It was exactly 5 years ago today that the first public release of BirdDogBot went live and we haven’t looked back since!
Today, on our 5th anniversary, we’re proud to announce that BirdDogBot 3.0 has now been released!
BirdDogBot is now faster and more powerful than ever before. We’ve gone to an entirely web-based platform, our searches are lightning quick, and we’ve introduced a new feature that gives you the ability to monitor classified ads on sites such as Craigslist!
Check out the following video for a demonstration and explanation of these new features:
Video Transcript
In this video, I’m going to show you the new features found in the all-new BirdDogBot 3.0!
This major release has been several months in the making, but we’re finally at a point where we’re unveiling it to the world!
The new features that I’m about to show you are live and in your account right now so when you’re done watching, you can go ahead and login to your account and they’ll all be there.
So let’s take a look at what’s new with BirdDogBot 3.0…
First, and probably the biggest change since we first launched back in 2012 is that BirdDogBot is now 100% web-based!
As you can see, I’m at the login screen here at birddogbot.net and I’m just using my browser of choice, which happens to be google chrome… but you can of course use whatever you like…
This means there’s no desktop software to download or install or ever have to update!
This is also welcoming news to Mac users who’d previously been left out in the cold! I’m sorry it took so long guys, but this new ability is dedicated to you and we look forward to having you guys join us!
What else does this mean? Well, BirdDogBot has been mobile-friendly for awhile now, but now you can not only access your account, but you can access ALL the functionality using any device that has a web browser. So whether you’re using a tablet, a smartphone or whatever…so long as it has a web browser, you’re able to do anything from running searches to tweeking your search projects or anything else.
Speaking of search projects, if you’re new to BirdDogbot, a “search project” is basically just our lingo for a saved set of search criteria along with a set of analysis settings. So think of it like this … a search project could be something like “search in Miami, Florida for 3 bed, 2 bath homes in this price range.” Then, when you find such a property, here’s how I want you to analyze it… That’s basically all a search project is.
Now that we’re talking about search projects that leads quite nicely into the next massive update… Let’s go to our search projects…
On this page, you’ll see the search projects I’ve created in this account.
Let’s create one so you can see how easy this is along with any new things we’ve added…
On the first tab we just put in the basic search criteria. There’s nothing here really worthy of an explanation, other than maybe the “search name” which is just whatever you want to call it to remind you of what you’re looking for. If you leave it blank as I prefer to do, BirdDogBot will give it a relevant name for you based on the search criteria you enter. Let’s go ahead plop some values in here….
We’ll start by selecting a State, which we’ll choose ohhh…say, Florida. Once we select a state, we then need to choose at least one more option from City, Zip, or County. You can select more if you like, but that’s up to you. As you narrow it down, you’ll notice the other fields adjust accordingly based on what’s selected to ensure you’ve got the right values in there.
So let’s pick some values for rest… say 3 beds, 2 baths, $25,000 to 150,000. Ok, good enough for now..
Now let’s move over to the new Filters tab which is another new addition to BirdDogBot. In here you can filter the properties you want by their listing status and/or the type of property that it is. So turn on what you want, and turn off what you don’t. Pretty simple…
Moving over to the analysis tab, you’ll notice we’ve added a new dropdown box called “analysis type”. In here, you’ve got 2 choices “basic analysis” and “advanced analysis”. We added this to make it even easier to analyze properties.
A “basic analysis is simply a check against a property’s estimated value versus it’s asking price. This difference is the profit, so all you need to do is specify is how much of a profit you’re looking for. This “basic analysis” type is here to make things simple, but a more advanced investor wants to factor other variables in to the equation…
So… enter the “advanced analysis”. When you select “advanced analysis”, additional fields will appear for you to configure. We have detailed video tutorials on these fields in our knowledge base so I’m not going to take up time explaining them here. I just wanted to show you that a) those fields are still there, and b) if you aren’t yet comfortable with how all these additional variables fit in, then there’s now a “basic analysis” option for you as well.
For the sake of keeping things simple in this demonstration, let’s just choose “basic analysis” and use a $20,000 profit.
Click save search. Now that our search is saved, we go back to our search projects, … and we’ll see it here.
Now the fun part… running searches with the new BirdDogBot 3.0.
In the past you could analyze a properties every few seconds, which was pretty good for its time, especially considering all the time and work it saved you. But add up a few hundred properties and those few seconds can add up pretty quickly. Now watch this…
To run your search projects, all you do is click on one of these “play” or “run” buttons (or whatever you want to call them…).
But before I do that, let me explain why our new search project’s run button is orange and why the rest of them are green….
When you first create a search it needs to “initialize”. This means that BirdDogBot has to begin monitoring properties in that area that meet those “property type” requirements. So when your run button is orange, that means your search is going through that initialization phase. Once it’s done initializing, it’ll automatically turn green and at that point it’s initialized for good (unless of course you change it, in which case it goes through the initialization process again).
In any case, you can still run searches that are initialzing, it’s just that you won’t get a complete set of results (or possibly no results) until it’s done doing that. I’ll do a video explaining all that in better detail in the future, but that’s the quick explanation…
So, let’s run a search project and see how fast BirdDogBot is now…
Like I said, you can run your search using these run buttons OR… you can run specific searches or all at once by checking the boxes, then going to the Actions menu, and select Run.
Here we go…
And just like that, you’ll see that our search projects are done already! No fancy video editiing… in fact, you can look right here and it tells us that 4 search projects ran in approximately 3 seconds.
Now how about that for a speed improvement? Nevermind a few seconds per property… Now we’re talking just a few seconds to run an entire set of search projects and in this case analyze 592 properties in 3 seconds! Just incredible!!
Anyway let’s move along… This next notice is here to remind us that we had a search project still initializng…
And the next notice tells us what we can expect to see in our “My Deals” list.
Below that we have a summary table showing the results of everything that just happened. The first column tells us how many properties it analyzed, the next one tells us how many new deals were added to our list, the next one tells us how many deals were updated (meaning, they were already in our list but something new changed). The next column shows how many of the proeprties it analyzed that passed our analysis criteria, and the last column is just a percentage of how many deals were found relative to the number analyzed.
As you can see, you get a very detailed explanation of everything that happened in during those 3 seconds.
Quickly jumping over to our deals list, you’ll see the deals it added, and as before, each deal has it’s own proforma page with all the details, including my personal favourite, the Deal History section which monitors every nitty gritty change in that listing including any price changes, status changes, or anything else you see on this details page.
Now, if that wasn’t easy enough, let’s make life a little sweeter… Let’s jump back to our search projects…
Imagine not even having to login to click those run buttons. Imagine for a moment if you will, waking up every morning to an email notification telling you of all the newest deals in your market. Not only that, imagine if that notification even updated you on any changes to the properties BirdDogBot is monitoring for you…
I’m talking about you doing NOTHING and BirdDogBot doing all of this for you AUTOMATICALLY! Again, there’s no software to install, so you don’t need to leave your computer running. Heck, your computer could’ve even suffered some fatal tragedy, but so long as you’ve still got access to email, BirdDogBot’s gonna keep the deal-finding part of your business up and running!
Here’s how that works. This “Enabled” column over here tells BirdDogBot to run these searches for you EVERY DAY and to notify you whenever something’s new or has been changed. There’s nothing else you need to setup! So in this case here, tomorrow morning, I’m going to get an email from BirdDogBot telling me the results of AAAALLL of these search projects… all summarized in one quick email with links back to the specific proforma pages for those properties!
It’s like having the ultimate birddog who always shows up to work on time, gets the job done, and gets it done right. It never gets sick, never has excuses and it’ll never turn its back on you to go work for someone else!
So those are the new searching features. Blazing fast, 100% automated, ridiculously precise, and of course, accessible from any device!
But hold on…I’m not done yet! I’ve got more brand spanking new love to share!
We’ve had people screaming from hilltops that they wanted some way to monitor classified site postings. You know what I’m talking about… CRAIGSLIST!
Now the issue with sites like craigslist is that they’re a disaster from a data gathering perspective. Information is sometimes missing, it’s rarely in the same place in every ad, and that makes monitoring those postings next to darn-near impossible.
Well, we’ve come up with a solution.
Introducing, for the first time ever… BirdDogBot Classfied Site Alerts!
Imagine being able to monitor sites like craigslist for new RELEVANT real estate postings. Imagine getting notified whenever a new ad gets posted all the while filtering out the crap you dont want…
Well, check this out. BirdDogBot Classified Site Alerts Projects work very similar to the search projects I already showed you.
Let’s go to our alert projects here and see it in action…
Here’s a list of alert projects I’ve already got set up, but again, let’s create one from scratch so you can see how easy this is…
Look familiar? That’s right, it’s very similar to creating a search project. The only difference is on the first tab instead of selecting a city, you’re picking a classfiieds site. So let’s go with Craigslist, we’ll choose United States – Florida, then let’s stick with jacksonville again. We’ll do 2 beds, 1 bath, 25,000-150,000 dollars.
Now, this alert notification option works just the same as the search project notification. As soon as it notices something new, you’ll get an email with a link back to craigslist with that posting.
And “alert project enabled” means the same as it did with search proejcts too. That is, BirdDogBot will automatically run this alert project for you without you having to manually login to your account and run it yourself. And btw, alert projects are run several times a day so you’re notified as soon as BirdDogBot notices something new.
So how do we deal with all those irrelevant posts that we don’t want. Surely it’d get annoying to be notified and have to sort through a bunch of posts you have absolutely no interest in… Total waste of time, right?
Well, that’s taken care of using something we call “alert triggers”. Alert Triggers act as filters so that only the relevant posts get added to your account. We have 2 types of alert triggers: pre-defined, and custom.
Let’s take a look at the pre-defined triggers tab. These predefined triggers are here to get you up and running with BirdDogBot alerts as quickly as possible. Here you’ll be able to use a pre-defined set of filters to specify only the types of posts you want. So if you like to do fix and flips for example, you can turn on the ones that are up your alley, and ignore the ones where you just won’t go there. So maybe you like properties that require any amount of work to be fixed up, but you aren’t willing to deal with mould, roof or termite problems. You get the idea… As you can see, whatever your situation, we’ve pretty much got it covered and it’s as easy as turning on the ones you want and turning off the ones you don’t want.
Now, let’s say you’re doing something we haven’t thought of. Or you just don’t like the results you’re getting from the pre-defined triggers. That’s where custom triggers come into play.
On the custom triggers tab you can add your own custom triggers that look for specific keywords in the posting. Just give your trigger a name, then in here enter the keywords you want in the ad, and click save.
Once your alert project is saved, you’re all set. It’s already queued up and BirdDogBot will begin monitoring it.
And if you want to run your alert project right now, simply click the run button…. and you can get your first batch of alerts.
To see your alerts, just go to the Alerts menu, and select My Alerts…. And all your alerts will be displayed with a link back to the original posting.
From here, if you like the deal, you can use this “plus” button and add the deal to your “My Deals” list.
There’s a few other small enhancements, but in the interst of trying to keep this short, I’m going to leave it at that…
So, again we’ve got a new 100% web based interface that’s entirely accessible from any device. There’s no software download required so you don’t need any specific operating system like Windows or Mac … whatever you have is good! All you need is a web browser and an internet connection which you obviously got covered if you’re watching this video!
We’ve got new lightning fast searches that are run for you daily, all automatically. And you even get an email notification automatically.
That “automatically” word seems to be coming up a lot doesn’t it?
And of course, we’ve now got support for classfied sites like craigslist where you can monitor classfied posts. And here comes that word again… it’s that’s all automatically done for you too! It’s all set it, forget it, and let BirdDogBot do it all for you.
It just doesn’t get better than this!
So there you have it! BirdDogBot 3.0 is ready to go!
If you’re already a member, as I said at the beginning, these features are live and ready to go in your account.
If you’re not a BirdDogBot member yet, check us out at www.BirdDogBot.com. With all these new features, there’s never been a better time to join. BirdDogBot is faster and more powerful than ever before. And if you’re a mac user and you couldn’t try it out before, well that problem’s been solved now with our new 100% web-based interface.
Head on over to www.birddogbot.com and we’ll see you on the inside!
Thanks for watching…