Real estate agents are only out for themselves and in this market they will tell you anything to get a sale.

Too bad about your honest friend.

You can hire a professional inspector to go through a property and tell you the truth.

Do not let a RE agent supply one since they are interested in more work from the agent and may leave out something important.

I hate r/e agents so much that I got my own r/e license to buy & sell my properties. I cut one more phone out of the game of telephone. I get to save & make some money on the side, too.

Before I got my license, here's what I would do; Look online on Realtor.com, if you see something your interested in, call the listing office, only ask to speak to the *listing agent*, this is the one person who knows most about the property and the seller and will bend over backward to accomodate because they will make double the comission. Don't sign anything but that they would represent you ONLY on THAT property. If that property is not for you look for the next property and deal only with that property listing agent. You cut out alot of nonesense that way, alot less people and their scheduals in the way, too.

The way I have found good agents is thusly:

Do you know other investors in your area? I would start by asking them for referrals. If you get some referreals, then call and meet with those agents. Only meet with people who are knowledgable about investor-buyers as we are different from owner occ. buyers.

Do try to work with the actual broker if you can. This is what I do in 2 different markets, and one agent specializes in investor properties, the other has a property management arm of her brokerage and is a LL herself (so she REALLY gets LLing). And no she doesn't gobble up every great rental property. . . .she is actually slowly starting to sell hers off, she's been in business over 30 years.

Right now I am selling my own residence. I decided to use a different agent for that, because of the differences in the types of buyers that I was looking for versus what my buyer broker for investment property looks for in a deal. The agent I have understands me and has stayed out of the way. Our buyers have been in touch with us regularly and directly. Many agents would not like this, buyer's or seller's, but we have 2 good agents on the sale, who get it.

You want someone who will give you enough freedom and flexibility to locate and purchase the sort of property you want, and one who has enough patience to let you find the property, even if you gotta look at 100 or so. You want someone who will respect what you already know, answer the questions you need answered and keep their ego in check and your interests at heart. Tall order, absolutely.

You old agent was probably like this. Interview and find someone like him. They ARE out there. One idea too is to call up some of the local small lenders and ask for a VP or senior officer (someone with seniority or long tenure in a local community bank.) Ask them for referrals. Call several small community banks/credit unions in your area and ask the same questions and get referrals. Someone good and long term reputable will be known in the community. A few names will pop up repeatedly. Interview those people.

Also ask what brokerage the smaller banks use to dispose of REOs. Generally they will farm out the REOs to one or two brokerages depending on volume, and will have a good relationship with those brokers.

This can have several benefits, obviously. I would not bother with this approach with the big national banks. You'll never get anyone there that is helpful or they may be plenty helpful but have no authority to decide or tell you anything.

Community banks and credit unions are better places to look for institutional references/referrals.

They will use the best people because they care about keeping their books up better than the big banks, even if they tell you they have no REOs, ask who they use if they were to have one.