[HOW-TO] 7 Ways to Get Your Boots on the Ground (BOTG)

Whether you are wholesaling real estate in your own backyard (which is what I always recommend a newcomer to this business does, to get their feet wet), or if you are doing it in a market clear across the country from where you live: if you want to dispo the contract, you’re going to have to provide your cash buyers with a comprehensive set of photos and videos of the property as you can. In the spirit of “who not how” (a great book to read, by the way), instead of doing it yourself, you’d have to find someone else who could do it for you. That’s what we call your “boots on the ground”, or “BOTG” for short; it’s a term from the military, referring to the need for direct physical presence of troops, suited-up and booted-up, in a war zone. BOTG get the job done, when you can’t be there to do it yourself.

There’s plenty of ways, free and paid, to find your boots on the ground. Here’s my seven favorite ways.

1) Ask your seller to do it for you! It seems so obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people never just ask the seller “hey, would you mind using your cellphone camera to take a couple of photos of the place?”

Pro: it’s free

Con: most sellers aren’t good photographers and/or are technically challenged, so they will need a lot of handholding to get the number and quality of photos taken just right :)

2) Ask one of your friends or family members in the area to do it for you.

Pro: same as #1 above.

Con: same as #1 above :)

3) Pay a guy from Craiglist or OfferUp to do it; that’ll cost you around $50.

Pro: it’s fairly inexpensive

Con: it may be hard to wrangle them, and the quality of the photos may not be the greatest

4) Hire a professional real estate photography service to do it, whether a local company or a nationwide one such as WeGoLook, BPO PhotoFlow, or VeloctyREO.

Pro: they have a standard operating procedure for taking the photos, so they won’t need any handholding

Con: they may not work in your market, and they will almost always be the most expensive option, but a couple of hundred dollars when you’re going to make double-digit thousands of dollars in your assignment fee makes it worth the expense

5) Build a relationship with a local real estate agent, and ask them to do it.

Pro: as a real estate professional they already know how to take listing photos; you can use them for multiple other things as you build that relationship up, including them giving you CMAs, helping you run walkthroughs for buyers, etc.

Con: you may have to kiss a lot of frogs before you can find a prince/ss who can work well with you; you may also have to shell out more than just a Starbucks gift card as a thank you for their work - I’ve given some agents as much as a 3% commission on the deal, just as if they had listed the property - but everything is negotiable

6) Joint venture with a local wholesaler and have them do it. You could foot the bill for their gas, or you could pay them as much as 50% of your assignment fee. However much you decide to compensate them for their work, you’d better both have it in writing before either of you do a stick of work! Handshake JVs ain’t worth the paper they ain’t printed on :)

Pro: as a real estate pro (allegedly), they should already know how to take listing photos…

Con: …but in my experience, far too many wholesalers don’t know what the heck they’re doing when it comes to such photos. So YMMV (“your mileage may vary”) :)

7) “Just jump on [HomeAdvisor or Angie’s List], find a general contractor in that area, have them sign a non circumvent agreement and pay them an inspection fee to inspect the property, now you have someone taking pictures and someone familiar with the area giving you a lot more accurate repair quote, you don't [need] to JV or co wholesale [since] that's just giving away money”

Pro: I learned this way from a guy on Facebook (James Rogers) years ago, and it’s my favorite way to do it, it’s pretty slick :)

Con: can’t really think of one, to be honest…like I said, it’s pretty slick!

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