Wholesaling for a Company?

[Shelby Van Horn]

Hello BP Friends,

I have a question for you and hope I put this in the correct forum.  I'm still very new here so if I posted this in the wrong place, please let me know!

I am new to the investing world and am looking for my way in to start.  My main aspiration is to flip homes, but I am considering getting into wholesaling in order to help with funding.  I have ethical reservations regarding wholesaling in the first place, but am leaning on the side of if I'm honest with the seller and have buyers lined up, I can make sense of it ethically.  I was under the impression that this was something I could do on my own.  I started looking for investing groups on Meet Up and found one here in Orange County, which turned out to be a meeting to recruit people to work for them (1099) to find wholesaling deals.  Essentially, I went to a three hour training and was then given a company email, a stack of forms with information, and basically told to go find deals.  The steps consisted of finding the deal, comping it, adding it to a spreadsheet, their "assistant" would send out offers, I would work the deal with a listing agent or the seller, and then the company would take care of the contracts, etc. and I would keep part of the assignment fee.  I asked many questions to try to find out what the catch is, if I need to have any money, if this is legal, etc. and everything seemed to pan out except for the following..  

Since this meeting, they have now announced that their "assistant" who sends out the offers is no longer there, and we would be trained on how to send out our own offers.  Also, when I brought the subject of being able to do this on my own vs. doing it for the company, they brought up earnest money and how in California, wholesalers *must* put down 5-30%.  (I thought this number was decided on between the parties).  The said the main advantage of working through their company is that they put up the earnest money, not me.

If this is all legit, I would rather start out with this company than trying to navigate this on my own.  Losing part of the profits seems like a small price to pay in order to make sure everything is done legally through a brokerage, limited personal liability, having someone who knows contracts, etc., but I just don't want to start out in this venture in something fishy, and was hoping people here would be able to give me some insight on if this is normal practice or if I should stay away.  Also, any clarification on the earnest money aspect would be helpful.  I'm willing to take the time to learn how to wholesale properly on my own, but 5-30% down for a wholesale deal in southern California is not feasible for me.

Sorry this is so long, but thank you in advance!