Wow, what a great posting this is. Scott, I'd like a copy of what you suggested that can be had by emailing you, however I'm new here and I don't know how to get your email. If you know how to do it, please email it to me.
OK, here's the deal on this. And before any of you "pros" out there snub me for being a Realtor, keep in mind that I specialize in your world and i've done hundreds of deals.
So, the law in NY State, which i believe is similar everywhere in the Country, reads as such "anyone who buys, sells, or rents real property for another and for a fee must be licensed." With that in mind, you can still assign any contract. I think that we all agree on this. What I'm talking about is when you have a Realtor write a contract and in the space provided for the buyers name you put "so and so AND/OR ASSIGNS". Anything other than that is not what i'm writing about and anything other than that is probably where your problem is.
Where it gets sticky is the fee. If you're trying to collect a fee for doing it, meaning a sort of side deal that works behind the scenes of the contract - you can easily get into trouble, especially if there's a bank involved in the final step, meaning that the end buyer is using a mortgage. In alot of cases, since no one is harmed there is usually no one to complain. However, there is a growing trend to stop this type of real estate investor activity. Here's the reason why. When you, as the original investor get into this type of deal, you have to remember that if your assignee fails on the contract, you still have a contract and you still have to buy it. As you can imagine, there has been a flood of deals that fail to close when assignee's fail on them and that has created a rally cry for someone to do something about it. So much so, that a lot of Realtors already think it's illegal. It's not, but there's so much bad press about deals falling through because of this there is a desire to put a stop to "and/or assigns" that goes all the way to Washington.
The easy way to avoid all of this hassle is to do a dual closing where you're buying it and selling it at the same time. This way, your purchase price is X on your contract to buy, and your selling price is X + $$$ on your contract to sell, and the $$$ is your "fee". This is clean. Here's a tip for those concerned about dual closing costs. Factor that into the end buyers purchase, get them to agree to pay your closing costs.
