My Best Buyer Ran Around Me On Wholesale Deals - How To Proceed?

[Burt L.]

I have had a long-term wholesaling relationship with my strongest buyer, selling him twenty or so houses. He had approached me about his getting "out of the process" and having me help him acquire deals of other wholesalers as well as my deals. He asked me to make a written proposal for my doing MLS comps to screen deals, evaluate repairs, do the contracting with a power of attorney, titlework process, get the sewer lines checked, and finally meet an appraiser at the property with the best MLS comparable sales, as I have on the properties he has bought from me. I do not hold a brokers license, intentionally, but am a registered assistant.

I wasn't wild about this as it takes time away from my business and help my competitors get a very good buyer though I cant find nearly enough properties for this buyer. As things are slower I said I would do the entire process for $4k from conception to closing and submitted a detailed plan of how it would be done.

Prior to this being completed, I had said three properties of other wholesalers looked worth taking to the next level of investigation and should I begin that investigation?

Instead, he has had other persons work the deals and wants to pay me for my time of running the comps, and has said that he has come to trust my skills in evaluating deals, especially as the appraised values come back nicely. He had a property manager who was licensed and used to use her for comps but they had a falling out and she doesn't do that anymore. I would be foolish to just sell my time for running comps and this has turned nightmarish. Additionally, I rent a house from him that I had wholesaled to him a couple years ago though I am on a lease with it.

This is really disappointing. He is a very good buyer and I had come to bring him my deals first. How might I proceed on this? I need to remember this is still business - after you have worked with someone for so long and formalities are no longer necessary its easy to forget that. I really regret providing a process-map of how everything is done, so he could break it up and sub it out to others on his property-management team. I don't plan to sell my time for doing comps for others wholesale deals as its more about recognizing value and avoiding costly mistakes on costly acquisitions. He didn't like my price on doing the whole process and wants to pay me for my time on these three property analyses, and beyond.