Ask about the commission split structure, desk fees, buying and selling for yourself/family, is phone duty required, are there monthly minimums (sales, cold calls, etc), bonus structure, the type of real estate they focus on (investment, retail, high-end, leasing, foreclosures, commercial), how is the in-house training, what kind of on-boarding process, lead disbursement and generation, advertising associated with your franchise, corporate franchise fees, web & social media, and a ton of other items.  

County Records: Using netronline.com, locate the county assessors web site and look up property.Verify that the information on the listing coincides with what the county records say.Call assessor’s number to find out what agency the county uses to ensure title is clear of liens.Every county has their own process specific to them.Comparable sales: Using the “Recently Sold” link on Zillow.com, make of list in excel of the properties that have recently sold within the last 12 months using same criteria as subject property.Compare your property with comps.Rents: If flipping, you need this information just as an exit strategy.Using apartments.com / rent.com / trulia.com / local real estate agencies (Century21 or similar) to locate comparable property rents.If renting, this will tell you what you need to get the property for in order to profit.Run the #s: Using your risk factor, calculate all of the following: Purchase closing costs, utility connection costs, utility hold costs for 6 months if vacant, property insurance for 12 months, initial construction costs after purchase, rehab costs (if any), selling commission (if flipping), selling taxes forward to purchaser upon closing, your expected profit after sale or monthly break even cash if renting.Your drive to SUCCEED: You must have a written plan for this property along with two minimum exit strategies.Have your overall goal repeated on a daily basis.

Well, just about 20 seconds of searching the web and found this regarding how birddogging is clearly illegal in the state of Washington as they consider a birddogger to be a broker and must be licensed.RCW 18.85.010:(1) "Real estate broker," or "broker," means a person, while acting for another for commissions or other compensation or the promise thereof, or a licensee under this chapter while acting in his or her own behalf, who:(e) Engages, directs, or assists in procuring prospects or in negotiating or closing any transaction which results or is calculated to result in any of these acts;then there are exceptions to this rule (although none apply to birddoggers):RCW 18.85.110So, according to the state of Washington, accepting ANY (commission or flat fee or chickens or cattle or sex, whatever) fee makes you a broker.......as I stated before, one should check the laws regarding it in their state first.

I have been seriously involved in real estate investing (mostly lending and real estate marketing) for around 6 years and have been creating websites and web applications since 1996.

I did some looking around on the FDIC web site.

Check out Real Estate and The Web forum near the bottom of the Forum Index.

Anyway I know the tech world and web design world, and am ecstatic that I have found a community to assist me in developing my RE knowledge to better help my clients.

At least for the SFRs I invest in, I find the Zillow Rent Estimate to be fairly accurate as well.The Padmapper web site that scrapes rental ads on CL is also something to look at.

There is a list of web based software in the resources section.

I got my postcards from office depot and I used all the free advertising from the web I could such as craiglist.