Wholesaling Question in Ohio- broker's license or no?

[Jim S.]

As somewhat of a newbie to real estate investing I'm completely confused about the legality of wholesaling in the state of Ohio.  I just finished reading a 22 page forum post here on BP about this topic and quite frankly I'm more confused than I was when I started.  One thing I'm certain about as far as a takeaway from this post is that Ohio is one of a few states that have really cracked down on wholesaling activity with regard to marketing a property that you don't own.

My situation is a little unique as I have the required funds necessary to pay cash for any deals I would do.  Because of this, I would have no problem in buying a property for cash, taking title and then marketing and selling the deal to another buyer.  As I see it, in my situation the biggest downside would obviously be that I'd have to hold the property at least for a short period of time before being able to resell it.

However, so many people on the aforementioned thread (and other threads) really stress that if you want to be a real estate investor you should just go ahead and get your brokers license.  This is where I'm confused. If I understand what I've read, I would need to first get my agent's license and then have to basically work underneath a broker.  Am I understanding that correctly?  It seems it could be a little difficult to find someone willing to do this when I would have no real intent to sell real estate other than as an investment for myself.  And it also sounds like there are other legal issues that can arise if as a broker I attempt to buy and sell real estate for my own profit.  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent individual but I find this whole thing kind of confusing.

I guess my question boils down to these:  If I have the money to close on these deals and then turn around and resell them is there any real advantage to having my license?  And if I did get my license how does the whole brokering situation work and what are the pros and cons?   Any advice from some of the pros here on BP would be much appreciated.  Thanks in advance!