BirdDogs - Paid by who?

[Ianthe H.]

Discussion question:

My partner and I have a short sale signed over to us (all the information and homeowner info needed) . We then introduced the deal to a few people. One of them was a birddog. This birddog said that he gets paid $10,000 for deals. We took that to mean that the investor will pay him $10,000 for him bringing us to the investor. Now that the deal is being worked out and his investor (who said that he will take care of him) wants to close on everything; the birddog now says that we also owe him $10,000.

Now I've been involved with RE for 10+ and have not as much experience with short sales, but somehow this doesn't sound right?

I have reached a conclusion because I've already asked 2 investors and 2 birddogs that are familiar with short sales and they both said that a birddog (them in the case of the birddogs I asked) usually gets paid from the investor he is bringing the deal to. This payment is either by percentage or fee.

I wanted to ask people on this forum what their take on this is?

[Darrell Shepherd]

Yeah, he's definitely acting as an unlicensed agent first of all.  Second of all, traditionally a bird dog works for the investor BUYING the property and is paid by him.  Third, what kind of purchase price warrants a $10k bird dog fee?  That's a lot for a bird dog in my opinion.