Anyone who has tried to look for an apartment to rent or buy in the last decade, and has wandered the digital marketing sites (Yad2, win-win, Madeleine and more) understands that brokers are a very major player in the real estate market.

Most seekers will look at real estate brokers as those who will try to cut a share at their expense on the way to buying or selling or renting a property and will try to avoid using them.

I, as a real estate investor, do not look at it that way, in fact, quite the opposite, I look at a broker as an important tool in the game to help get to the coveted property.

In fact, out of dozens of real estate transactions I have made since 2010, I remember that in only two transactions I did not need the assistance of a broker.

A broker who understands exactly what you are looking for, who will not bother you and waste your precious time with apartments that are neither in your budget nor to your taste, who will know how to push when needed, he is an asset, and if he gets you a bargain then in general he is worth every NIS from the 2% he takes and even beyond that (and certainly some brokers presented me with a bargain and asked for 4% NIS).

Because if you do not check the field all day for hours, where you are looking for an investment property, there is no chance that you will find bargains and certainly not on websites (and forget about all the traps that scatter in digital ads, "bargain", "snatch", " for those who understand " and more).

The first investment property I bought, for which I earned 180,000 NIS in a year and a half, I would not have had a chance in life to reach it without Gandhi, the broker. The apartment was not advertised anywhere, it did not have a sign for sale, it reached Gandhi because the owner's father asked him to sell it and they did not have time to market it.

Investors in the real estate market need to know the rules of the game with brokers to get the most out of working with them.

You need to define for them exactly what you are looking for, in what budget, in what area, and if it is a good broker then when the day comes that an apartment will fall into their hands within the parameters you set for them, they will contact you.

From my experience with brokers, not everything was rosy, there was one broker who left a particularly bad taste.

About eight years ago, I was looking for apartments for investment in the Krayot area, and I was in contact with brokers who worked in these areas.

Simultaneously with contacting brokers, I was also looking for apartments in Yad2, one day I met a broker (his name is stored in the system) who showed me an apartment on Hatavor Street in Kiryat Ata.

Of course, the same broker signed me a service delivery form, anyone who has ever received services from a broker knows the form.

This is a form with the details of the recipient of the service (in this case me) and below a block of lines that each line has details about the assets he has shown you.

In the form, I signed, only the first line was complete, with the details of the apartment on Hatavor Street.

Two weeks after seeing the apartment on Hatavor Street, I bought an apartment I found on my own through Yad2 on Mintz Street.

About three weeks after I bought the apartment, the same broker called me and offered me to come and see more apartments, I said thank you and I had already bought an apartment in the area, he was interested and asked which street and what the price was and I answered him.

A week later, I got a call from the same broker who asked me to "throw him a bone" from the same deal I made, I told him he did not deserve it because I did not get help from him in this deal but I will think about it.

A week later, I got a call from him again, telling him I was thinking about it and decided he did not deserve it.

A month later, I received a letter of warning from the law firm that if I did not transfer a sum of NIS 10,000 to him within a month, a lawsuit would be filed against me in court, in addition to the letter, a receipt for the services I signed was attached to the envelope, but to my amazement, it had two properties that were supposedly instructed to me, beyond the apartment on Hatavor Street, there were also the details of the apartment on Mintz Street (which he never showed me).

In the lawsuit in court, I won of course, but the moral of the story is when you sign a form of receipt of services from a broker, mark with X all the blank lines.