Is wholesaling unethical?

[Felipe Regueira]

I have been grappling with a question in the back of my mind that I'd like to open for discussion here. The question is wether wholesaling is unethical or not?  I know that it is legal, but my question lies in wether it's ethical.

I would imagine that in some situations it is ethical.  A case example might be where a person inherits a pre-foreclosed property from an abusive family member and the person does not have it in them to to right the situation and keep the property.  In that case the person may want to just get rid of the property ASAP because it is traumatically triggering for them to to have it on their mind.  This case is a win-win.

In other cases there may be someone whose home is in pre-foreclosure and they aren't educated or savvy enough to figure out how to fix the situation so they can keep the home and their equity. In these cases where there is a viable solution for the homeowner I feel that it may be unethical for a wholesaler to step in and offer to purchase the home at a significant discount when all the homebuyer may need is some coaching on how to get themselves out of pre-foreclosure.  I feel that purchasing a home in this situation is unethical because it is preying on the poor and uneducated.

To be honest it is this moral dilemma that has held me back from moving forward with trying out wholesaling myself. I'd love to hear your thoughts that may argue wether it is unethical or ethical.