Wholesaling - what a bunch of scammers

[Danny Greene]

I recently got turned on to the concept of real estate wholesaling- and wow never have a encountered a bigger bunch of scoundrels. Everyone person in this so called business is a self proclaimed ‘guru’ trying to sell you their snake oil system of how to steal people’s houses out from under them. Disgusting and sad.

[Erik W.]

Define "stealing".  If a willing buyer and a willing seller agree on the price, and no one misrepresents that facts of the deal, and everyone is of sound mental capacity and not acting under duress, is that stealing even if the price is below what the Buyer can sell it for?

I don't do much wholesaling (actually "wholetaling" because I actually close the deal vs. flip a contract) these days, but when I did, I typically bought for 30-40% below what I could turn around and sell it for in a week or two.  The reason I was able to do this is I had cash in hand to close that day and I was willing to go thru the effort to develop a list of buyers.  Had the owner of the property been willing and able to develop a list of buyers, maybe they could have sold for the same price I did.  But they were not willing or able to do that.

I agree that most wholesalers don't know what they're doing and/or use high pressure tactics, and those should not be allowed.  But for the legit ones who make a genuine offer and are able to close the deal or flip the contract on time, I see no problem as long as no one is taken advance of, as defined in my first paragraph.