Trying to make the math on a monthly retainer for off market leads sit still.

Here is a scenario worth working through. A buyer moves slowly and knows it. Two years of looking, no purchase, mostly because the small multifamily they want at the price they want comes to market in their county only a few times a year, and when it does they are the fourth call. Someone who does driving and courthouse work in the area offers a straight arrangement: $600 a month, everything that fits the buyer's box before it lists, exclusive for five days. The box definition is reasonable, 4 to 12 units, built pre-1985, within a defined ring of the city. So $7,200 a year. If it produces one purchase in two years that the buyer would not otherwise have found, that is $14,400 in finder's cost against a building bought around $600k, so 2.4%. Compared to what a buyer pays in a bidding situation for the same building, that is cheap. Compared to zero, which is what this buyer has spent so far, it is a lot. What the buyer cannot resolve: their own slowness is the constraint, and deal flow is secondary to it. They have passed on two things in eighteen months that they could have bought. Paying for a faster pipe while still taking three weeks to decide is renting a firehose and standing next to it with a cup. The bird dog also has three other clients whose boxes are unknown. If one of them overlaps, the exclusive five days is worth less than it reads. The decision on the table is whether to sign a three month trial, ask him first how many pre-1985 4 to 12 unit properties he found in the last year, or fix the decision speed before paying anyone. Which order would the room take?