The Benefits of Bird-Dogging
By Bill Guerra (Bill in Vegas)

Bird-dogging is hands down the best way to begin your real estate investment career. Although the pay in the beginning is not good, there are lots of benefits to starting out as a bird-dog for an established investor. Forget the funny title—it is the best place to begin your real estate investment career!

First decide you are in business for the long term versus a “get rich quick” scheme. Then bird-dogging allows you to get the education that is invaluable for the business. Gaining vital education is precisely what bird-dogging is all about. Think of it as a regular college where you pay to learn and then you earn. Welcome to the best university for real estate investing! I say this because, one must not think about them money in the beginning, and I emphasis this as it was a hard concept for me to understand. Until I got it.

By definition, a bird-dog finds motivated sellers for seasoned investors, and in return they make roughly $500 to $2000 or more, depending on the particular transaction once the investor closes on the house. A bird-dog simply shows the seasoned investor where the boarded-up, vacant or seemingly unwanted house is located. There is no legal risk to the bird-dog, nor do they need to know fix-up costs. The bird-dog needs no money and does not place the house under contract. To find a seasoned investor who you can bird-dog for, call the “We Buy Houses” signs and the “We Buy Houses” newspaper ads. When you first speak with the investor, ask them where they like to buy rehab properties so you can go to those gold mine areas and find houses for them.

Remember to look for vacant houses with unkempt yards, deferred maintenance, and boarded-up windows. Houses 20 years and older that seem to need a lot of repair are often good finds. Ask the neighbors for information on who owns the property if the home is abandoned. Try to get a phone number for the owners so you can talk to them to see if they are interested in selling.When I was bird-dogging, I would first show the investor the house I found. Then, we would negotiate the finder’s fee, and I’d look for the next house with a motivated seller (a seller who wanted to sell quickly). What I soon found was this, what I thought was a good deal was usually not a deal at all. I was turned down time and time again by the seasoned investor. It was exasperating! Little by little, I was able to learn what it was about the property that made the investor turn it down.

When the investor took the time to talk with me, they were really acting as a mentor. In turn, I was being trained to make them money. As a bird-dog, it’s important to focus on making the investor some money at this stage. Repeat this mantra with me—”focus on making the investor money”. This takes the focus off yourself and needs and allows you to learn the ropes of the business. It will also let the investor know that your business ambitions are on track with theirs and that your heart is in the right place. As long as you help them, they’ll help you! In short, forget about making money as a bird-dog honestly. The money will definitely come later, but don’t concern yourself at first with wholesaling, rehabbing and making a ton of cash overnight. Remember that in the beginning, you are in school to learn the In’s and outs of investing and before you earn, you must learn. Start the right way, and it will pay.

During this education, you’ll learn a lot about establishing trust, forming business relationships and finding out which investors can close and which investors are new. When I began bird-dogging, I learned the areas, the houses, the markets, and the players. These are things that would have taken me months to figure out if I were doing it on my own. I found the harder I worked and the more deals I brought to the investor, the more time they had to spend with me and the less they minded answering my newbie questions! Soon, we were speaking the same language and had the same goals in mind. When I started out as an investor, it was with stars in my eyes and a hunger for success.

In time, I realized that building a business take time, knowledge, perseverance, some money (and having a steady job and access to a car helps). Above all, a dogged determination, and a sense of ”I wont quite no matter what” is needed to ensure success. By beginning my investment career as a bird-dog, I got a thorough education in investing. May you have a profitable, fun and very long-term investing career. I hope these ideal help you as much as it did me.

Tags: , , ,