Getting Started with Wholesaling

[Peter Stur]

Hi Bigger Pockets community, 

I'm a Real Estate investor who's been doing fix & flips in the Denver area for the past 10 years and I'm ready to expand my business into wholesaling. Being completely new to the wholesaling side I am looking for any advice & guidance so I can avoid making too many mistakes from the beginning. I've come across numerous "wholesale coaching" programs wanting 5-10k up front but I've heard mixed things so don't know if that's the best route to go. Are there good resources out there that provide the proven scripts that work, best mailers to send out, and the right lists to call on and mail out to without spending a fortune up front? Any advise on getting started with wholesaling would be greatly appreciated. 

[Jeffrey Butler]

Hey Peter, 

Funny, I'm doing the exact opposite of you - starting out wholesaling with a plan to move into fix & flips. 

Definitely give a listen to Wholesaling Inc podcast. It's the BEST thing I've found for wholesaling help. They also have coaching programs but the podcast has been amazing for learning the ins and outs... 

Seeing that you've been doing fix & flips for 10 years, I would venture to say you do not NEED to hire a coach for this business unless you're really focused on scaling quickly. It's pretty straight forward especially if you're familiar with RE.

You just need to learn the best way to find deals in your market (which I assume you're already doing since you're flipping) whether through driving to find them, targeting pre-foreclosures, distressed houses, tax liens, divorce, probate, etc.

Subscribing to a property app like propstream which is about $100/mo, helps immensely as a huge time saver and gives a ton of useful information. You can also use a website called List Source and purchase lists. Then you can send postcards, call/texting using a skip tracing service, or door knocking potential sellers. You're going to have to spend marketing money to find these potential sellers - I've found driving around looking for the deals is the best way to start. I've learned a ton about my market this way and generally there's a lot less competition because these deals are not so easy to locate for a lot of wholesalers.  

Then find buyers (most will recommend you do this first). You can do this on propstream by searching properties that have sold for cash in the area you're trying to wholesale in then skip trace their information to contact them, searching facebook/craigslist RE groups for posts that say CASH BUYER, networking with other wholesalers in the area to see if they'll joint venture to piggy back their cash buyer list, drive around and look for other flipped properties in the area and tracking down the investors' info...

While I'm not familiar with Colorado laws and such, I definitely recommend getting an attorney to draft up your contracts and help you with the closings. My atty has been extremely helpful with different things that I never would have thought about.

Hope this was helpful. I'm by no means an expert, I've got my second deal under contract now and hoping to close next week but I've failed A LOT and learned A LOT from these failures haha

Best of luck and let me know if I can help with anything!