The Benefits of Bird-dogging
By Bill Guerra (Bill in Vegas)
There are a lot of benefits to starting out as a birddog, forget the funny title; it is the best place to begin your investment career! No, the pay is initially not good, but one has to decide are they in business long term or looking to “get rich quick?” For long term, education is invaluable in our business. Education is precisely what bird-dogging is all about. It’s kind of like college you pay to learn and then you earn.
A birddog by definition finds motivated sellers for seasoned investors. In return they make roughly $500-$2000 depending on the particular deal once the seasoned investor closes on the house. A birddog simply points to the boarded up, vacant, or seemingly unwanted house. The birddog has no legal risk, does not need to know fix up costs, and needs no money to place the house under contract.
The goal is to find a trustworthy investor(s) who you can birddog for, by calling the “We Buy Houses” signs and newspaper ads etc. Steve Cook covers how to do this in his “Wholesaling for Quick Cash Book.” Then ask them where they like to buy rehab properties so you can go to there goldmine areas and find houses. You are looking for vacant houses with unkempt yards, boarded up windows, usually much older houses, the worse the house the better, asking neighbors “who owns the property and do they have the phone number?” As time goes on you do what you can to locate the owner and see if they are interested in selling.
When I was bird dogging I would show the investor the house, we would agree on the finder’s fee, then immediately I would begin to look for the next motivated seller/house. But what typically happened was the investor would turn my deal down time and time again. How exasperating!!! Turns out what I thought was a good deal was not a deal at all. Thus my education progressed.
They were mentoring me, and I in turn made them money, while establishing trust, forming business relationships, and finding out which investors could close and who were newbie’s like my then self. I learned the areas, the houses, the market, the players, timing, and many other things that would have taken me months doing it on my own. I found the harder I worked and the more potential deals I brought to the investor the more s/he had time to spend with me, as we were now talking the same language with the same goals in mind.
When I started out as an investor, I like most had stars in my eyes and a hunger in my stomach for success. In time I began to realize that building a business takes time, knowledge, perseverance, some money (a job helps here, car is a plus), and dogged determination. So by starting as a birddog I got a good quick education. I only had to birddog a few deals, then began wholesaling once I had the ability to close the deal myself. The benefits of education I received as a birddog proved invaluable months down the road. All of the “No’s the seasoned investors told me in the beginning taught me what a “Yes” or a real deal was!
Hope this helps some and may you have a profitable, fun and very long term investing career.
Bil Guerra (Bill in Vegas)
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