I'm completely confused...

[Eric NA]

Alright, I'm a complete noobie so feel free to grill me for this one but I've been reading about wholesaling on the forums and I'm not completely sure I understand why it seems so popular.

If I understand correctly, an individual finds a home that's a great value and would be a great flip or rental property, puts it under contract and then takes the deal to prospective investors (in basic terms). Here's where I'm confused.

I want to get into REI and I see a lot of posts that say, "Oh yeah, getting into wholesaling is a great way to learn REI" So if I'm wanting to start getting into REI now, I can see where it would be beneficial to me to star evaluating property and pounding the pavement, but once I find a good deal, why wouldn't I just do the deal myself if it's such a good deal? I do have a full time job and I will be doing this one the side so obviously it's going to take me a lot longer to find properties since I won't have as much time to dedicate to searching, but I'm looking for my first deal so I'm fine with taking extra time and learning all I can myself.

Now if I'm on the other end, and I'm looking at buying from a wholesaler, why in the world would I buy from a wholesaler when it seems like most of the advice on here is to start out wholesaling? IE I'm looking at investments from people who aren't even in the market? That's the same as taking great investment advice from your hotshot broker who's poor but "knows the stock market better than anyone"

The only place I see the wholesaler being viable is if they truly have made wholesaling their core business (and I'm sure there are a few) and you have an individual who has large amounts of property so paying a small fee to have someone bring them deals is worth the money in place of their time. Only when those two people meet though would it seem viable to me. So what's the big fuss? Why is everyone trying to get into wholesaling? I must be missing something so I apologize in advance!