If you have bad credit and can’t get your investments financed or you don’t have enough money for down payments and other expenses related to real estate investing, maybe you should consider being a real estate bird dog. If you’re a bird dog you spend none of your own money and collect fees from other real estate investors.
A real estate bird dogger finds profitable real estate deals for other real estate investors and gets a fee agreed upon beforehand, usually based on the profitability of the deal to the investor.
A new real estate investor can get some income and also valuable experience before he starts his own investing. This can help the new investor avoid some of the pitfalls of investing and therefore lower the risks.
A bird dogger needs to look for good investment opportunities that will be profitable for the investor. Properties that are abandoned, in bad repair, or boarded up can be good possibilities. Once you find a property that you think will make a good investment you need to try to find the owner of the property to see if they would consider selling it.
This type of scouting for investments takes a lot of valuable time for the real estate investor and they are usually happy to pay a fee for someone to bring them some deals that they can assess and decide if they would be beneficial to pursue.
A large part of finding profitable real estate deals depends upon the bird dog’s knowledge and experience in assessing the rehabbing cost for the properties, the value of the neighborhood the properties are in, and the real estate market.
A new bird dogger might not get that many deals right off because they have not proven themselves as someone who can find the good deals. But eventually, as you get more experience, the jobs will come easier.
After you find a property that could be a good real estate investment, call an investor and offer to show them the property. You will receive a fee if they close a deal or if they think they are interested enough. The amount of the fee you will earn can vary according to the investor and what he thinks the value of the deal is. The fees can range anywhere from $500.00 and up.
One of the main reasons to start your real estate career as a bird dog is because it doesn’t cost you anything but time for finding the profitable deals. You may not get too many deals at first but as your experience builds you will start to see more and more deals and get to know more real estate investors. Over time you will easily be able to recognize a property with good potential to an investor.
Bird dogging is a great part time business to build up not only experience but some money so that you can then do your own real estate investing. It can start as a weekend hobby and grow into a full fledged business if you decide that is what you want to do.
