Bird Dog Problems

[Jay Rodriguez]

Hey BP world hope everyone is well. I have been Bird Dogging here in Houston Texas for a little over 4 months now and in the beginning everything was going well I would drive for dollars and find vacant homes in established areas and using the techniques that I was taught here I would present the list of the homes to my investors and slowly but surely they would make a deal and I would collect a small finders fee as I am trying to have income to enter the wholesale part of real estate, but lately that has all stopped and honestly my calls nor emails have not been answered I would hate to think that I was taken advantage of and the investors I was working with simply cut me out of the deal or in my case my small finders fee. Any bird dogs out there with the same potential problem ? and if so is there any way to get around it besides working with a new investor all together please advise thank you.

[Belinda Lopez]

Yes, I've had similar problems with investors going around me on two different deals. I had the property under contract in both cases. In the first, the seller suddenly backed out and then months later I found out the property had been bought by the guy who was supposed to be my end buyer. In the 2nd, the end buyer contacted my seller and cut me out the deal by letting my contract expire and then they came in and bought the property directly.

I'm slowly learning to better screen my end buyers and also trying to get longer contract times so I have to find an end buyer. Also, I've now identified some private money so I can go ahead and buy the properties outright then sell them; hoping to only hold them for a short time.

I'm also in the Houston area so remember that despite it being a 'big' city, the world of RE is a small community and those with bad reputations become known pretty quickly. Likewise, hardworking, honest folks get good reps quickly. Join some of the local meetups and REIA groups and you'll start to develop a good network.

Good Luck!