Hands-On Learning w/ Wholesaler
Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2019 · 31 posts · 14 votes
I am looking to connect with an active, experienced real estate wholesaler willing to provide hands-on exposure to the business.
My goal is to learn proven, efficient approaches for:
I am specifically interested in connecting with individuals who are actively closing deals and can demonstrate a verifiable track record. Be A.G.I.L.E. and Let's GrOw!!!
Tyren, great approach. Learning directly from someone active in the business is invaluable. In addition to Biggerpockets, I would also recommend attending local REIAs and networking events to connect with wholesalers who are actually closing deals.
Tyren, great approach. Learning directly from someone active in the business is invaluable. In addition to Biggerpockets, I would also recommend attending local REIAs and networking events to connect with wholesalers who are actually closing deals.
Janice, thank you very much for the feedback and I truly appreciate you. I will try to connect with wholesalers through the local REIA and networking events. Do you recommend anything specific for me to say while engaging them?
I like the intent behind this, but if I’m being real with you, this is written more like a job application than a conversation someone wants to step into.
Most experienced wholesalers read something like this and think, “This sounds like work.”
Not because you’re asking for the wrong things… but because it feels one sided.
@Travis Goodwin, duly noted and thank you for the feedback. Any recommendations on how my messaging can be more effective without insinuating my inquiry is one sided? I am all for adding value to others and was recently talking to a more seasoned investor about this same topic. He knows of my military and Project Management background, but didn't have an idea of how I can add value with my background. He recommended getting a realtor license and working for a wholesale company to learn. However, I have no interest in that course of action and was seeking to compensate for one session of shadowing during a real world seller interaction. Apparently, that is taboo.
Sometimes you have to grab the bull by the horns and use AI, lol. It's like your dog if you train it proper and feed it, it'll be loyal. That said, most people are self-serving, you are, I am and so is the rest of the crowd on here. We're all self promoting, that's life. So why not use the tools readily available, the tool that knows everything and literally has ingested every bit of real estate knowledge that there is to offer. Use your Claude or GPT subscription plan and say "hey bot, write me an exhaustive guided tutorial on (xyz) with real world conversations and intelligence that is grounded in real data with links." ...or something like that. Anyway, the point is all of the intelligence AND domain language is within your reach brah. -Bty, this is my first post ever on BP but i've been hovering around for a few days. How'd i do?
Honest take: finding a mentor willing to actually show you the process is harder than most people admit. The more realistic path early on is attaching yourself to someone's operation as free labor. Handle their skip tracing, pull comps, sit in on calls. You learn faster when you're doing the grunt work alongside them than shadowing from a distance.
Tyren, Carson's advice about free labor is the most practical thing in this thread — but I'd push it further. You don't need to find someone else's operation to do grunt work for. You can do the grunt work yourself, right now, for free.
The hands-on learning you listed — sourcing distressed deals, engaging owners, due diligence — that's exactly what county public records teach you by doing. Not theory. Not shadowing. Actual deal sourcing with real properties and real owners.
Here's what I mean: every county has three databases that independently confirm motivated sellers. Pull all three on the same property and you've got what experienced wholesalers call "converged distress."
County Tax Collector — tax delinquent properties. These owners are behind on payments. Financial stress. The county is already telling you they're motivated.
City Code Enforcement — property violations with dollar-amount repair costs documented by county inspectors. Not your estimate. Not a contractor's guess. A government inspector walked the property and wrote "$12,000 structural repair" or "$8,500 roof replacement." Physical stress, documented in public records.
County Clerk of Court — probate filings, liens, pre-foreclosure. Legal complexity. These owners are dealing with inheritance, debt, or foreclosure — situations where selling becomes the solution.
When you cross-reference all three databases and find a property that appears on all of them — tax delinquent AND code violations AND probate filing — you've found a confirmed motivated seller. Three independent government sources saying the same thing.
Now your first conversation with the owner isn't "Are you interested in selling?" It's: "I saw the code enforcement violation for the structural issue — the county inspector documented $12,000 in repairs. I also see tax delinquency and a probate filing. I'm not cold calling — I'm responding to what your county has already documented."
That's hands-on deal sourcing. You're not shadowing someone else's process. You're building your own process from public records that cost nothing to access.
Your military and PM background? That's an asset here. Project management is about gathering requirements, analyzing data, and executing a process. Pulling three county databases, cross-referencing them, identifying convergence, and reaching out to owners — that's a project. You already know how to run projects.
The reason seasoned investors don't let you shadow them isn't because it's taboo. It's because most people who want to shadow aren't willing to do the actual work first. Carson's right — doing the grunt work teaches you faster than watching someone else do it. But the grunt work doesn't have to be someone else's grunt work. Pull your county's tax delinquent list. Pull code enforcement violations. Pull probate filings. Cross-reference them. That's your hands-on learning. That's your deal sourcing. And it costs $0.
The AI suggestion from Marco has merit for learning the language and frameworks. But AI can't pull your specific county's records for you. That part requires you doing the work. And that's where the real learning happens.