Where to look?

[George Latif]

Hello, My name George I am a MLO located in SF Bay Area and currently trying to get in to the Real Estate Investment market. I wanted to know if anyone can help guide me to direction on where to find a Real Estate Wholesaler.  My short term goal is to rehab properties and flip them and my long term goal is to buy multi-units and hold them for consistent cash flow. Can anyone point me to the right direction please?

[Jeremy T.]

@George Latif 

Welcome! I'm not sure how wholesale works in the San Francisco area but these days most of our wholesale deals come from local realtors. A good starting point would be to look at who are the listing agents selling distressed, burned out, terrible looking, shells, foreclosures, tenant problem, etc. type properties and go meet them or talk to them on the phone and let them know your criteria. It may take a little while but they will find you a deal. If you execute they will keep finding you more deals. If you don't, well... they may think you're just window shopping.

We know our criteria pretty well, albeit a wide spectrum of interests. Some examples of things to think about could include:

1. Location I want to invest in name your zipc ode within a 10 block radius of 123 main street. Try not to say a whole zip code because if you're investing in a city chances are it's block by block. If you're investing in the suburbs maybe you can say a few zip codes, not sure.

2. Type of property. Figure out the ideal property condition for you. Is it a cosmetic fix and flip that doesn't require any permitting just some sweat equity? Or do you want to tear down some walls, upgrade the plumbing and systems and either have a GC or can pull the permits yourself as the GC? 

3. Purchase price and rehab budget. Know your general purchase price range taking into consideration if it's a great deal you might want to go out and find a partner to come up with the financing or cash needed. However, if you know your purchase price and rehab budget range it indicates you have a good understanding of your own capital available to spend on the purchase and the quality of the finishings, and the amount of money your buyers are going to have to pay for the completed product.

Be weary of people who are full time wholesalers. Sometimes they have great deals, but you have to do your due diligence. For example, I worked briefly (never purchased) with a wholesaler that ended up being a wholesaler of another wholesaler's deals who didn't even know someone was trying to wholesale his deal. If that sounds confusing, I think there might also be some kind of unlawful nature to it also. In this particular case, they were trying to wholesale me a deal at $120k that was listed on craigslist for $80k... yeah, nice bargain.