Wholesaling, Legal or Illegal in Florida?

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My wife and I are new to this whole REI thing and are learning as we go. We have started to look into wholesaling and have seen many success stories and advice on how to complete the process from start to finish. The problem is that I am starting to see quite a few articles and posts from people saying that wholesaling is "illegal if you're not a licensed broker". How is this possible when there are so many people that have been successful in wholesaling, create videos on YouTube, post on BP and write books about the subject and never say anything about the practice being "illegal"? If the purchase contract clearly states that I may assign the contract and the assignment contract states that I am assigning the contract, why would it be illegal? I am a police officer and definitely can NOT take a chance of doing something illegal. I have an appointment later in the week with my real estate attorney to get the final word, but I would like to hear some thoughts from the BP crowd. We are in Florida and I know laws differ from state to state.

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I totally agree with Ken. I have been wholesaling in Missouri and now Florida for 17 years. There are no problems in wholesaling if you do it right. I have 43 properties right now that I'm wholesaling and the way I do it if the spread between the price I'm buying it for is less than $10,000, I just have the buyers sign a Consulting Fee agreement. That way they buyers 'Assumes' my contract (be sure that is allowed on the contract) for the price I would have bought it. They buyer then buys the house for the price I have on my contract and the title company pays me in the closing for the price listed on the Consulting Fee Agreement. Even though I'm a licensed real estate agent, I still do it this way. I only use my RE License to do my larger commercial deals. 

Now if the amount I'm getting is more than $10,000 I don't want the buyer or seller to know how much I'm making so I will do a double closing. Yes it costs more because I have to pay for 2 closings but it is better this way to maintain a good relationship with both the seller and to do more future business with the buyer. 

That's my 2 cents.

Steve Anderson