Bird dogging - How to protect yourself?

[Jevon Brookes]

I'm a new real estate investor and I'm looking into bird dogging to get started. I have been replying to "we buy ugly houses" ads asking if they provide a bird dog fee. I have gotten a few responses but I began to ask myself "How do I protect myself?" What are some do's and don't of bird dogging?

Thanks for the help
{J}

[Bill Gulley]

Best way is to get a real estate license and you can birddog all you want and get paid a fee to do so.....above board!

Otherwise it can get complicated as you really are putting buyers and sellers together, facilitating sales.

You need to read your state statutes very carefully word for word as to what requires a real estate license and then don't do those things if you don't have a license.

You can be an employee or memebr in a LLC that buys or sells, as a principal, in other words if BAC LLC buys a property and you are a memeber of BAC LLC, you can then be entitled to profits for the work you perform in that LLC.

Another way is for you to take an option to buy and then sell your option, this is placing you in a position of havine an interest in the transaction, but those you sell to may have financing issues with this, it also depends on property restrictions or title limitations as beeing seen as sales during a restriction to conveyances, again check and see how these issues are viewed locally.

Generally, you can not act as a third party between a buyer and seller and simply arrange or introduce deals and be paid a fee independly as that is a function of a real estate agent/broker.

Lastly, it's easy to get a bad reputation amoung Realtors if you're known as a birddog, they will likely see you as unlicensened competiton and expect them to complain and report your activities. So you need to walk a thin line and do things properly.

Good luck