The Titanium Vault hosted by RJ Bates III

Is Bird Dogging Illegal?!?

• RJ Bates III • Episode 720

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If you’re new to my channel my name is RJ Bates III. Myself and my partner Cassi DeHaas are the founders of Titanium Investments.

We are nationwide virtual wholesalers and on this channel we share EVERYTHING that we do inside our business. So if you’re looking to close more deals - at higher assignments - anywhere in the country… You’re in the right place.

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Over 10 years in the real estate investing business
Closed deals in all 50 states
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​Closed on over 2,000 properties
​125 contracts in 50 days (all live on YouTube)
​Back to back Closers Olympics Champion
Trained thousands of wholesalers to close more deals

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SPEAKER_00:

There's always new things that are coming out in the wholesaling industry. Things that try to simplify the process. And it's funny because wholesaling by nature is already a really simple process. Find a motivated seller, get the property under contract for a discount, and find an end buyer that's willing to pay you more so they can profit on the deal as a flipper or a landlord. And so by nature, what we do is very simple. It's not that complicated, but in order for some of us that have products that we want to sell, whether it's an education program, low-ticket offers, vendors, affiliate programs, whatever it is, we're always coming up with new ways to do wholesaling. And to some degree, that evolves our industry and it's beneficial. But there's times where I see things really gain traction and it alarms me at how much people really gravitate towards simplifying an already simple process, but don't ever question what they're being taught. And in 2025 and going into 2026, one of those new things that has come about was we redefined the term bird dogging. Now, back in 2014 and 2015, when I got into wholesaling, bird dogging was a lead generation tactic. And what I mean by lead generation tactic was it was hey, talk to your Amazon driver or your Uber driver or the pest control guy, someone that goes and sees a lot of properties every day. And if they see a property that's got tall grass or boarded up windows, shoot you over the address or maybe even the contact information if they can get it. And you, as the wholesaler, contact the seller, get a signed contract, find that in buyer, dispo it, and you give the bird dog a finder's fee for locating the property, right? That's how they were bird dogging for wholesalers. But in 2025, this has been redefined to a new way of bird dogging, and it's alarming and concerning to me because I think in the long run, quite frankly, it's illegal, it's not abiding by the rules of what we have to abide by in the the realm of real estate. I think you are representing the buyers in this case that it's being taught today, and it's unnecessary. There are ways to do bird dogging the way that it's being taught today, but it's there's paperwork, there's legalities that are being skipped, and that causes concern for me and why I wanted to make this video today. Now, to start off, to give some background, Cassie and I were having a conversation in the car the other day, and we were talking about she didn't even understand that there was a new way bird doggy is being taught in this industry because for the most part we are head down and we're not paying attention to what other people are teaching. But it's been brought to me, and I've been asked so many times about bird dogging lately that I had to do a little bit of research to understand. And then after I kind of explained to her what bird dogging was in 2025's terms, where it's not, hey, the pest control guy goes out and he sees that boarded up house with knee-high grass and says, Hey, one, two, three, main street over here looks like it's physically distressed, and then we're we're not doing that anymore. That's not bird dogging. Now, bird dogging is wholesaler gets a property under contract. The bird dog goes and finds an in buyer. So bird dog calls me, hey RJ Bates, are you an end buyer? I am. What are you looking for? I'm looking for a flip in Fort Worth, Texas, then goes out and finds all the wholesale properties in Fort Worth, Texas, and then sends me that information. And then if I decide that I want to purchase that property, I buy it directly from the wholesaler and then pay the bird dog a fee on top. Okay, so that's the the bird dogging in 2025. So we had this conversation and we had our feelings about it and our thoughts and the concerns about where that would be taking us as an industry, especially as we proceed moving forward with how the National Association of Realtors, the real estate agent community is kind of viewing wholesalers. Is this really beneficial for us to be now dipping into the waters where it could seem that we are representing buyers, right? We're we're going out and we're asking what they want, and then we're gonna go find those properties for them, and we're gonna get paid an unlicensed commission on it. That's that's a little bit of alarming considering where we are as an industry right now. And then over the weekend, I saw this post in a Facebook group. This is by Jeremy Davis. Uh, I love Jeremy. Great, great mind, uh, great educator in the wholesaling space. This is in a group, wholesaling landing houses. He says, I feel bad for the people with no real guidance. They're told that bird dogging is the safe way to start. No money, no risk, no pressure. Just bring deals to someone else and learn along the way. But what actually happens is very different. The second guess, every address they find, they're afraid to send anything because they don't know if it's good enough. They worry, they'll look stupid asking questions they think they should already know. So they sit in this weird limbo, working but not confident, busy but not progressing. It's not because they're lazy or incapable, it's because they don't have a frame of reference. When you don't know how to comp a property, how to talk to a seller, or how an investor decides what's a deal, every move feels risky. Every step feels like you might mess it up, and that fear turns into hesitation. Bird dogging isn't wrong, it's just incomplete without context. New wholesalers don't need more hustle, they need clarity, they need to understand what they're looking at and why it matters. If you're new and feeling unsure right now, that doubt doesn't mean you're failing. It usually means you care and you want to do it right, and that's a good place to start. You don't have to figure it all out today. You just need enough understanding to take the next step without freezing. Now, there are parts of this post that I absolutely wholeheartedly agree with, and there's a couple of things that I'm gonna disagree with. I'm gonna start off with the parts that I do agree with, and that's 98% of it. Okay, essentially, the part where he says, when you're taught to bird dog, it's a it's eliminating the need for having skill sets and understanding of what we are trying to accomplish as a wholesale. You don't need to know how to comp a property, you don't ever talk to a seller or a real estate agent. These are the selling factors of being a bird dog. You're taught to go to an investor and ask an investor essentially what is their buy box? What are they looking for? But the reality of it is we know for a fact that if buyers are so busy that they're not willing to go out and find their own deals and they're willing to purchase those properties through a bird dog, very rarely are they going to be getting a full scope of what the investor is looking at when comping and underwriting these deals and making a decision on whether or not they want to purchase the property. Now, on several of the videos when I was watching the training on what a 2025 or 2026 bird dog looks like, it was essentially told, like, you need to send me anywhere between 25 to 30 properties before I'm going to purchase from a bird dog. Well, that means you're not actually getting a solid understanding of how an investor decides what's a deal. And so, because of that, the skills that you're not developing as a wholesaler kind of land you in a place of never really growing. You're not really understanding how do you find the motivated sellers, how do you control the contract, how do you comp an underwrite, and how do you know where an in buyer buys? And this is a problem in the long term because, quite frankly, in the words of Jerry Norton, technically, bird dogging is illegal in every state because it's an unlicensed commission. Now, let that sink in. You're being told that you don't need money, you don't need to talk to sellers or real estate agents, you don't need to get properties under contract, you don't need to understand how to comp an underwrite, and you're never going to actually understand how your investor, your end buyer, is actually making a decision to buy or not buy on the properties. Because if so, your property set to the buyer ratio wouldn't be one out of every 25 or one out of every 30. They would be able to explain that to you, and you would only send deals that they would absolutely be buying. So you're not developing skill sets by doing an illegal activity because you are getting compensated for an unlicensed commission. You are representing that end buyer. That is the issue that I have. So going back to Jeremy's post here, I said the part that I don't disagree or I disagree with is where he says bird dogging isn't wrong. I do think bird dogging is wrong. I don't think that this should be a thing that we are doing inside of the wholesaling world right now. And here's how you can do what they are trying to accomplish with bird dogging, bird dogging ethically and legally. If you have in buyers in a location, let's say Amarillo, Texas, because Amarillo is the place that I love to use my good friend JW Epstein, who's been with Titanium University since day one, he's an in buyer in Amarillo, Texas. JW, what are you looking to buy? I'm looking to add rental properties to my portfolio. I need this much equity, and I like to keep the repairs below this. Okay. Now, if I don't have the budget to be able to go out and get properties under contract myself, generate leads, and I don't have the skill set yet to talk to sellers, I can still quote unquote bird dog, but do it legally. I have JW, the end buyer, I know the location. I could go find the wholesaler that has properties under contract in Amarillo, Texas. But instead of just taking that property and all the details and even asking the wholesaler for permission, that doesn't make it legal, that doesn't make it okay. You're still essentially daisy chaining the deal. I go to the wholesaler and say, I have a buyer in Amarillo, Texas that would be interested in purchasing this property, but I need equitable interest in that contract because as a wholesaler, I cannot sell properties. I have to assign my equitable interest in a contract, and the only way that I can have equitable interest in that contract is by having a joint venture agreement with you, the contract holder, the wholesaler. I need to have a signed JV agreement that gives me the right to then present that contract for sale to the in-buyer, JW, and say, Hey, JW, here's the property. Now, all of the terms and negotiations inside that JV agreement are negotiable. I could either have 24 hours, I could have a month, I could do it at the same price for a percentage split, or I could add my fee on top. That is all negotiable between you and the wholesaler. But what makes this legal and not representing the buyer and becoming an unlicensed commission is that JV agreement. Now, in the tradings that I've seen, and I don't know in behind the paywalls and the and the closed doors of some of these communities that are teaching bird dogging if that's how they're actually teaching it. But what I have seen on YouTube and on free platforms is that the JV agreement is not a part of the conversation. And in fact, in some times, it is almost told, like, I don't want you to have a JV agreement. I just want you to go to the wholesaler and ask for permission to send this to your in buyer and then have the in buyer pay that as a finder's fee later on. That is daisy chaining. It's looked, it's frowned upon inside of our industry, and there's a correct way to do it, but paperwork is important. Protecting yourself, you do not want to be the example, you don't want to be made as an example by a realtor that finds this out, a board of realtors, or an attorney that comes after you and says, Why were you brokering real estate? Why were you representing a buyer as an unlicensed agent? So in the long term, if you really want to participate in the action of bird dogging, protect yourself with a joint venture agreement and have the transparency with the wholesaler of what you're wanting to do, build that relationship with that wholesaler and get a JV agreement, then present the deal to your end buyer, and then that way you are getting paid legally and you're protected. But in the long run, you do need to build the skill sets of talking to sellers, comping and underwriting, and your ability to build these relationships with end buyers so you understand where they're buying deals. So, in the long run, what I've seen this explosion, this new version of an old term that has existed in wholesaling for many years, bird dogging. What we're doing today is not the correct way. JV the deal, protect yourself and protect your reputation amongst the industry. Because if you come to me and you ask, can I take your deal and can I daisy chain it to my end buyer? I'm going to have an issue. The reason why I have an issue with this is because if you're sending my deals and you're sending it all across the place, it can stigmatize that deal. It can make me, as the correct wholesaler, the person that actually has equitable interest, look like a bad wholesaler because someone else is sending that deal out. It's confusing to the marketplace. And the other thing that can happen, which I know that inside of the training it's taught that you need to vet out the buyers and only find the good ones. And there is even an analogy that was used in one of the videos of how can you make sure that your husband or your wife doesn't cheat on you? Well, make sure you get a good husband or a wife, and that's fantastic. But this isn't marriage, this is business. And sometimes, with when thousands of people are going out and trying out a new tactic, a new strategy that has been taught to the masses. There are going to be times where those buyers are not properly vet out, and my deal can get sent to them because they're taught to do this, and that buyer is going to go directly to my seller and say, Do you understand that your property is being shopped around, prices for multiple prices, and all kinds of things, negative things could take place in this transaction. Whereas, in comparison, if a wholesaler comes to me or a bird dog comes to me, that's what we're referring to them now, and they say, I have an in buyer, and I decide that I believe that their in buyer is truly vetted out, and I trust this wholesaler, and I give them a time frame, and I signed a joint venture agreement that protects all of the parties. Now, this is where our property is not going to be stigmatized, it's not going to be sent out to the masses, multiple in buyers, or anything like that. And in the long run, everyone is doing things the correct legal way. Now, I'm sure this video is not going to be well received by many. Some of you out there that have successfully bird dogged many, many deals. My question to you is how do you overcome the aspect of you are getting paid in it in the form of an unlicensed commission if you do not have a joint venture agreement? That's really my sticking point. And then in the long run, why would you not, as a business operator, want to learn the skill sets of lead generation, closing deals with sellers, being the actual controller of the contract, and then, yes, leveraging the skill set that you are developing with building relationships within buyers? Let me know those responses in the comments. Regardless, show me some love. Like today's video. We'll see you guys tomorrow.