. The second attachment is exactly what I have already mentioned previously, it’s just been a Word doc, so they can follow along my work hours, you know, this is what I expect. Then the other two attachments are specific to this local area, it’s the purchase contract or in some states, I offered a purchase. But whatever the purchase contract is in your area, I attach that I attach them via email number two, but really, it’s their first email that they’re getting. So that way right off the bat, they see how formal it is. Then I also attach the additional clause in case they need to do anything outside of the original contract. So for example, waive the appraisal or anything like that. Then I also have the buyers roadmap, which is just a one pager color, you know, pretty looking thing. It’s a wheel that just walks the buyers through the purchase contract or through the whole home buying process. Then I have the buyer advisory my TC also sends this, but I would rather them my buyers have this immediately. So that way because this is lengthy, right? According to your to your MLS, this is going to be a pretty beefy one. And it helps out a lot common physical conditions in the property that a buyer should investigate. I want them to know that. And I don’t want them to only hear it from me and my videos, I want them to see, oh, this is you know, a statewide thing. Maybe I should get a sewer scope? Yes, you should. So that is that’s all the attachments that I have in via email number two, and I think I’m going to leave it here. So again, I there’s no way I can go through every single item on this just this first segment segment of my Trello checklist. But again, if you text training to 520341252 it takes you through every single thing. Now, I don’t have all scripts on here, but I have a couple of just questions to ask to not forget everyone in my exp downline, they have access to a lot more information than this. I have a two almost 200 page real estate Bible google doc which has everything that I know about real estate sales, and I mean everything, but that is exclusive to them. However, the most important portions, some of the most important portions of it is they’re all on the on the checklist that I’m sharing with you today. So if you’d like more you know what to do you know what to text. If you have any questions or I don’t know like want to schedule a one on one. I’m here for that. It’s calendly.com/garside Realty. I super hope this helps the next. The next training is going to be on the part two of working with a buyer will go over emails number three and four. Look forward to seeing you then. Bye