Creating Bird-dogs

I call this the ant farm technique because it reminds me of how ants operate! Here’s how it works: Find others on the social networking sites to go out into their neighborhoods and look for fixer-upper properties. These  people are out and during the day, so teach them to gather up the information your require and bring them back to you!  It’s that simple.  You can leverage your time by delegating your work to others. I use people interested in part time work that would have a car and a digital camera. The important thing is to get them trained so they bring back the exact information you need. You don’t want to be paying for useless information. Here are the five steps to follow:

1. Map out your target area of three or four neighborhoods.

2. Give them a training manual of the type of houses you’re looking for; use the list of clues discussed earlier. (see links below)

3. Tell them you want a photograph of each house — Use the property information sheet to complete so they can keep track of which photo goes with which house address.

4. Give them a written priority list: boarded-up, vacant, FSBO, and occupied, in that order. I tell them to ignore all REALTOR®- listed properties / (no sense in paying for information your real estate agent should provide for free). Also houses with permits, or signs of work.

5. For each property, you want them to record the street address. If it is vacant or boarded up, ask them to talk with a neighbor to see if they can get the owner’s name and whereabouts (sometimes the county records are inaccurate or not up to date and a neighbor can often provide good information). If it is a FSBO, ask them to record the phone number also. 

The next issue is compensation. How do you pay for the work? You need to think this through for yourself, based on your local circumstances, but here’s what I use to do.

1. $5 for each vacant or boarded-up house with owner’s name
2. $2.50 for each vacant or boarded-up house without owner’s name
3. $2.50 for each FSBO with phone number
4. $2.50 for each junker, address only
5. OR they can choose to get paid $500.00 for each house I buy.

Can you guess which option they usually choose?

It’s very easy on the social networking sites to target your zip codes along with people interested in making money. Imagine, you can now network right down to a neighborhood level. Incredible.. Find the people in that exact area, and go! Its that simple.

You’ll need to work out your budget for this work and maybe space it out over a couple of months, depending on your cash flow situation. How many leads do you want? Only you can answer that question. If you’re using this technique, I would suggest you target at least one new neighborhood a month and more if you can afford it. You want to build up your pool of owners’ names as fast as you can. If one of your “student bees” works out good for you, you might also want to consider training him or her to do your county records research.

I bet your own son or daughter is very familiar with Facebool. You can hire your kids to run your activities online OR there is a link at the bottom of this report, that will automate the entire process.

QUESTION: How I get around steering clear of some states laws on illegal bird-dog fees?
ANSWER: I am paying them for marketing work i.e taking pictures, video of houses, etc.

SUPPORTING DOCS TO DOWNLOAD

BIRD DOG TRAINING KIT –

BIRD DOG INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT

Wholesale Jobber Course by Barry Grimes – Courtesy of REIClub

A bird-dog is someone who is on the lookout for problem property or knows of people with property problems. I believe the easiest way is to find these people online. Find out my techniques below. I originally started off by placing online ads on Craigslist and other free classified advertising papers and achieved good results. Then I discovered Facebook and MySpace. With these types of social networking sites, you can create a profile of what you do, and then it really simple to GEO target zip codes you want to find birddogs.

Imagine targeting specific neighborhoods, and the people living in them to be on the look out… WOW. Then you can manage all your bird dogs from within your social networking profile.

RUN ADVERTS!

You can run ads on all free online classified ad sites and social media sites. I also recommend doing some paid advertising on Facebook!

Download Sample Bird Dog Ads

Of course you can find birddogs the old fashion ways. I have found that the best birddogs have been in one of the below professions. Of course I have had many other type of people respond to my free online ads but I still make a habit of networking with everyone that I am looking to buy small, residential rental properties, and that I am willing to pay them a finder’s fee when I close on the property.

Make sure you get your free business cards from www.VistaPrint.com

• Here’s the type of people I personally like to speak to and invite them to be my bird-dogs:
• Mail carriers
• Trash collectors
• Fellow club members
• Fellow church members
• Door-to-door salespeople
• Delivery truck driver
• Repair Men
• Tradesmen
• Business colleagues
• Tenants
• Taxicab drivers
• Utility meter readers

It is advisable to set up a recruiting and tracking system.  I use an additional automated system to track my bird-dogs.  Check it out here:   http://www.MakeMoneyBirddogging.com However, you can use your current website lead system to have them submit deals.  Just have them put in their name as the Referral