The question of this topic is about the legality of being a bird dog.  There are some that think a real estate bird dog function is illegal and there are others that believe bird dogging is perfectly legal.

There is one site that is adamant that being a bird dog is illegal, and he spouts out information like "in New Jersey paying a finders fee, which is bird dogging, is illegal to anybody other than an agent" but the fact that he is an agent should be a complete red flag.  It is illegal for an agent to pay a non-agent a fee, but agents take an oath when they become licensed to follow certain guideline.  His stand is merely targeted to those that haven't done there own due diligence to accept him as a legal authority on the fact.

I have a problem with some guy that is bashing every creative real estate method to only present his own material and he hasn't completed a single deal in over 20 years or owned any investment property for that matter.  I can only say he has an agenda but one that is only to stuff his pockets with money from those that he chooses to mislead with his reviews of courses of other information salespersons.

It's a clever method to bash every method and scare everyone that goes to his site into purchasing his books.  I have never read his books nor do I want too, but I won't name who that person actually is, but if you do a little research you will see his site where he is bashing bird dogging as being illegal.

I can understand his concern because agent’s jobs are to bring buyers and sellers together, however a bird dog is slightly different.  An agent or broker negotiates the terms of the deal with a seller and a buyer.  A bird dog simply locates a property, and then prescreens the property for an investor.

A bird dog might contact a seller and has a series of questions but the bird dog doesn't negotiate terms with the buyer or the seller.  The bird dog dumps information in the investors lap something like a secretary for an agent.  The agent's secretary usually isn't licensed, but it's not illegal for the agent to pay their secretary, so it is likely legal for bird dog to receive compensation for investigating a property.

His other remark about bird dogging is that it violates confidence, stating that bird dogs are betraying confidence and he goes on to say "they have some job that enables them to get advanced, insider sort of notice of a pending sale of a property at a bargain price." and "Those who abuse their position to earn a bird dog or finder's fee betray the trust and confidence of the property owner and or their employer".

I don't know exactly what he thinks a bird dog really is or does he even know what a pending sale of a property is, which makes me doubt his ability to properly review a creative real estate strategy as being legal or illegal for that matter.  The bird dogs we train do have insider knowledge but the knowledge they have comes from the marketing they do to obtain the information from their own resources.  It is however illegal to use others information for you own without their permission.

As for a pending sale, a pending sale is when a property is under contract the sell is usually pending the financing or the inspection.  So for an ex-agent to say that a bird dog is giving information of a pending sale to an investor for a profit is absurd.  Any investor's can find pending sales by looking on the MLS.  As there is a pending sales index that serves savvy buyers as a market indicator so they can decide if they want to invest in a certain area.  I guess he's not an agent any longer because he doesn't know the difference between a pending sale which is public information and pocket listing which is private.

Then he goes on to say that a bird dog is a wanderer that just simply goes around brainless looking for a property with no direction.  I don't know any bird dogs that just go out wandering without a destination, but it a bird dog did, that's not illegal.  And he says that an investor is a his own bird dog, which is true, but no one can find every property because sellers respond to different messages and people.  Meaning no one person can find every single property in an area, if that was the case McDonald's would appeal to everyone and they would corner the market.

The one thing you can take from this analysis of the creative real estate transaction basher.  I won't even attempt to do a summary of all the things I have just gone over because it's not worth it.

One thing you can take from the article about a bird dog function being legal or illegal is that you need to perform your own due diligence with your own attorney or other sources.  Once you join our membership we will tell you where you can go to get a peace of mind for the low cost of free.  You can do your own due diligence without paying an attorney a consultant fee that might or might not know what they are talking about concerning bird dogs.

A bird dog isn't a mainstream term and most don't understand the concept behind the function.