Wholesaling - IL Rules & Illinois Department of Financial Regu

[Andrew Holmes]

Just thought I would post this. In the last couple of weeks I have had at least 4 wholesalers reach out with properties that they have under contract or with properties that they closed and IDFPR investigator called them to followup regarding those transactions. Just through I would give a heads up to folks here. 

Please get your real estate license and do it by the book if you are going to wholesale in IL. It is easy, there are rules just follow the rules and there won't be any issues. I know a lot of wholesalers get mad when I have said this but I have a real estate license and it much easier to work within the rules rather than keep trying to find loopholes around it. 

IDFPR seems to be pretty vigilant on this issue specially if someone complains. Last year in Dec 2020 I got a call on one of our properties that we had listed in the MLS. Someone apparently was pretending to have it under contract and wholesale to a buyer and taking earnest money. Obviously if an investigator from IDFPR calls you, it gets your attention. We followed up and found out that someone was acting as a wholesaler on the property and we had no clue. So the whole thing was a complete surprise. I just wanted to make sure we had all our paperwork straight and it was not an issue. This is a property we owned that we were selling.

The rule in IL is 1 wholesale anything more is a business and you need to be a Licensed Real Estate Broker. Anyone that is serious and truly wants to do a wholesale just get a license it's not difficult and do it right.