Questions for Experienced Wholesaler

[J J]

Hello I'm new to wholesaling. I have read books and went to wholesaling seminars. I have decided that I want to assign contract to investors. Went to a couple of the guru's seminars(free one's) they always tend to leave alot of information out.

The part where I'm confused is contracts. I have never owned a house before so I have never seen a Purchase sale Agreement aside what the seminar guru's gave me. I know I'm suppose to have a Real Estate laywer to look over my contracts but I cant' afford one right now.

How many pages a standard contract should be?

I can't afford a laywer to view over my contract, so is it ok to get my contratcs from Office Depot?

What are the steps of wholesaling once a seller accepts my offer?

Who pays for the closing cost? I was told that either me or the buyer has to pay.

My goal is to rack up as much money from wholesaling to eventually buy and hold a property. I want to pay my debts first.

[Ryan Webber]

I use a simple one page contract that I copied from someone who copied it from some guru. As long as you have the contract basics - parties, consideration, and legal description, your contract will probably work.

Now when you start getting into each states property code and state specific laws, there will be additional factors to real estate contracts that are good to know and that can make a real difference.

For example in Texas, if the Seller doesn't provide the Buyer with a Seller's Disclosure of Property Condition, then the Buyer can cancel the contract up to the day of closing and can cancel the contract up to seven days after they receive the disclosure if it wasn't provided before signing the contract. That's good to know info when you are doing a deal in Texas.

Now as for practical advice for you I actually am going to dissent from everyone else on this one. Go to the title company or to your state's real estate commission's web site, get a contract and get out there and get a deal. 9 times out of 10 you are buying distressed property from people who don't care what the contract says anyway. They just want their money, and I don't know if dishing out the $500-$1000 for a lawyer to write up or look over your contract is the best use of your initial funds.

Now let me say that is my "unofficial" advice. "Officially" you should ALWAYS contact a lawyer to look over all of your contracts.

Also if you are wanting to learn your state's contract idiosyncrasies, I would recommend that you take a real estate law of contracts class. The class is a standard class for new realtors and it will help you tremendously in understanding contracts. Your local community college would probably offer it, and you could probably find an online study of it also.

As for your other questions about wholesaling, it sounds like you need to read through the wholesaling archives at BiggerPockets. There is a wealth of information here, and I would highly recommend you use it to the fullest.