Questions about being a property finder for local property investors

[property_sourcing]

I am a property finder based in the UK. I source properties for local property investors in return for a finder’s fee.
Has anyone here done this? Can you offer me a bit of advice? I have some questions:

1) When I source properties and take them to local investors, how do I know the investor will pay me? Do we need some sort of ‘property finder’s agreement’ in writing?

2) Could I outsource the property finding to a team of people working with me?

3) When I find a property, how do I find out it’s value, who owns it, whether it’s repossessed or not, etc?

4) What are the most effective ways to source properties?

Thanks.

[George Smith]

I guess you should have some agreement to be sure that they will pay you, otherwise you can only count on they words. Try to search for contracts for freelancers because this type of job (researching) can be declared as freelancing.

[Walter Ichikawa-Doyle]

In America this is called "bird dogging". You can probably find everything you're looking for by doing a search for real estate bird dogging, including a working contract and effective searching or sourcing avenues. Good luck!