How does one get paid to drive for dollars?

Question

I’m about to take the leap into real estate investing. However I’m 20 and don’t have much capital, is there anyway I could drive for dollars, get paid and still learn the ropes. I want to eventually get a few rental properties but for now just want to learn as much as I can and make a little money while doing so. All input is appreciated!

Barry Pekin · Answer

@Chase Ferren,

There's all good information here.

What you're asking to do is to be a bird dog.  Bird dogs work for investors by finding potential deals, then turning the deal over to the investor to pursue.  You can find these deals any number of ways.  Yes, you can drive around and search for properties, but you can also reach out to people directly by working things into your conversations like "I'm looking for properties like..." or "Hey, do you know anyone facing ...?  If you do, I know someone who can help."

You can turn over just the address.  This is the least amount of work, the least opportunity to learn, and the least amount of money you can expect to earn.  You can also do more legwork by getting contact information and more details about the property and situation the owner is facing.  This is definitely more work, you will definitely learn more, and an investor should certainly pay more for this.

And it's a good point that you may end up being your investor's competition one day.  Personally, I don't worry about this.  First, so many people drop out that I personally would think the odds are low.  Second, it's going to take time, so by then I should have evolved my investment business further that either it won't matter, or maybe our business relationship might evolve as well.  And third, if we've developed a good working relationship, that has a value in itself.  REI is all about networking and team building.  I think it's a win win if I help people to grow their business.

Will Fraser · Answer

Hey @Chase Ferren, and might I say WPS (fellow AR dude here!)  You can earn from D4D, but I would recommend aligning interests and putting yourself in a great position by earning from Results.  For example, if you asked someone to pay per house or per mile or something like that, how about you build a system around finding the houses and doing a further value-add move (like pulling the property owner data and building out a mailing/calling list, or approaching the owners, or something else like that) and you pitched this to an investor and said "I'll deliver these qualified leads to you in exchange for  . . . X% of the assignment fee, $X flat fee per lead, or some other metric.

Steve Vaughan · Answer

I used to pay finder's fees.  If I buy a house you sourced,  you get dollars. I say used to, as in like 10 years ago, so the dollars may seem small now. Focus on the ratios.

if you gave someone my business card with your name on the back- $400.

If you gave me their name, address, ph#, pain point?  $1000.

it's the ratio of value to reward to focus on.  Providing addresses of distressed homes has some value. Providing more has more.

Pay per deal is where it's at.  Entrepreneurs mindset vs hourly worker bee mindset👍

Erik W. · Answer

@Chase Ferren, hi and welcome to BP!

Congratulations on getting interested in one of the best wealth-building strategies available at such a young age.

Now that hopefully I've established my good will....the hard part.

At this stage of the game, you're little more than a learner, same as we all were when we got started.  Your work at this point doesn't create much value, so do not expect to get paid big dollars.  A lot of your "pay" is going to come from the value of the education you receive while helping others make deals.  Here's how I work it:

The pay is based on you providing me a deal that fits my criteria.

Step 1: Learn what are my criteria.

Step 2: Learn how to find out that information.  I might give you some pointers on where to start, but if I have to spoon feed and hand hold you thru the entire process then what advantage are you giving me?  You're actually slowing me down because I can do it 5x faster vs teach you how to do it.  I'm also possibly setting you up to compete with me some day and/or work for my competition, so don't be too disappointed if I don't teach you ALL the tricks of the trade that I use to help me beat my competition.

Step 3: The deal HAS to close or I get zero value.  While I wold love to be able to pay you for every hour you work, it is simply not economically feasible and has other problems that make that model unworkable.  So just like real estate agents you won't always get paid, even after doing a ton of research, driving, and deal making.

It is common to pay "bird dogs" based on a sliding scale, at closing.  For example: $0-$50,000 deal = $500.  $50,001-$100,000 = $850.  Over $100,000 = $1,200.  For commercial or apartments, the amount would be negotiable and be higher, most likely because they are much harder to find and much more valuable when the deal is good.

That may not seems like a lot for the amount of money involved in the transactions, but if you get quick and good at this, you can make $1,000+ per week with about 10 hours of your time.  $100/hour is pretty good wages, and you're also learning the ins and outs of the biz that will make you a successful real estate investor.  The value of that cannot be underestimated.

I hope this helps.

Chase Ferren · Answer

@Will Fraser Okay so get a few possible target properties. Get the information that an investor would need to go through with purchase and research of said property and then ask for a certain % of the sale. What % would you recommend given that I am finding the properties and doing al the research?

How does one get paid to drive for dollars?

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