I made so much cash tipping off developers about empty houses that I was able to pay for a cruise. Here's how YOU can do the same...

Linda Williams was waiting at a bus stop in Haydock, Merseyside, when an elderly man struck up a conversation and said something that stopped her in her tracks.

The retired man pointed across the street and said he lived ‘next door to that empty house’, Linda says. This may sound like a banal statement to most, but to Linda, who is 62 and owns a card and gift shop in Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, she saw an opportunity.

This is because keen walker Linda has raked in cash from her favourite pastime – spotting uninhabited and rundown properties she can report to developers.

She is one of thousands of property scouts across England who, as they go about their lives, keep their eyes peeled for homes that have long stood empty, causing a blight on the neighbourhood.

On spotting a home, scouts take photos and send them along with the address to companies which specialise in tracking down the owners, such as Empty Property Hunters or You Spot Property.

The building is often bought, restored and sold on by these specialist developers at a profit. Scouts earn a finder’s fee of £20 for sending in a tip-off. If the owner can be traced and agrees to sell, they get a cut of the purchase price – usually 1 per cent.

In this case, Linda’s interest was piqued when the elderly gentleman said the house was empty. After a flurry of questions, she soon found out it had been vacant since 2009 and was causing damp issues to the man’s property.

Linda says she went to take a closer look and, on seeing its overgrown condition, immediately sent off photos by email to Empty Property Hunters.

After the company made inquiries into the house, it transpired that the owner had inherited it, but drawn-out problems with probate meant it had been left uninhabited.

Just seven weeks later, Empty Property Hunters secured the house by buying it from the owner for around £50,000.

Linda made £420 in total – a £20 finder’s fee and £400 from the sale of the home – which she used to pay for a cruise of the Norwegian Fjords in May.

She says: ‘It’s nice to know that the house will be given a new lease of life and the gentleman next door will get new neighbours.’

Since becoming a property scout around 14 months ago, Linda has earned £600. Of that, another £200 came from finder’s fees, which she used to treat her family.

Linda says she signed up to the company for free after seeing an advert on Facebook.

She explains: ‘I’ve always had an interest in property, having been a property landlady for many years, and I love to walk – I do 35,000 steps in a weekend.

‘I like to earn extra by doing things like spotting empty properties or earning supermarket loyalty points and using apps that allow you to earn cash or vouchers. The money comes in handy as a little extra to spoil my grandchildren.’

Empty Property Hunters has more than 5,000 scouts on its books, some of whom have earned thousands from sending in tips.

Users can report the details of a property they believe is empty either via email, phone call or on messaging app WhatsApp.

Some of their best contributors are dog walkers, estate agents, delivery drivers and tradespeople – anyone whose job it is to traverse their communities, day in, day out. But not every home is eligible for a finder’s fee. To get your £20, the home must be privately owned, rather than owned by the council or a limited company. It cannot be already up for sale or have been sold in the past five years. And it must also have been empty for 12 months of more.

There are 303,185 homes that have been empty long-term across England, with the number of vacant homes rising 50 per cent since 2016, according to campaign group Action On Empty Homes.

Most are left empty due to bereavement, probate delays, family disputes, or the owners moving overseas.

Simon Taylor, founder of Empty Property Hunters, says: ‘We’ve had one that stood empty for seven years because the owner lived some distance away and had become overwhelmed by the property’s condition following a difficult divorce.

‘It had no working heating, significant repair issues and had deteriorated badly over time.’

Following refurbishment, the property was transformed into a modern family home.

However keen scouts are to spot an empty home, Taylor says they should not be tempted to enter private land, peer through windows or invade someone’s privacy.

Steve Cox, a leak detector for a water company, drives all over north Kent for his job. Over his two-year term as a property scout he has made £4,480 from reporting empty homes, £1,580 of which is from finder’s fees.

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But success did not come quickly. At first, Steve, 48, was sending in photos of properties that looked unoccupied, with ripped curtains, or a dirty appearance, but after investigations by the company, were still lived in.

Now he knows the tell-tale sells of a long-term empty home – overflowing gutters, overgrown gardens and piled-up post. And to help, he has employed some tactics. He says: ‘When I find a property I go on Google Maps, and quite often you will see that everything is still in the same place from three years ago – the bin, the cracked window, the car on the drive with burst tyres – it’s a good way to investigate.’

Ben Radstone, the founder of You Spot Property, says that by using apps such as Google Maps and Google Street View it is possible to identify properties that appear abandoned or long-term empty without even leaving the sofa.

Radstone says: ‘We encourage spotters to use these tools to look for signs such as boarded-up windows, visible neglect, deteriorating roofs or other indicators that a property may have been left empty for a significant period.’

He says the most successful spotters are observant people who notice the house that everyone else has stopped noticing.

He adds: ‘Spotters aren’t just earning money, they are helping to improve communities.

‘One neglected property can have a negative impact on an entire street, affect pride in the neighbourhood, deter investment and make it harder for neighbouring homeowners to sell.’

Steve, who received £160 in finder’s fees in just one week, is investing his earnings into the stock market to create a nest egg for his retirement. Over the two year-period that he has been spotting properties his earnings have grown by £2,000.

He says: ‘It’s a good side hustle for me because I’m literally out driving all over the place all day.’