I contacted one of the Real Estate agents I met on my open house tour and asked him if he was interested in working with a beginner investor. He said he has worked with many investors before and would be happy to talk with me and share his experiences (not sure if this means good or bad).

I'm going to try and setup an appointment to talk with him on sunday. I'm going to follow Steve Cook's advice and go about it the following way...

First I'm going to ask him about his experiences with the other investors. What types of deals he found for them. I'll then ask some follow up questions so I can gauge his knowledge of investing.

Second I'll explain to him how we can work together. That I'd like to get weekly listings of expireds, foreclosures and handyman specials. That I'll need him to submit my offers (but I will see if I can fill out the forms and just give them to him to submit, saving him extra work). I will also tell him that once in a while I'll need him to run some comps and show me a house, but this won't happen to often.

Third I'll get into the amount of offers I'll be making (hopefully) and that they will be very low offers. I expect to get most of them rejected, but am confident a few will be accepted.

If he asks me about signing a "exclusivity agreement" I will decline and tell him I have no problems giving him the commision on all properties I get through him, but if someone else brings me the property it wouldn't be fair to cut them out of the deal.

So how does all that sound? Leave me some feedback if you have other ideas.