Owner shared my 'we buy houses' letter with their Realtor.  The house wasn't listed yet.

Realtor called me and we negotiated a price of $450K and attempted to wholesale at $479K.

Weren't able to wholesale it at that price (market has been softening a little in Northern VA for banged up investor properties).

Told agent unfortunately we weren't able to find a purchaser but we would be interested at $400K if anything changes.  I figured at this point it was dead- price we needed it at too far below price I initially offered.

1-2 months go by.  On a whim, I email agent and say 'hey, just wanted to see if the property has been sold yet'

Agent replies 'actually, we had a buyer but they backed out, are you still interested at $400k'

I say 'yes, definitely'

Tie it up at $400k, find a buyer at $430k net.  Co-wholesale with someone with a good buyers list.  We each make $15k.

Main Lesson: Follow-up is so critical when it comes to wholesaling.  Even if you think there's no chance... even if you think the house is already sold... until the house has actually been sold, you have a chance to buy/wholesale it.  I thought for sure this one was dead, but ended up getting a good wholesale fee out of it.