BiggerPockets

21 Simple Steps To Becoming A Real Estate Bird Dog (Part 1)

Real Estate bird dogging, like any other business requires a good business plan. Every day I get emails from students across the nation wanting some insight on how to get started as a real estate bird dog. He are the 11 of the 21 steps for the plan I suggest.

1. Learn you market- Identify the areas of your market with high turnover, also look for transition areas that have not seen a lot of appreciation yet, but do have the potential to do so.

2. Use Real Estate Bird Dog Bandit signs- Locate the areas in your market that have a high amount of traffic and place your real estate bird dog bandit signs there.

3. Get a toll free number-Many of the people who are in need of selling their home do not even have the money for a phone, so having a toll free number will enable them to call you from a pay phone.

4. Do not rely exclusively on the web for your real estate bird dog business- Many people who are in the process of losing their home will not have access to the internet. If they cannot even make their house payments, they probably do not have access to the internet.

5. Learn how to properly inspect a home-When you call investors about properties that you have located, you need to be able to let them know what repairs the home will need to be brought up to par.

6. Have a goals program- Having a goals program will allow you to know exactly where you want your real estate bird dog business to go. Watch for my articles on designing a goals program for real estate bird dogging.

7. Learn to Network. Networking with realtors, buyers, sellers, and bankers will be essential for making your real estate bird dog business grow. The people that you network with will be the life blood of your business.

8. Attend local real estate clubs-Attending real estate meetings will give you a chance to find out who is doing business in your area. Do not just focus on the investors that are at the meetings. Ask the investors who are at the meetings about who else is doing business in the area.

9. Learn who the foreclosure experts are in your area-In many areas of the U.S. foreclosures will be handled by just a couple of realtors. Find out who the realtors are in your area that handle foreclosures. I just bought a home for $12,500 that went into foreclosure for $92,000 using this technique.

10. Run small classified ads in the local paper- Classifieds can be a very effective way of getting to both sellers and buyers. Using short classified ads I have generated over 20 new leads in a single weekend.

11. Get business cards-Other investors will take you far more seriously if you give them a professional looking business card.

Comments

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  Helen Harrison — 11 months ago

  Hi Eric, I have a question about the HUD Hound method. I visited my HUD site for Illinois, and the bids page looks different than the HMBI website I was on in the past where I can search by city to see what bids were accepted and where I can see who purchased the property. Now, all I see on the new IL HUD site are the statuses that say sold, only accepting bids, new listings, price reduced, and pending bid opening. It still gives the case number and I can select the buyer type as investor, but I am not sure how to see the bids that were accepted. I called the IL HUD district office and I was told you can only see the bids you place yourself. Is there a way to actually see who got the bids? The information is confusing because I guess I don't know what to look for to determine the accepted bids or where else to look. Please help!