Welcome. NARREIA is the National Association of Residential Real Estate Investment
Advisors. As the name indicates, NARREIA is a collection of highly professional
Realtors who have focused specifically on residential real estate investing
on a national level. This section is designed to explain the many facets about
our NARREIA Advisors.
For more information, you can read Our Story
and the FAQ.
Contact us to initiate the application process by emailing Jeff
Klein. You must be registered on the site for us to convert your account
from Agent to Advisor.
Introduction
NARREIA
was conceived of by me, Sean Brown.
I am a top-producing real estate agent from Las Vegas and hang my license with
Realty Executives. My local operation
is a team of about a dozen or
so agents and several support staff, but the team is run very loosely. Other
teams require affiliated agents to have a split with the team leader. In my
team, the only time I get a piece of the agent's action is if I refer a client
to them. If they procure the client by their own means, they don't pay me anything.
As you can guess, it's an integrity based system, and I have never had to boot
an agent off the team for cheating me out of a referral fee.
I started NARREIA out of necessity. The details can be found in the About
Us and Our Story sections, but here's the
short story. I got into real estate to do my own transactions as an investor,
and my sphere of influence got excited with my investments and asked me to represent
them. During the boom in the Las Vegas real estate market, I realized that there
is no way a market could sustain 30%-50% appreciation for long. If it did, housing
would become ridiculously unaffordable, and local and national economics wouldn't
allow it to happen.
So, I began searching for "the next market." One of my clients became
interested in Phoenix, so we drove down, met an agent, and bought about two
dozen properties. I got a referral fee on each of those properties, and it made
me realize two things. The first was that if Phoenix went off like we thought
it would (and it already has), it would put me in the same situation as Las
Vegas. I would need to find "the next next market." The second
thing I realized was now that I had found one or two good agents in Phoenix
to work with, they could also work with my agent friends in Las Vegas. And in
San Diego. And in Denver. Basically, I had screened some good agents who were
willing to give a referral fee, and my agent-friends wanted to use these agents
as well.
Finding a quality agent to work with your clients is hard
enough. They need to be full-time, they need to handle your clients as their
own, and they need to understand their market. But finding an agent like that
who also knows anything about real estate investing is incredibly tough.
Then you need to throw in the integrity issue. The "Florida Swampland"
joke is founded in truth, and many investment-savvy agents are too slick for
their own good. So, you need to find agents who aren't mover-shaker types, either.
Naïvely,
I decided to start a network of investor savvy agents in the markets that I
desired. I didn't realize how hard it was to locate, interview, and organize
every aspect of the project. In June of 2004, I engaged Bizwala,
a local (but national) website design firm. The owners, Jonathan Remund and
Jeff Klein, had a company that was able to handle the extensive coding required
to develop a real estate investment website similar to Ameritrade or E*Trade.
I have an Aviation-Computer Science degree and have a lot of website development
background, but this project required a full-time team of programmers to get
it done this decade. Currently, we have six and a half full-time programmers
and project managers working on the site. Jeff Klein (who is pictured here)
is now full time with NARREIA. He is the project manager for the website, but
as an Advisor and a founder of NARREIA, he also interviews and commissions potential
Advisors.
The basic concept is this - NARREIA is made up of two major components: the
website and the network of honest, investor-savvy agents throughout the United
States. (We are already working in several international markets, but our focus
is national.) The website is already up and running, but has a long way to go
to surpass the Ameritrade depth. You can read more about the site in the About
Us section, but suffice it to say, it will knock the socks off of anything
out there, period. Clients often get lost in the idea of the website, but the
more important half of the equation is the human network that you may become
a part of.
Aside from the management classifications, there are three classes
of NARREIA members: Clients, Agents, and Advisors. A Client is someone without
a real estate license that looks to us for data and to find or liquidate property.
Agents must have an active real estate license, and may be Clients themselves.
Agents only refer Clients into NARREIA. They never
work with any clients but their own. Advisors are Agents who have been screened
for integrity, market knowledge, and investment savvy. These are the people
who work with the Clients. It often is forgotten, even by the Advisors themselves,
that they are also Agents. This means that they can (and should) refer their
clients into the network. You should note that any Agent can refer
Clients in, which means we provide access to our referral network to any agent
with a real estate license. This means the number of potential Clients is enormous.
What we are NOT
Be very clear, NARREIA is none of the following:
NARREIA is NOT a Lead Generation system. Agent Connect,
Service Magic, and House Values are pay-per-lead systems. Some require you
to buy a ZIP code, others will send the same lead to three competing agents,
and others have a different way to get your money. NARREIA is a referralnetwork. There are some referral networks out there, but none that
provide the same focus nor website that NARREIA has. None of the referral
networks rival the size or revenue of these lead generation systems. We hope
to change that!
NARREIA is NOT a real estate investment system. We don't
teach one single method, and we do not dictate what our Advisors say to the
Clients. The Advisors are all independent. Some may even have views that conflict
with other Advisors. That's their prerogative! The concept of NARREIA entails
open discussion about everything that deals with real estate investment. One
Advisor might suggest that tax liens are the way to go and another might say
that tax liens typically have a much lower ROI than a rehab or foreclosure.
Fine, they are two highly intelligent people expressing what they believe
based on their experience and education. Two Advisors in the same market might
argue over what an appreciation rate for a specific area has been. If you
understand market data and how subjective the numbers are, how much closer
to the raw data in a market could you get? It is this freedom to conflict
and openly discuss ideas and strategies that will hone NARREIA's collective
knowledge and make www.NARREIA.com
a national resource for real estate investors.
NARREIA Advisors are NOT real estate investment gurus.
Our agents understand one or more of the real estate investment vehicles very
well, and they understand their market intimately, but we do not proclaim
to be gurus. It is enough to be local area experts who have a real estate
license. This is what the clients are lacking: honest agents who know what
they are doing. That's rare in and of itself; we just add the market expertise
(very valuable stuff!) We'll let Robert Allen and Russ Whitney keep that awful
title, we're happy to be doing good business.
NARREIA does NOT generate revenue from seminars, educational systems,
software, or anything else but buying and selling property. We will
have seminars, we will have educational systems, we will develop killer applications,
and we'll have NARREIA-branded merchandise in a company store (to spread the
brand). But that is not our business model. In fact, we believe we're going
to catch some serious flack from all of those companies that do so, because
we're going to give it all away for free or at cost. For example, if we have
any CDs for sale, they will all be available for download from the website
for free. We'd only sell the CDs to cover the cost of the CDs and the distribution,
but if they don't mind going to the site, I don't mind paying for the bandwidth
so they can hear a recording of me or one of our other Advisors teach them
to invest. If they do that, what are the chances they'll contact a NARREIA
advisor to buy a property? Don't some companies PAY to have their infomercials
on the radio? Why wouldn't I let them have it for free? And if they can get
it for free or they can pay for it, and they choose to pay for it, I'm glad
they are someone else's client, because that's where my client is
going to make their money! It seems that these other companies have made a
business out of making money off of their clients. It is NARREIA's philosophy
to make money FOR our clients off of the clients that aren't represented by
NARREIA. Anyone can join NARREIA for free, and for those that don't, they'll
have to take that chance.
A common misconception is that NARREIA Advisors have an exclusive territory.
As I have utilized several lead generation sites in the past, I understand
why some agents might be concerned about exclusivity, but what they don't understand
is that this isn't a lead generation system, it's more of a referral
network. One of the many ways you can apply NARREIA to your business is that
if you find a viable investment property, you can email it out to the Client
database. If there are two or three Advisors in your market, it is very unlikely
that you are going to find the exact same investment opportunities as the other
Advisors. Furthermore, Advisors tend to have varying areas of focus. Some are
MLS Resale oriented, like myself. I utilize the MLS to find a large number of
viable investments. Others, however, might be Foreclosure specialists. You either
do foreclosures, or you don't... there really isn't a gray line, no "dabbling"
in foreclosures. Another Advisor might have exceptional inroads to one or more
builders and tend to focus on pre-construction and flips. We try to mix the
Advisors in a market to provide more of a total coverage for the Clients. Besides,
the synergy that has developed between our Advisors, especially the Advisors
in the same market, has been outstanding. NARREIA is nothing like you've ever
seen before, and being a team player is a big part of our philosophy. Believe
me, if your market is good for investing, there will be plenty of Clients to
go around.
What is expected of an Advisor?
Before you go further, you should be aware of a few things.
You need to be on board with giving up to 35% GCI referral
fees. This will not always be the case, but in the first year each
client registers, it will likely be the case. If you take the time to understand
the system, I'm sure you see why this is. If you don't take the time,
frankly, you're too impatient and lack the insight to become an Advisor in
the first place. That said, you can still be an Agent and refer your Clients
in to receive a healthy referral fee, and since it's so high, I'm sure you'll
refer a lot in!
You will be required to set up your profile page on the site within
25 days of being upgraded to an Advisor. This will include a bio,
a market condition report about your area, contact info for several Property
Managers, several contractors/repair companies, and several lenders.
You will be required to report your local market conditions at
least every 35 days. If you do not, your profile and postings
will automatically be suppressed from the site, and after 45 days, you will
be downgraded to Agent status. There are significant
benefits to becoming an Advisor, and a sustained referral fee is one of
them, as long as you are an Advisor.
Teams are welcome and encouraged, but the only people that are to
work with NARREIA Clients are agents who have been approved by NARREIA.
This approval does not require additional interviews, but a phone interview
will be likely and the Advisor (team leader) will need to personally vouch
that the agent is Client-worthy. Any negative issues arising from an agent
working with a client will directly reflect on the Advisor themselves.
There is a lot to cover regarding these issues, but if any one of them is insurmountable,
please save both of us the time and do not apply. As of the end of September,
2005, I have had just three people balk at the invitation to become an Advisor
because of the referral fees, and one of them has already registered a few of
their clients. Read on and you'll see how it works.
The Benefits of Being a NARREIA Advisor
I'm a full time agent, and I am also an Advisor. I realize that giving up to
a 35% referral fee is pretty high, so there must be a reason for it. Before
I go into why it's so high (and why you should be
happy it's so high), you should realize the upside of being an Advisor. There
are many of them, and I've detailed them on this
page. Perhaps the most significant benefit is the sustained referral fee
schedule for the Advisors. Regular Agents get a referral fee of 30% on any contract
written the first two years a client of theirs is registered with the website, and
nothing in the following years. Because Advisors have to
do a good amount of work, they are rewarded by a longer, more advantageous
referral fee schedule. Advisors receive a 30% referral FOR AS LONG AS THEY ARE AN ACTIVE ADVISOR.
Being an active Advisor is as simple as following the 4 steps mentioned above.
The Other Side of the Coin
So now it comes to the 35% referral fee. There are quite a few reasons it is
this high, and I've detailed them on this page.
If I were to just list them outright, they'd be:
5% GCI pays for the website and development, which is included in the total
35% GCI referral fee. This keeps the website free to clients,
which means there will be many more clients to work with.
Agents will be more willing to refer in their clients if the incentive,
a 30% referral fee, is there. Not only will this increased number of clients
result in more revenue for all involved, it will provide a critical mass that
will attract even more clients.
As an Advisor, you can, and likely will, refer clients in and receive
a 30% referral fee for as long as you are an Advisor. It is a two way street, and if you refer in more
than you receive, you will benefit more from the higher referral fee. In other
words, the more you give to the group and refer clients, the more referral fees you receive in return.
By enticing the Agents to send their clients to other markets, they are
more willing to help their clients by diversifying their portfolio.
If all of this makes sense, you probably don't need to read the details on
this subject. But if you're still not sold on the high referral fee system,
click here for an in depth explanation.
Conclusion
I could go on and on for hours. I tend to do that, as most that have met me
in person can attest. I am emphatic about NARREIA, and the Clients that have
already discovered us love the concept. I am a very honest individual, and I
can honestly say that I did not set out to start an integrity based referral
network, it just developed that way. It has been awesome to see how a win-win-win
system (for the Client-Agent-Advisor team) can be exactly what the public has
been crying out for for years. Sometimes, I'm amazed that this hasn't already
been done. Ameritrade, E*Trade, Cendant, Agent Connect, Realtor.com, they all
have the financial resources (considerably more so than I, personally) and technological
know-how. But they haven't done it and the reason is greed and a lack of vision
and belief. Hear me now, this is happening, and it is happening today. I hope
that you visit the rest of the site and realize what great potential this has.
I hope you appreciate the fact that there is minimal risk to you and your Clients,
and I hope the beauty of that business model does not get forgotten, because
it is truly wonderful. Now, read the rest of the site and email
Jeff to apply ASAP!
Contact us to initiate the application process by emailing Jeff
Klein. You must be registered on the site for us to convert your account
from Agent to Advisor.
NARREIA
was conceived of by me, 
Naïvely,
I decided to start a network of investor savvy agents in the markets that I
desired. I didn't realize how hard it was to locate, interview, and organize
every aspect of the project. In June of 2004, I engaged 
