A bird dog locates promising investment properties, distressed houses, motivated sellers, off-market opportunities, and passes the lead to an investor who does the actual deal, in exchange for a finder's fee.
Log in to followI manage 140 units across 22 owners. In the last two months three of those owners have said some version of "I'm getting too old for this" to me on the phone. One is a 6 unit buil…
I'm mostly a long-hold land person so this isn't my usual lane, but I've had two people this month describe themselves to me as bird dogs and they clearly meant different things.…
Over about three weeks of driving the same four streets on my way home I've written down 11 houses. Tarps, waist-high grass, mail visibly stacked in one door, a code enforcement n…
I've been trying to work out which lane fits me and bird dogging keeps coming up as the answer for people with no money. Fine, I have no money. But every description I read frames…
I run renovation scope for other people. Every week I drive past three or four houses that are obviously in trouble. Tarp roof, mail piled up, a dumpster that's been full since fo…
A guy who does yard work in a neighborhood I like emailed me offering what he calls off-market leads. His terms: $400 per lead, paid before he tells me the address, and he says he…
I'm planning my first purchase carefully and scouting is the part I can start on this month without money. What I can't decide is how many buyers to build toward. The one-investor…
Foreclosure filings were up 26 percent year over year in the first quarter per ATTOM, starts up 20, repossessions up 45. So the list is getting longer and every scout I talk to ha…
I've been reading for half a year, haven't done a deal, and I want to pick something I can start this month. Bird dogging keeps coming up as the free entry point because you don't…
Four deals in and my problem is deal flow, so I told a guy at a local meetup I'd pay $2,000 per closing for addresses in my two zip codes. He's enthusiastic. In three weeks he's s…
An investor I met through a contractor I know sent me six addresses and asked me to go look at each one, take exterior photos, note whether it looks occupied, and tell him if ther…
I do a lot of due diligence on passive positions and I've started noticing distressed houses near the ones I look at. A friend who flips said I should just send them over and he'd…
Right now I have two investors who each pay me $1,000 flat when they close on something I found. I don't contract anything, I don't talk price with owners, I hand over an address,…
Career change in progress, zero deals, and I sent my first real lead to an investor I met at a meetup. Small single family, garage door caved in, grass to my knee, notice taped to…
Working out what the first deal costs, and I decided bird dogging was the free way in. It wasn't free and the reason it wasn't is my own doing, so here's the accounting. Over seve…
I do passive positions mostly and I underwrite carefully, so when I started funding a local operator's acquisitions I ended up paying for his lead flow too. Over 14 months that wa…
I work rural land, long holds, and I've been passing leads on parcels that don't fit my hold criteria. Small acreage, back taxes owed, heirs scattered across three states. Flat fe…
I've been reading this room for a while and I think I understand the basic idea. I find a house, I tell an investor about it, they do the deal, I get a fee. What I'm stuck on is s…
I've been working through the pre-licensing hours and doing some scouting on the side to have something going on. Found a duplex with a boarded window and a code violation posted,…
An investor I underwrite for pays his scouts two ways and lets them pick. Either $500 flat on any lead he takes to contract, or 5 percent of his net profit when he closes. Same gu…