Buying from a Wholesaler, is it me?

[Greg Grant]

So I have tried out a couple dozen wholesalers in my area (South Florida) and I can't find a single one that I trust.

A perfect example of this is one guy that posted a property for $160k, said it needed $30k of rehab and its ARV was $185k....seriously?

I'll go through my emails and get some nice looking properties (price, arv, estimated rehab) and I email them and they say its gone, or its being bid up higher than the starting asking price.  I'm extremely suspicious because of all the shady stuff I've already come across with a lot of wholesalers.

I know a lot of wholesalers are inexperienced people looking to make a quick buck, but I am focused on making sure my $$'s are invested wisely.  I'm not going to throw my money at a property on the word of some stranger and then get stuck with a crappy property.

It seems like if I don't just throw my money at it extremely fast, "it's gone".

How is it possible that an email list is sent out in the morning and less than 12 hours later the properties are gone?  Don't people want to do a little due diligence first?  I want to be able to check things and make sure I'm not buying a property that has 3 mortgages being attached to it and I'm 200k upside down in it.

Do properties really go that fast or is that some kind of high pressure sales technique to separate me from my money?

Do I put an offer on something to tie it up and then let my title insurance company check things before the closing?  Do I have contingencies to get out of it if its a bad deal?

My concern is putting up earnest money deposits too.  I don't mind doing it through my real estate agent, but can I even involve my real estate agent in the wholesaler transaction.  There's no way I would put up a "non-refundable" earnest money deposit.  And some wholesalers have said I need to do that to prove I am serious.  No way that's happening.  For all I know I put up $2,000 find out it has $250k in liens, mortgages, etc. on it and I lose my $2,000.

Am I just being too paranoid or am I missing some steps to this process?