I have this investor that wants me to bird dog, which is good. The thing is the areas he wants me to bird dog are far away in another county many miles way from where I live. I am not familiar with the far away town to do bird dogging. At the same time this is opportunity that I would hate to pass up because of the longer distance. How do I go about bird dogging for houses that are close to an hour away in areas I never seen before considering I’m not from that part of town?
Would it be the wrong to ask the investor how they normally locate their deals? I mean since they don’t have the time to do it themselves I can just take over doing what they’ve been doing all the while. I feel as long as I am bird dogging as promised that shouldn’t be an issue. Is it?
don’t worry about learning a market in another country. learn the one in your backyard first. i would be willing to bet there are more deals right near you than any one single person can do
Read again Atlas. Look closer at what I wrote. I wrote COUNTY not Country. I understand it was an honest mistake on your part. Stuff happens sometimes.
Find out eaxctly what he wants, so you don’t waste your time finding stuff he/she won’t buy. Then, market on Craigslist for that town, looking for motivated sellers. Throw out bandit signs over there, too.
He specifically wants 3 beds 2 baths in either or all of three different cities way outside my part of town. He wants homes that go from 50k-200k. I am so glad you mentions Craigslist because that is exactly how I have been finding all my bird dog leads even if they don’t sale.
I felt bad because I asked him how he locate leads and he said he drives around looking for homes “he” like. I feel bad because he may feel I’m not doing anything but rely on the internet to find very specific leads he wants. And honestly I am relying on the internet. The reason why is because you can’t get all that specific information just by riding around some neighborhood looking at homes from the outside. This would have been way easy if I was bird dogging homes in my own town. There is like a huge treasure chest of ugly homes in my area that look like they would sell dirt cheap, which could make huge loads of profit.
Not many folks want to waste their time investing in homes where I’m from. My investors have investors looking for places far outside where I live because those areas are more desirable than my part of town. Too bad because I live in ugly house neighborhood with very few ok looking homes.
I did answer some of this in my last reply that I wrote a few minutes ago to you from your other post, so I’ll just supplement here.
To start bird dogging in a market that is not your local market you focus on ways to find properties that do not require your physically being there.
All the standard marketing strategies still work like direct mail, hiring someone to do door-to-door marketing in the neighborhoods you are interested in and classified ad websites like CraigsList.
Plus, you can search for people that have advertised their property for sale on all the websites that serve that local community… with the largest probably be CraigsList in the properties for sale section (usually for cash wholesaling) and properties for rent section (usually for lease option, owner financing or lease option wholesaling).
If you’re investor is going to be the end buyer and you’re truly bird dogging (being paid an administrative fee to do research and prepare property information files) and not wholesaling to your investor you can also search for and research REO/foreclosure properties. If you’re wholesaling it is becoming increasingly more challenging wholesaling from the MLS, but bird dogging for someone is still feasible.
Yes, you can definitely ask him how he finds deals and offer to do that for him, but there are lots of ways to find properties depending on what you love to do. For example, some people love to call CraigsList ads. Some people love to email CraigsList ads. Some prefer to put out Bandit Signs. Some prefer direct mail. Each of those can work. Each requires slightly different skills sets.
You mentioned that you don’t believe people are buying in your city/town. Did you pull the list of actual sales from the tax records and compare that to the sales in the market you are considering? Sometimes we have pre-conceived, often erroneous, beliefs about what is true. You may be right, but why not prove it to yourself before you rule out your local market?
I hope that helps, but let me know if I can help in any other way.
You’re right. I am preconceived with that gut feeling in my stomach that my area is not a good place to invest. I guess sometimes you just have to be here to see for yourself what I see everyday. Around the block from where I live looks like mayhem.
Yes, while I believe trusting your gut is important, trusting your guy without evidence or not verifying your instincts with proof might lead to less than ideal circumstances. You can easily see if the area you live in would be a good place to focus on with just a couple hours of research. Well worth it in my opinion when you consider it could take a couple hours to select an area outside of your market anyway.
You can do it. Keep at it. I believe in you and if you need help, let me know.
I appreciate your confidence in me. I was looking around the electronic courthouse and netronline to find useful information. I got some good information about the properties I found in my neighborhood. The only thing I couldn’t get was owner name, number, and mailing address. Those are the key ingredients needed to do my deals. I also wanted to see where I can find information on how much buying and selling has been going on in my area.
As you describe it, I do not think that service is a good fit for you. You will want to contact real estate agents or title companies to get the data you need.
