I have found a house which needs a complete renovation as it has been extremely neglected.

It all depends on your circumstances, what you're doing, and what you're trying to accomplish. 

The sellers that can be helped by wholesalers are those who have a need to sell quickly due to life circumstances. 

Fannie / Freddie provide non-recourse loans in the MF space, with the exception of bad-boy carve outs (no willful neglect, maintain your O&Ms, repair as needed, don't mix your SPE with other assets, etc).

As mentioned it really depends on your specific circumstance. 

This is the product of a bunch of years run up in the market, too many people watching HGTV shows and think it is so easy, and the gurus selling their BS programs suggesting to newbies to start wholesaling as their first go at investing since it can be done with no money, no credit, no brains, and no skills.You are now seeing and receiving the product of these circumstances first hand, good luck stopping it yourself, only a nice stiff market correction sending many to the poor house will stop it for a bit, then the cycle will repeat again.

I neglected to do that and walked in to the permit office once day to pull permits and ended up with a bill for $6k in misc fees! 

In that circumstance it could be argued that it is a company car, thus having the registration location of your choice. 

I would only in very, very rare circumstances pay the wholesaler before the property has closed.

Not once has anyone provided an excuse that rises above the blatant necessity for a potential buyer to view a property before making an offer.Duh.The next thing I wonder is what other dumb things has the seller done, or neglected to do, to the property?