finder fees

Hi all, I am new to this game and am interested in learning all I can. I have read a few posts here and so far I see a lot of useful info.
I may have a person who is interested in purchasing a small shopping center in the $3-5 mill. range. If I can locate a seller for him, what would be an appropriate finders fee? Is that usually a percentage or what?

thanks, dave

depending upon which state you are in many states consider this practicing real estate with out a license and it is illegal in many. $25 thank you is all that is allowed in the state of texas, if you obtain your re license you can charge what ever your broker allows…

I’m here in the United Socialist Republic of California…if there is a way for the state to keep money out of your pocket they will find it :wink: …thanks for the response
dave

Few questions:

  1. Any suggestions on what states consider bird dogging perfectly legal?
  2. Do bird dogs sign some agreement with investors?
  3. Generally - how do you handle out of state transactions? Does the investor come see the property himself before buying? Would be interested to hear from bird dogs that work out of state and also investors that do out of state transactions. Care to share your experience?

There is a lot of confusion about what you can and can’t do and it does vary by state. Here in California you can’t go past the introduction stage without being a principal or licensed salesperson or broker (for which you now have other laws to abide by).

This means you can generally do two things without a license:

  1. Find the property (i.e. Finder) and introduce the owner and the buyer/principal. You’re probably safe knocking on the door, getting their name and number, and either letting them know about the buyer or giving the information to the buyer. As long as you don’t do anything more than that (e.g. negotiate, talk about price, the neighborhood, the property, the owner’s situation) you should be good.

  2. Get the property under contract and assign the contract to a buyer/principal. Be careful if your assignee is a broker, you’ll have other laws to deal with.

Good luck.