Blog

Home > Blog

How To Use Real Estate To Climb Out Of Debt (Hint It’s Not What You Think)

Now before you roll your eyes at another post recommending real estate to erase all of your student loans and credit card payments, hear me out. I know that if you read this post, it will be worth your while.

Real estate has a lot of moving parts and little details that prevent a lot of young people from learning about real estate investing or experimenting with real estate.

Today we are going to break down a simple way that you can use real estate to help remove some of your debt.

The best part?

This isn’t a very talked about method because the returns aren’t as high as if you were went into real estate full time, but that is okay. You are looking for extra money to erase debt, not make this your fulltime job.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth your time.

Let’s get started.

You are familiar with the traditional way a house is sold. You find a realtor, they work with another realtor to close the deal, you sign papers, and you move in or out of your house.

But there is another way to buy/sell a house and that is with a real estate investor, who uses cash to buy the house, fix it up, and then sell it.

Real estate investor websites like this need one thing above all…

They need real estate leads.

That is to say, they need people who are motivated to sell their house for below market value (generally because they need a lot of work to get ready for sale) to purchase houses from.

This is where you come in. Let’s say you know of a family member or a friend who needs to sell their house fast. You can offer to help them learn all their options and sell their house quickly without paying closing costs or all the repairs they need.

Once they are open to the idea of selling their house, you could Google a keyword like “Vancouver Home Buyers” and find a website that looks reputable and tell them you have a property they might be interested in.

And here is where you make money

Most of the time a real estate investor will pay you for leads, it’s called bird dogging.

Often times they will have a set price (ranges from $500-$1500) for a lead that turns into a deal for them.

So you can ask what their bird dog fee is and then give them information on the property and help connect your family or friend with the investor.

This requires your time, and a little Google research, but it is a great way to get into real estate and learn how the process works without your own money on the line.

What are other ways to find properties to offer to real estate investors?

  • You could post online (like Facebook or Craigslist) offering to help people sell their house quickly
  • You could contact a local realtor and ask them to send you houses that aren’t highly marketable or desirable
  • You could drive by old houses that looks like no one is living in it and see if you can find contact information for the property
  • You could put up signs or flyers offering your services.
  • You could run ads on Google or Facebook offering to help connect home sellers with an alternative option.
  • Go to local meetups for real estate investors and tell them what you are trying to do and they might connect you with others that you can work with to help find deals.

Wrapping it up

So as you can see, this isn’t a get rich quick scheme.

You are providing value to two people (the investor, and the home seller) and you are getting a commission for your service.

Not a lot of real estate investors talk about this because they make more money on real estate in other ways. But this should not stop you from exploring this option and using the money to help erase your debt.

If you have questions about bird dogging you can do a quick Google search to learn more.