All Forum Posts by: Scott Johnson

What about the fiduciary aspect? It is probably important to disclose if you represent them on a listing, you are a fiduciary which means acting in their best interests. If you are a wholesaler or buyer, you are acting in your own best interests. This is where the conflict can occur. This is especially more prevalent in a hot real estate market, where you can sell "as is" to cash buyers on the MLS. How do you position that you can give you 60% of value as a wholesaler or you can get 100% on the MLS and pay 8% selling fees. The answer is that a wholesaler will misrepresent the difference. If a realtor is being truly honest, MLS is the best route for most clients in todays market. In most markets properties sell well above listing price, so that makes wholesaling even less desirable.

Hi everybody, I'm ready to jump into real estate I just have no idea what I'm doing or what it is I should be looking for. I have a little bit of money saved up and I've done a small amount of research my self but I have no clue how to start or what steps to take first is there anyone that can give me advice or a sense of direction. I'm interested in buy and hold, flipping, and a little bit of wholesaling. 

@Sarah Castor I am going to have to apologize for the persons who are obviously not qualified to give such responses because from what I read here is all flat WRONG answers with exception to @Bruce Lynn who was spot on, showing himself an experienced Broker. 

I will go a step further and point out that in many states there is different LEGAL forms of agency agreements, and some while they don't say the word wholesaler work very much in the exact same manner. 

For example, in MN there is a form of agency agreement, 100% allowed by NAR and the state, where you can make a set price with the seller as a guaranteed net to seller, or guaranteed gross sale price to seller, and ANYTHING you can get above and beyond that, you can keep as a commission. Now if you ask 1,000 agents in MN about this, 999 will say nope, can't do that, illegal, which is because they simply don't know about or have any experience in doing such agency agreements.

Thing is 99.9% of agents are taught ONLY 1 set "standardized" way to do real estate agency. It does not mean that is the only way, but those persons will tell people as if it is. 

The very nature of wholesaling IS being a real estate agent. Your pairing a seller with a buyer for a payment, that's agency. This is why there is a continuous action of jurisdictions requiring a license to do any such actions, outlawing "wholesaling". 

You will need to have to get informed with your local jurisdictions to find HOW you can do such, and than locate a broker who will allow such.  

 No, Russia won't invade Ukraine. There are several reasons why, but if you listen to Ukraine instead of Biden, you will understand. Biden wants the diversion because he is doing so poorly. It just ain't gonna happen.

Even if they had a brief skirmish, it wouldn't impact real estate in the USA.  

What you need to watch are the Fed's interest rate increases and U-6 Unemployment Rate. Real Estate is local, not international.

Hey @Edward Koehn, welcome to the BP community!

You are in the right place. I see dozens of posts every week on here from folks that are investing out of state and looking for help with one aspect or another. You'd be wise to take a moment and search "OOS" and "out of state" here in the forums and start reading through these threads. 

Just like anything else in RE, there is no "best way." There might be a best way for you but figuring this out when you're just getting started is a tall order. Better to just educate yourself as much as possible and figure out your goals and the next best step to get you on the path to achieving them. 

Market research will be very important in the beginning but don't get too caught up in this. Find a solid market or two and start making connections and building a team. If you're investing in residential real estate, use Zillow + a calculator to start analyzing property. Chances are, if it's a solid market, it will be very tough to find good deals on the market. However, this will still give you much needed practice analyzing deals and help you learn more about the market.

If you haven't already read it, there's a book you can purchase right here on the BP bookstore called "Long-Distance Real Estate Investing." I have not read it but that would be one of my first steps if I were looking to invest OOS.

Hope this helps a bit. Please, feel free to reach out anytime if you have other questions or just want to chat!

@Jacob Hafer - there is high demand for new construction in many areas throughout the US as we are just now seeing the levels of construction in the US hit levels that it has not seen since pre 2008.   There are many markets that have a housing shortage which, of course, creates more demand.  Where are you looking for your investment - are you sticking locally, or are you looking at other markets?  As an example - Florida is a hot market as there are over 1000 people a day moving there - no state income tax, business friendly, landlord friendly - and high rental demand in pockets throughout the state.  I would take a look at the market you plan on investing in, the rental demand, current rents, etc - plug those into your analysis to make an educated decision.