Wholesaling as a career

Wholesaling
8yFollow

Wholesaling as a career

Olaf Stieber
Waukesha, WI · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 4 votes

Is wholesaling a viable career ?  Do you enjoy Wholesaling full time ? I work as Software tester right now and I have an awesome opportunity to study and get into web development. Problem is that I do not like sitting in front of a computer all day.  

What has attracted me to wholesaling is the harder you work the more earnings ( In theory). You are essentially creating your own sales job. You are not in an office all day dealing with politics. No matter how hard I work as a web developer I am still an employee and make a certain dollar amount per hour unless I take on freelance gigs. 

I also plan on investing in real estate if I go into wholesaling or not as a by and hold investor. So I was thinking instead spending all that time learning web development I could do spent it growing a wholesale business. I could Wholesale part time until I gain traction and then quite my job. Wholesaling would be great in order to be able to source and cherry pick my rentals as well. I am willing to work my butt off to make it happen. I guess I just have to jump in ..Maybe it is fear but I just want to know that Wholesaling is not a pipe dream. I see people saying that 97% of wholesalers don't make it ( Not sure where they get these numbers ?!) But that is concerning... 

0Reply
30 views

Most Popular Reply

Matt Engle
Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2016 · 144 posts · 100 votes
8y
Hi @Olaf Stieber. If you’re willing to work your butt off, I’d recommend getting into multifamily investing and syndications. They can help you quit your job in 3 to 5 years and you can even wholesale apartment buildings from time to time if the opportunity presents itself.
1Reply
See this reply in the discussion

8 Replies

Jump to latestLatest
  • Matt Engle
    Investor · Columbus, OH · Member since 2016 · 144 posts · 100 votes
    8y
    Hi @Olaf Stieber. If you’re willing to work your butt off, I’d recommend getting into multifamily investing and syndications. They can help you quit your job in 3 to 5 years and you can even wholesale apartment buildings from time to time if the opportunity presents itself.
    1Reply
  • Bart H.
    Dallas, TX · Member since 2016 · 1k+ posts · 745 votes
    8y
    Originally posted by @Olaf Stieber:

    Is wholesaling a viable career ?  Do you enjoy Wholesaling full time ? I work as Software tester right now and I have an awesome opportunity to study and get into web development. Problem is that I do not like sitting in front of a computer all day.  

    What has attracted me to wholesaling is the harder you work the more earnings ( In theory). You are essentially creating your own sales job. You are not in an office all day dealing with politics. No matter how hard I work as a web developer I am still an employee and make a certain dollar amount per hour unless I take on freelance gigs. 

    I also plan on investing in real estate if I go into wholesaling or not as a by and hold investor. So I was thinking instead spending all that time learning web development I could do spent it growing a wholesale business. I could Wholesale part time until I gain traction and then quite my job. Wholesaling would be great in order to be able to source and cherry pick my rentals as well. I am willing to work my butt off to make it happen. I guess I just have to jump in ..Maybe it is fear but I just want to know that Wholesaling is not a pipe dream. I see people saying that 97% of wholesalers don't make it ( Not sure where they get these numbers ?!) But that is concerning... 

     MY sense is that it is arguably the hardest part of real estate to get into and make a full time career.  You have to routinely be able to find properties no one else can find, convince the seller to sell it to you cheap enough to where you can sell it to another investor who can fix it up and make money on the other side.

    ITs possible, but you have to know what a property is worth better than an agent, and you have to be able to sell complicated transactions to distressed sellers.

    And it seems as though the best wholesalers, ie those who really do it as a fulltime job are those who have invested over time to build mailing lists, personal contacts and have the ability to do very large mailing lists.

    I think the easiest way to get into real estate is via house hacking.  IE buy a house rent out either other units or other rooms in the house.  and then move up from there.

    Wholesaling might have the lowest barriers to entry, and you could do it as a side hustle until you decide if it is for you.  But I don't think I would go all in with no experience wholesaling being my only income from day one.

    1Reply
  • Karen Rittenhouse
    Flipper/Rehabber · Greensboro, NC · Member since 2010 · 623 posts · 615 votes
    8y

    @Olaf Stieber that wholesaling is possibly the hardest area of real estate to get into. The reason is that it is very hard to buy deals cheap enough to sell them to a rehabber who can also make a profit. I wholesale full time but I do a ton of marketing and have built up a waiting list over the years of rehabbers who love our deals. HomeVestors marketing made all the difference for us being able to find these deals on a weekly basis.

    All that being said, the best way to start is by attending all the local investor meetings you can to start networking with others who are successfully doing what you want to do and to find all the locals that you'll end up working with. Find meetings on MeetUp.com and NationalREIA.org

    Good luck!

    1Reply
  • Matt K.
    Walnut Creek, CA · Member since 2015 · 3k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    8y

    Why not both, it doesn't have to be one or the other. A steady w2 job makes financing easy which in turn makes buy and hold easy.  It might not be ideal to wholesale with another job, but it's possible. Replace the job title once you find your groove...

    1Reply
  • Olaf Stieber
    OP
    Waukesha, WI · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 4 votes
    8y

    Thanks @Bart H. @Karen RittenhouseI really enjoyed and learned a lot from your appearance on podcast #2. Lots of great information and I found your story inspiring ! Especially that fact that you did this later in your career. Just awesome.. 

    2Reply
  • Matt Greer
    Real Estate Agent · Mesa, AZ · Member since 2017 · 231 posts · 169 votes
    8y

    Try wholesaling on the side. it was a little bit of a slow start for me, but now I make more wholesaling part time. If I would have just jumped into wholesaling full time without my normal job I would've starved the first month. Also look at every deal and see if you can just flip it yourself and make all the money. I will be quitting my normal job in January, but I will have a bunch saved up by then as a fall back just in case. At the end of the day you're investing and there will be risk so be prepared.

    0Reply
  • Michael Ward
    Real Estate Broker · Fayetteville, AR · Member since 2018 · 75 posts · 50 votes
    8y
    @Olaf Stieber Why not consider getting a real estate agent license? You could still do all the wholesaling you want without flirting with the gray area of real estate law. And, if you find a seller that won’t budge low enough for a wholesale, you can then just list the property and still make a fee.
    0Reply
  • Olaf Stieber
    OP
    Waukesha, WI · Member since 2017 · 10 posts · 4 votes
    8y

    @Michael Ward That is a great idea.. I have definitely considered it and have been weighing pros and cons.

    0Reply
Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.
Log InJoin for Free