Property Investment Training Courses: How Sourcers Can Adapt to Help

Recently an article was published online highlighting how investor training programmes have been attracting ex-military personal, who some, unfortunately have ended up losing lots of cash as consequence or significantly worse.

The courses have pushed them to get into property investing, without understanding their individual circumstances and suggesting they seek out professional financial advice before taking the leap.

Unfortunately, we can’t change how training courses are marketed out, or how they are designed to target specific people, and what they teach on them – no sector is currently regulated by Trading Standards.

What we can try to change is how NAPSA Members and sourcing agents more generally adapt to these courses and help inexperienced investors before agreeing to work with them.

As well as directly appealing to new investors to seek financial advice before spending cash on investments. It may be that property is not the right route for the money you have to spend, there could be better ways to take advantage of your cash in the long-run or for your specific goals.

From a sourcing perspective, it may feel like going against new business especially if an investor is keen to work with you, however there is a moral obligation and long-term risk potential to consider here too.

How Can Sourcers Adapt & Help Investors?

There are a number of measures sourcing agents can put in place, and in all honesty, most of these should already be common practice anyway – mostly to avoid time wasters and make sure that who you’re about to work with, is the right fit for your business just as much as you are for theirs.

Get to Know Your Potential Client

Find out how much experience they have in property investing and if they have none, you should sign post them to appropriate regulated guidance, such as an independent wealth advisor.

Build a List of Independent Wealth Advisors

See if they are willing to chat with potential clients and advise them. Investors will also thank you for your guidance and ‘non pushy’ sales approach.

Make sure if you put your recommendations in email. You can then prove in the future if a claim is made against you that you advised the client to take specialist investment advice, even if they decided not to.

Be Honest With a Potential Client

If inexperienced, tell them you will put in touch with someone who is qualified and if property is a good idea then they may well come back to you.

Don’t Give Financial Advice

We are not qualified to do this. The role of a sourcing agent is to find the deals and take the fee. We cannot support investors by providing financial advice – instead, as above, point them towards experts who are qualified to do this.

It is up to the investor whether they want to take the advice or not, and then up to you if you want to continue working with them.

You May Be Surprised

By working in this way, you may be surprised how many more referrals you get from word of mouth – just because you have done the right thing and not just moved forwards and taken their money when they came to you.

It’s a great feeling when an investor thanks you for suggesting this route and they then go on to receive guidance from an expert. It’s the sort of care and consideration they may not have received from a pushy sales training course.

If you have any questions or would like more information, don’t hesitate to get in touch at: [email protected]

NAPSA’s core mission is to educate the sourcing sector for the better, build credibility and trust from investors who have either heard bad things about sourcing agents or been burned themselves. We are building a community of professional and compliant sourcing agents, whilst providing a safer space for investors to search and communicate with approved and credible sourcing agents.