Do you flip houses and are looking for investment property to flip? Do you ever find yourself just a little too late on acquiring or finding houses to flip? Finding investment properties before other investors can be tricky and you may want to consider teaming up with a Real Estate Bird Dog.
Is Flipping Houses Right For You?
Is flipping houses the right business model for you? Check out the following chart to understand some of the pros and cons of flipping houses.
| Pros | Cons |
| Potential to make a huge profit | Potential to lose money on investment |
| Great for people with high skill levels | May require costly outside help and support |
| Less risky than other types of real estate investing | Requires intense planning and budgeting |
| Gain useful real estate experience | Unanticipated costs can arise, and they could be substantial |
| Gain greater insights into your local market | Requires in-depth knowledge of the local real estate industry |
Your Time Investment
Of course, buying and flipping a house is more than just a financial investment – it also requires a significant investment of your time. The time it really takes will vary depending on the size and scope of the project.
If everything goes according to plan, you can expect to spend a minimum of 6 to 12 weeks on the process of buying and flipping a home. However, if the remodeling process gets delayed or you need approval from a third-party to buy the property, this process could get delayed by several months.
Team Up With A Real Estate Bird Dog in VA
What is Bird Dogging?
The term bird dogging comes from hunting, and that’s basically what a bird dog does in real estate. Whether it’s for commercial real estate or residential real estate homes, this individual (Bird Dog) will go around (online and off) looking for properties that are great investment opportunities. These properties might present a great investment opportunity for those who flip homes, rent out multifamily housing units, or love the process of a rehab and resale. Whatever the case may be, bird dogs beat the streets and hustle hard looking for deals.
In this way, bird dogging is similar to wholesaling real estate. A wholesale deal in real estate is not like the way the term is applied to retail. Rather, a wholesaler will go around looking for motivated sellers, buy their property, and then immediately find an investor to sell the property to, even before they buy the home from the seller. In many cases, this process is accomplished by creating a special type of contract that can be reassigned, though in some states there are limitations on this practice that instead force the wholesaler to form a land trust and pass the home on to the end buyer by selling a share in the trust.
A bird dog can avoid all these contractual complexities (and the slight financial risk associated with wholesaling) because when wholesaling real estate, the wholesaler will often need to front some hard cash to lock the seller into the contract. A bird dog doesn’t need to put any money down other than the sweat equity they invest in hustling around town or browsing online ads. They find killer deals, and pass them along to someone else who wants to put up the cash.
An investor buys “Leads” from a bird dog and only pays for performance! If a lead on an investment property turns in to a deal for the investor, they will pay the bird dog a marketing or “lead” fee.
