How many buyers should a new bird dog build toward, one or several

Question

Scouting is the part of this business a new bird dog can start on before any capital is in place, and the real decision to make early is how many buyers to build toward. The one-investor model works like this: find a person who actually closes, learn exactly what he buys, and send him only that. Everything handed over fits, so the hit rate climbs and eventually the buyer starts describing what he wants before the scout goes looking. The risk is equally obvious. If that buyer stops purchasing, gets slow paying, or changes what counts as a qualifying lead, the whole operation rests on one relationship. The multi-buyer model sends the same lead to several people and whichever moves fastest gets it. More shots, no dependence on any single relationship. But investors tend to turn cold on scouts who shop leads around, and the logic holds up. If a buyer knows three other people received the same address, there is little reason to pay for the find and every reason to just go get it directly. A middle path gives one buyer first look for a day or two before opening it to others. It sounds reasonable on paper, and the real test is whether it survives contact with an actual pipeline. Anyone running this model successfully has usually settled on one end or the other rather than staying in the middle indefinitely.

samantha_ruiz · Answer

I ran the six version for a year and it capped me around $600 a fee, because everybody knew the lead was shopped and priced accordingly. Then I narrowed to two buyers with different criteria, one buy-and-hold and one flipper, and fees roughly doubled. The reason is that criteria coverage matters more than buyer count. Two buyers who want different things covers almost everything I find. Six buyers who all want the same three-bedroom rental means five of them are just competitors I invited in.

mitchell_ray4 · Answer

Coming off the trades I'd say the first-look window @tashaford30 described does survive contact with reality, because that's how subcontractor relationships already work. You give the guy who paid you last time the first call and a short window. Everyone understands the deal without it being written anywhere. What breaks it is a vague window. Say twenty four hours and mean twenty four hours, otherwise he learns that his first look is unlimited and he'll sit on it.

chriswalton8 · Answer

The pattern on the capital side is that the value sits in knowing one buyer's box precisely, and that only comes from repetition with one buyer. @samantha_ruiz's two-buyer split with different criteria is the honest compromise, since you get depth on both without inviting five competitors into your own pipeline.

How many buyers should a new bird dog build toward, one or several

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