Starting out virtual wholesaling

[Daniel Raslin]

Hey everyone, I am trying to give wholesaling virtually a shot. I have narrowed down to wholesaling properties in Texas or Florida. Can anyone recommend some websites or resources for finding properties? Also, what are some tips and tricks to finding investors?

[Don Konipol]

@Daniel Raslin

There are no websites or online resources where you can buy a property at a “wholesale” price and turn around and sell it for a “retail” price. If that ever existed, it was over 20 years ago. Wholesalers find deals by (1) direct mail (2) phone solicitation (3) capture pages and funnels utilizing SEO optimization, (4) Adwords (5) high profile on social and networking sites (6) lists created by “drive by” and follow up through paid investigation (7) paid search engine marketing (8) robo dialing (9) text blasts (10) paid referrals.

A wholesaler is adding his fee, as an additional cost, to the transaction. In order for someone to be willing to pay the fee, he has to offer something that a buyer or seller can’t do themselves and offer it better or cheaper than a broker. Anyone and everyone has access to for sale listings; the chance of anyone paying an extra wholesale fee for a listed property are exceedingly small. The only exception would be if the buyer were to negotiate a price significantly less than market value. However, in this situation the seller merely has to advertise for “highest and best” offer, and he will get close to, and often at or in this market exceeding market value offers.

Although I now deal almost exclusively in the commercial arena, I will tell you that in 40 plus years of active real estate investing, both for myself and for the various syndications and investment funds I ran, and still run, the only time I’ve been able to get a good deal on a marketed property was during an economic recession. And even these had to be “worked”, i.e. the seller had to adjust his price drastically to meet my requirements.