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Posted almost 11 years ago

Free advice for finders, bird doggers and would be wholesalers

 I buy a lot of houses in Memphis and as a result I have met and bought from many if not most of the people in the city who position themselves as middlemen, flippers, wholesalers and investor friendly agents.


There is a very common theme with the "1 man band" wholesalers who are trying to wholesale deals by buying and onselling before they have to close.


Well actually there are 2 common themes that drive me crazy.


FIRST:

Trying to sell something you don't control AND you don't have the details.  I find this almost daily.  I get 4 people sending me the same house at different prices and none of them can actually tell me what I need to know to make a decision.

Here's an example from last week.

Bird dogger sends me an address at 43K

1 hour later another flipper sends me same house at 45K

Next morning one of my staff finders brings me same address at 40K.

Deal is not a bad deal at 35K so I offer 30 via all 3 people subject to viewing. 2 of them can't get me in it, (presumably because they aren't direct to seller),  my staff finder who is better trained gets in it and seller says he has a contract at 32K will sell to us for 34K.


I am so annoyed over the whole thing we drop the deal and last Friday the real seller texts me saying I can have it if I can close same day. After 10 email attempts I finaly get HIS contract and agree to pay him 2K assignment fee.

Actual buy price 30K plus assignment = 32K.


The other finders just wasted their time and mine because they were being used by the real =seller to try and make him more money. Finder/bird doggers/wholesalers DON'T TRY AND SELL DEALS YOU DON'T CONTROL at inflated prices. It wastes everybodys time, especially your own!


SECOND:

Being greedy.  I will stick to the above example. Seller bought at 30K trying to sell at 45K. Now don;t get me wrong I am a capitalist and think profit is a good thing. But if you don;t have a good buyer pool, ( as I do), then don't be greedy. All that happens is 99% of the time you end up getting nothing. 

For example in my business selling to investors around the world I work on a 5 to 7K margin regardless of the deal.


I don't try and squeeze every cent out of a deal because when you work out how many deals you have to drop yo make less money this way.

Especially if you are new to wholesaling decide on a fixed fee per deal and then go for it.

With the above example if one of the bird doggers had come to me and said this is under contract at 30K and I need 5K I would have bought it.


There is nothing clever about brinkmanship and  maxing margins when you are wholesaling. You get to do that once you have built a buyer base but when you are trying to flip to other middlemen like me be generous not greedy.

I buy at least 5 houses a week on average and sell the majority of them for less than a thousand dollars profit.

But I sell them ALL without needing any of my own money.

I think this is the path to success in this business.


So to recap, if you wan tot make god money in the wholesaling space and you are new

1. Make sure you have the facts on a deal don;t be used as a pawn by another middleman and

2. Don't be greedy, get in get out and get paid. You will never go broke making a profit!!!



Comments (7)

  1. I think a lot of the issue revolves around this. To be a landlord, you must own a house. To be a rehabber you must be rehabbing a property. To be a wholesaler, you just have to say you are a wholesaler. Therefore you are dealing with people who are not real and have not done anything close to actual wholesaling yet get the title and frustrate other investors.


  2. Totally agree Dean, Don't these people understand this is not a sustainable business model. I recently had a newbie wholesaler offer me $22k on a property I would have sold for 28. I said no $28K was a very good deal and would have been happy for her if she found a buyer that would pay more. That wholesaler missed out becuase I now have it under contract for to sell for $45K


  3. I have only recently started learning about wholesaling, and the two points you covered are the base to how I would like to operate as a wholesaler. While I'm sorry you have to deal with that type of behavior, it gives me hope that as long as I do my part and bring all the facts of the property to the table (including my fee), my competition could being shooting themselves in the foot by attempting to maximizing their own margins on property they know little of. My thought on the matter is as long as you are willing to accept your role as a wholesaler and look to create a deal that you would go for if the shoe was on the other foot, deals will continue to come because everyone wins. Now to find a mentor. -B


  4. Thanks Shequann Burrwell. Be fair and you will succeed!


  5. great post im new to wholesaling and have yet to contract my first deal but understand that being greedy gets you no where.


  6. Thanks Robert. I can't tell you how frustrating it is trying to get middle men to understand this stuff :-)


  7. Very wise words. Build your reputation and your business will grow with it.