Episode 18: What Most Realtors Get Wrong About Off-Market Deals

David Ferris (00:00):

Be proactive, don’t be reactive. Go above and beyond for your clients. It will significantly improve your business. It’s kind of a no-brainer.

Chris Cook (00:18):

Welcome to this week’s episode of Mind Your Real Estate Business. We have David Ferris back in the studio this time. I think this is the first time that I’ve had somebody actually here in person that’s always been virtual. So welcome David.

David Ferris (00:33):

Yeah. Excited to be here.

Chris Cook (00:35):

So David is now going on five years in the business and actually joined my team right out of the gate. And over the last five years has evolved into an accomplished realtor and also more recently in the last year has become my business partner. So I’ve gone from whipping boy to the who whips. Yeah. This week, I thought it was really quite a timely opportunity for us to be together on this call because I think that there’s a lot of agents that are looking for ways to do more business, to attract more business, to sell the product that they have. So this morning, actually, we were talking about off-market opportunities, pros and cons. And specifically, I guess, why don’t we start with buyers, talk about buyers. What’s the advantage if you’re a buyer to go and have a list of off-market listings that you can pick from?

David Ferris (01:46):

Well, the obvious thing is depending on the product you’re looking for, anything but condos pretty much. Inventory can be limited depending on the time of year and again, the product that you’re after. So being able to present people with opportunities that otherwise might not exist on MLS is very beneficial. And then of course, potentially you eliminate competition.

Chris Cook (02:18):

So I think that that could be perceived as a pretty significant negative if you’re the seller. And actually, I think we’ve come across a number of people that were skeptical of the off-market deal because they’re like, how do I know that I’m not leaving money on the table?

David Ferris (02:34):

Yeah, I think there’s skepticism in our industry on a lot of things. So I think when we present off-market opportunities to buyers, there’s skepticism there. Well, why would they want to sell off-market is usually the first thing that they say. Which may be a simple way to segue into what the benefits are for those sellers who may want to sell off-market.

Chris Cook (03:00):

Yeah. And I think as we go into that, I think the first thing is this is not an easy process. Looking for off-market anything, it does require more work. I always recommend for agents that are feeling like they need to fill the pipeline, they need some more immediate sort of deals. Go and look for those off-market opportunities. Use this as a prospecting tool. And if you can play matchmaker, great. And definitely I think the other thing is don’t fabricate a buyer to solicit a listing. I think that’s lots of people do that and there’s a difference between looking for off-market listings versus I have a buyer in your neighborhood.

David Ferris (03:53):

Yeah, I mean, we’ve all got those letters dropped in our mailbox. I think it comes back to honesty and integrity. If you want to have a long-term business that’s going to be sustainable, you’re always going to be much better off to be honest and have some integrity with your business.

Chris Cook (04:12):

Right. So we were talking about what’s the benefit? What kind of seller wants to sell off market? And I do think that there’s a number of different situations. The one that came up for me, one of the first ones was somebody that just, he’d actually lost his wife some years before and really didn’t want to go through the process of emptying out the house, painting the whole place, stage again, presenting it in a way that would’ve got him top dollar. He was actually willing to avoid that whole process or wanting to avoid that whole process that he was willing to potentially leave a little bit on the table. And interestingly, that negotiation took three, four days of back and forth between the buyer and the seller to reach a place where both parties were happy. And ultimately, I think that we probably found what the market value was for the property.

(05:18):

I don’t think that either party really was disadvantaged or advantaged in their sort of way. So that’s one. That’s one type of person. Who else do you think would be a motivated off-market seller?

David Ferris (05:33):

I think upsizers can be. Someone who maybe has two or three kids, a busy lifestyle, a lot of clutter, all those things that come with people who want to upsize. Typically, they’re at a smaller house with clutter, lots of kids running around. Maybe they don’t want to go through that whole process of being displaced, having to declutter and stage and go away for a weekend to facilitate open houses and all those things. And also if they are able to play matchmaker and sell their property, they may have some more … The buyer may be more flexible as far as closing time and-

Chris Cook (06:17):

That’s I think the big one is that flexibility and maybe your ability to be able to tie it up while you go and shop for the other property. Maybe you could have a very long conditional period. There’s a lot more that we can do from a negotiating perspective because the property has not been exposed to MLS. So you’re not really … By having a long conditional period, you’re not missing any other opportunities by having it tied up conditionally. If the deal were to fall through, you still have MLS as backup where you can go there should the deal not come together.

David Ferris (06:54):

Yep, for sure. I think I have one more that I just thought of right now would be potentially somebody who’s trying to sell a condo in this market instead of listing the condo, exposing potentially your pricing, having it sit on the market for an extended period of time, and the negative things that come with that, if they are able to do something off market, then it might be beneficial for them.

Chris Cook (07:23):

Yeah. And so this gets to the point where you ask yourself as a real estate agent, how does this benefit the buyers specifically? We talk about the sellers and where their advantages are. Some of the buyer advantages are obvious. You get to see something that nobody else has seen, but what are some of the other buyer advantages that you can see here by looking for something that’s off market?

David Ferris (08:02):

Yeah, the obvious ones are they’re seeing a product that no one else is seeing, no competition. In certain areas of the city right now, obviously we’re seeing multiple offers and a lot of competition for certain properties. Those are

Chris Cook (08:19):

The two obvious ones. I always think from the agent’s perspective too, I think it’s important to put out there that I think that as agents, we could do much more from a collaborative perspective. It’s one of, I think, one of the big advantages of being at BRE/MAX Hallmark and having 2000 agents within the brokerage that are, for the most part, I think pretty sharing. There’s a lot of information sharing. It’s not a protectionist. But with the recent changes, as there were some changes that happened last year where you’re no longer allowed to market the property for more than three days without it going on MLS. And so that shut down a lot of vehicles that agents were using to connect with each other. I think there was a WhatsApp group that shared off-market listings. And I do know that there’s a lot of listings that end up selling in Citi that are off market, but having an agent that is well-connected and willing to share that information specifically within the brokerage, because that is the one exception, right?

David Ferris (09:47):

Yeah, the exceptions are either you can market brokerage-wide or one-on-one. So having access to, like you said, over 2,000 active agents who are doing a lot of business, that’s a huge advantage for us as agents, but more importantly, for the clients.

Chris Cook (10:07):

Yeah. And then within our brokerage, we have multiple Facebook channels that we can go across to be able to really push that product out and say, here’s what I have. But also to go into brokerage and have … I would like to connect with the four or five highest producing brokers or agents at a brokerage because they’re more likely to … They’ve got the inventory, they’re doing the volume. So there are some strategies here, and I think it goes on both sides. You’ve got to educate the buyers and sellers as to what the advantages are, but you also have to have the tools to be able to go out and actually achieve the results they were talking about. If I told a seller that I was going to go out and actively try to find a buyer, I need to actually be able to do that as well.

David Ferris (11:04):

Yeah. Yeah. Put in the work, show the value that you can bring to the process for your clients. And we always say be proactive, not reactive.

Chris Cook (11:14):

It’s

David Ferris (11:14):

Always going to lead to the most success in this business.

Chris Cook (11:17):

Yeah. Actually, I want to get to the disadvantages, the things that you need to be aware of where the pitfalls are. But I also think with where the market is right now and what we’re seeing happening, I think that there continues to be a lack of quality inventory. The properties that buyers are looking for aren’t coming out in the volume that would fill the need. So looking for these opportunities is like, where are those listings? Are those people just not sellers?

David Ferris (12:02):

I think part of it is the overall perception of what’s happening in the market. A lot of the mainstream negative mainstream media stuff that’s coming out, sellers think that they’ve essentially lost value in their house, which they have. But depending on when they bought, I think it’s a misconception. I think as we’re seeing, again, in the beginning of 2026, a lot of buyer activity out there, multiple offers. Yes, prices may not be going crazy, but people are still doing quite well on the sales side.

Chris Cook (12:41):

Okay. So we’ve talked about the advantages here, certainly the advantages for a buyer fund is something off market. I think out weigh the advantages that would be there for a seller. And I do want to qualify this. I actually think no matter what, 80% of the work is done by MLS if you’re searching for a buyer. 80% of the listings or 80% of the work is basically the listings showing up on MLS. I think the agent still needs to be very aware of what’s coming onto MLS when it’s coming on, how urgent their clients are looking and being proactive in that approach. I think one of the things that we had talked about earlier that I really liked was this idea of taking … I hate to say, be careful, if I’m working for the buyer, I’m working for the buyer’s best interest. I think we’re clear with that.

(13:51):

And if I’m working for the seller, seller’s best interest. This is why I think double ending a deal is bad, but if I’m working for a buyer and I’m dealing with a market like there it is today, if something comes on MLS, I want that buyer to see that property as soon as possible. And if they love it, I actually think that there’s a huge advantage to them putting it in an offer, ASAP because maybe that seller has been reading the headlines of how bad the market is or even how houses are sitting or whatever. And you can actually take advantage of the situation that maybe they’ve got a little anxiety about listing. And this is why I think it’s really important that agents are recognizing, first of all, yes, 80% of the lifting is going to be done by MLS. You still have to pay attention to what’s going on.

(14:44):

Oh yeah, MLS and be really aware of where your clients are at in terms of their urgency and their timelines to purchase. So that’s number one, but there’s still at 20%, and that’s where I think where the off-market stuff comes in is, “Hey, how do I find those properties that aren’t on the market yet or they’re holding

David Ferris (15:12):

Back?” Yeah, leveraging, I think, again, relationships with other realtors within or outside of the brokerage, but within is always great. Yeah, those coming soons, those are huge. We have our weekly office meetings, being there, being engaged, having conversations with, “Oh, what do you have coming out in the next couple weeks?” And again, that could give you an advantage to get in there right when they listed on MLS. I mean, I think you were talking about an example where you knew something was coming and you were ready and basically got a deal done within hours.

Chris Cook (15:52):

It was in with one hour, the deal going live on MOS. Yeah, that’s right. So I think it’s important to say, yes, MLS is a rarely important tool. Our job would be infinitely harder without MLS. From the seller’s perspective, disadvantages, quite obvious.

David Ferris (16:18):

Yeah, I think if you expose the property to the open market, you’re obviously going to maximize your exposure and ultimately get the top value for the property.

Chris Cook (16:28):

So here’s where this is my devil’s advocate. I think you know what it is because talk about this stuff all time, and I’ll share it with the audience. If I was working with an agent and I was selling my house and they presented the idea of selling the property off market, my spidey senses will be tingling. I’d be like, “What do you mean? You’re going to bring a buyer and how do I know that I’m not leaving something on the table?” To which I would say, why not have your cake and eat it too? If we’re going to sell the house, we want to present the best possible version of this house, which means we’re at least 10 days to two weeks of getting the house ready. So how about during the next two weeks, I look for off-market buyers. What if I searched out the people that would be interested in this property, that we introduce people to the property, but we do not make it available until two, three days on the market or something or a week on the marketing so that we’re doing that lifting ahead of time.

(17:42):

We’re still looking for the off-market buyer for the property with every intention of listing. So now we’re getting, again, I think that 80% of the lifting that’s done by realtor.ca, by MLS, but we are augmenting that with additional work.

(18:03):

What we’re doing is for the buyers is we’re saying we’re going to give you first look at the property. And then if the buyer wants to blow the seller’s hair back and it never go on the market or it only goes on the market for a short period of time, well, so be it. How important … Sorry, sometimes I like to leave a gap between the next point, but I get going on a roll here because I love this topic. How important is our open houses to finding off-market deals, buyers and sellers?

David Ferris (18:40):

Yeah, I think open houses rarely does the buyer for that particular property come in. Yeah. I think it’s happened to me maybe once, maybe twice. The open houses are good for people who want to come back maybe for a second visit. I find that’s effective, but in all honesty, they’re mostly for the agents to meet other potential buyers or sellers.

Chris Cook (19:06):

And so my take on this, and Nick, if I was talking directly to a seller and I wanted to be super honest, which I almost always am by default, I think an agent that habitually works open houses is setting up a pipeline for future deals, for future opportunities. And so this is what I think one of the questions that I would have if I was interviewing a realtor, I’d said, “Do you do open houses?” Say, “Yeah, we can do an open house.” And then the question is, how often do you do open houses? Is this part of your marketing strategy for all of your listings? Especially if somebody’s working in a particular area and are constantly doing open houses. Now, the likelihood of somebody coming into that open house and buying that house is low, but because they’ve been doing open houses for months or years, they’re going to have a stockpiled group of people that are looking in that particular neighborhood.

David Ferris (20:05):

And an add-on to that is the way that you maintain your database is very, very important. For example, you do an open house for a semi in East York, and then if you’re going to a listing appointment, you already know because you’ve had them tagged in your system, you already know how to access those people with a couple clicks, right?

Chris Cook (20:31):

Yeah. And I think ultimately, if you were to really ask a seller what they want, the answer, when you boil it all down, you want buyers.

David Ferris (20:43):

Yeah. For example, as soon as we get a listing, I go back and I look at every property that is in this same price point, same area, I pull up all those people and then I send them an email as soon as the property is listed. So right away, you’re accessing people who have been looking for that particular product. So it’s very helpful. Make sure you always keep proper tags and be very organized with your database

Chris Cook (21:13):

Part. Yep. As a little tidbit was something that actually came up that there was at an office meeting, there was an agent that had a condo that he was selling listed for 689. Or the seller had bought it a couple of years ago for 1.01. Gotcha. Okay. Do you think that sounds like opportunity? Yeah. Yeah. Sounds a lot like opportunity today. Nearly we’re talking about a 35, 40% price difference between that and that. So just going to the office meetings and when you hear about these opportunities, I think that’s a really great opportunity to now then reach out and share that because that property hadn’t come to the market

David Ferris (22:05):

Yet.

Chris Cook (22:07):

You had mentioned the office meetings, and I can’t think of a better place to go to find out about what’s coming. And there are lists of properties of what’s coming soon, what’s just hit the market. I know now a lot of stuff is digital, but I used to come into the office and it was written down coming soon, and the new listings were all written down a couple of days in advance.

David Ferris (22:31):

Buyers absolutely love it. If you’re working with a particular buyer in a particular area and you go to the office meeting on Wednesday, the listing’s not coming out till next Tuesday next week. We let them know, “Listen, I know about this property. We can even get in there this weekend and take a peek at it before it even hits the market.” Again, that’s showing your value to those clients.

Chris Cook (22:54):

Yeah. So just as a bit of a recap, there are positives and negatives to looking for off-market opportunities. I think that at the end of the day, giving people more choice is always a positive. As a seller, listen, no buyer is ever going to look at you and say, “No way, I don’t want to see those off market.” There’s no disadvantage that I can think of for buyers. This is the only advantage. Sellers, I think that there’s disadvantage there is not exposing the property to the market, and it’s going to come down to the seller’s own expectations. In my experience, offering off-market sale to a seller is a recipe to not get the listing, but if it’s a part of your strategy is to do some pre-list marketing and fuel pre-list buyers for the property that once it hits the market, you can bring them.

(23:56):

Or if it is a situation where they just cannot list the property, they can’t put it on the market either emotionally or physically, there’s something that’s stopping them from doing this, being able to have the skills to draw out those buyers using your CRM to its the highest and best capacity,

(24:23):

Tagging people for specific properties and being able to reach out to them and leveraging your relationships with other realtors. It really can’t be overstated. I think that there’s an adversarial approach that some people have to every business. It doesn’t matter what business you’re in. Some people are adversarial by reacher, but this is a time where I think that agents can really shake that off.

David Ferris (24:51):

And Hallmark, in all honesty, I’ve always found it such a healthy place to collaborate and they really promote that within this particular brokerage. Yeah, I’ve noticed that for sure.

Chris Cook (25:04):

Yeah. I also, I think it’s probably a good time to say that how important it is through all of this stuff is to paper your agreements. If you’re going to work for somebody off market, you need to have that documented so that the buyer or seller, whoever it is that you’re representing understands the term just this particular relationship. I think that’s really important. I see a lot of agents that will talk about an off-market opportunity they have, but they’re really not. They haven’t walked down that opportunity. And so I think you expose risk for all parties when you do that. If you’ve got a seller that’s very private and you start sharing that information and you don’t have it under contract.

David Ferris (25:55):

And they’re getting people knocking on their door and the whole reason they’re looking for an off-market is to maintain that privacy. It’s kind of counterproductive.

Chris Cook (26:04):

Yeah, I think a lot of agents could do better with documenting their relationships. I know that it is something that some people are shy when it comes to doing that. I guess that’s probably the best way to put it. I’ve been in situations where I’ve not papered a relationship and I would feel weird talking about that property if I didn’t have some sort of documentation protecting the seller, the buyer, and my relationship. So that’s it for this week. A little bit of a glimpse into some other ways that you can market yourself to add more value to what it is that you do as a realtor. I think relying on MLS to refresh is a poor strategy because there’s been so little good inventory and you could be waiting months and months and months for the right thing to come along and then find yourself in competition.

David Ferris (27:07):

Be proactive, don’t be reactive. Go above and beyond for your clients. It will significantly improve your business. It’s kind of a no-brainer. Awesome. Thanks for joining again.

Chris Cook (27:19):

Yeah, for sure. Podcast number two. Appreciate it. All right. Thanks everybody for listening to this week’s episode of Mind Your Real Estate Business. This episode was really geared towards making sure that you’re not just relying on MLS, that you’re looking for other opportunities, specifically off-market opportunities for your buyers and where the advantages and disadvantages are for sellers. If you’d like to have a deeper conversation about off-market, happy to sit down and have that chat either by call, email, Zoom call, whatever suits you, either David or myself are happy to have that chat. Until next week, thanks for listening and we’ll see you next time on Monday Real Estate Visits.