Wholesaling real estate seems like a great strategy but with that strategy, I've seen a lot of fishy characters who promote things that aren't true, lie to sellers directly, lie to Buyers and intentionally misrepresent information. Some of this misrepresented information includes things like after repair values, repair costs, rental comps and more.

I have even encountered wholesalers who push properties with title issues onto buyers that are not knowledgeable enough to understand that this issue could be a very serious problem.

A lot of the pitch that wholesalers make to sellers is that they were going to be buying a property with cash, even though they have no cash. So if they don't end up finding a buyer to reassign the contract to, they just lied to the seller and wasted their time.

Again, this is not to bash on all wholesalers, because I do believe that there are some decent people out there. That being said, the majority of my experience comes from people who are pushy salesman who try to get you to buy something.

At the end of the day, wholesaling real estate is like getting a net listing for a real estate agent. Except the real estate agent discloses that they will be making the difference upfront and not lying to the seller about buying their property for cash.

That being said, in many states and jurisdictions net listings are actually illegal.

My personal opinion was that a lot of this Wholesaling activity couldn't go on much longer. There had to be a breaking point, where unlicensed and unaccredited individuals could be handling real estate transactions. Lots of these individuals didn't have mentors or licensed professionals to help guide them through a transaction process. And on top of that I have seen files were there has been over five wholesalers, making a cut from the sale of a property.

So before that property went into the buyers hands it went through five other individuals. They were all making money on this transaction, and likely not being transparent with the original owner.

I remember, speaking directly with wholesalers, who would tell me not to disclose that a profit is being made.

Look, I respect the hustle. I am all for individuals trying to make their way in the Real Estate sphere. But there has to be a way that is more transparent with individuals. We can't have a large amount of unregulated people, pushing values, and figures onto the end consumer who will be the one that's really suffering at the end of the road.

To extend an olive branch there are plenty of bad real estate agents that also push things onto their clients, but those individuals work under a broker who carries a fiduciary duty to their client. Here there are no licenses regulations or implemented ethics.

What are your thoughts?

Alan Asriants - New Century Real Estate

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