REI newbie

[Jason O.]

First, is this possible? I find a seller and have a buyer to make a quick flip. I buy the property in my name and quickly sell it to the buyer. Do I have to have the property in my name first?

Second, what's all this buyer list for? How do you profit from that?
Are there any laws or regulations with this transaction?

[J Scott]

Originally posted by J O:

Having been reading and educating myself, I see double closings and wholesaling are strategies used depending on the monetary amount situation.

Wholesaling is the act of taking control (and perhaps brief ownership) of a property and then passing (or reselling) that property to someone else.

Double-closing is just a method of executing on a wholesale deal. Other methods include assignment of the contract, simultaneous closing, purchasing in an entity (land trust, LLC) and transferring ownership of the entity, etc.

I just don't want you to think that a double close is an alternative to wholesaling...it's not. It's just a method of wholesaling.

If I'm going to sell it for retail profiting big, I double close.

Keep in mind that a retail sale often involves a buyer who is purchasing the property with financing. If that's the case, there are a couple things you need to be concerned with:

- The lender will likely require an appraisal, and if an appraiser sees that you purchased a property this week for much less than you're selling it for this week, you may have difficulty getting the appraisal to come in at the retail sale price;

- The lender may have title seasoning requirements, whereby they don't want to lend on a property if you haven't had ownership of it for some minimum period of time (generally 90-180 days).

Consider that assigning the contract might be a better way of earning your fee on this type of transaction, as the lender roadblocks should go away.

Wholesaling involves selling to other investors, mostly when I'm going for lower profits.

Wholesaling can be to another investor or to a retail buyer. They are both wholesaling.