Should you work with wholesalers to do a house hack?

[Claire Rosenberg]

I am doing my first house hack and wanted to hear your experience working with wholesalers in Chicago for 2-4 unit multi-family properties. 

[John Warren]

@Claire Rosenberg working with wholesalers is fine, but you will have to be pretty confident to grab some of the deals they have. I think if you are looking to use an FHA product you will ultimately be unsuccessful because FHA doesn't really work for 99% of wholesale deals. You need to buy with cash, or maybe hard money, in order to take down a deal where you don't have control. The thing with wholesaling is that your margin of error is a lot thinner because you typically don't have any contingencies in place to protect your earnest money. Any contingencies would be in place to protect the wholesaler before they assign the contract to you. I recently purchased a deal from a wholesaler, but I also am on my 6th apartment deal and am also a licensed agent who specializes in this space.

Have you looked on the MLS with realtors before? As an investor I think it makes sense to always look at all options as part of your deal funnel. There are a lot of great deals that have traded recently on the MLS in my sub market here in Chicago, and I know a lot of investors doing well on the MLS.