Why I wholesaled my parents house?

[Jonathan Tavarez]

Wholesaling usually gets a pretty bad rap compared to other areas of the real estate world so I wanted to share a story that perfectly portrays the value of it and hopefully it will help other investors to understand why this tool is so important.

My name is Jonathan and I have been working in real estate for the past 5 years. In that time I have rehabbed properties to rent, to flip, and also dipped my feet in wholesaling. Recently my parents decided to down size. They are in their 70’s and to help them decide what to do with the house I put together a list of numbers and scenarios: rehab to sell, rehab to rent, sell “as-is”and also wholesale (I was also going to mention notes but sometimes people get lost with that lol). After analyzing the options it came down to this- to rehab they would need to put around $60k to get a potential profit of $30k (assuming all went according to plan), they don’t want to rent even with a property manager so ultimately, with an understanding of all pros and cons, they want to wholesale. Why you ask? Well very simple, they value the flexibility that wholesaling the property will give them, they don’t want to keep anything from the house and by wholesaling they don’t have to worry about paper work, cleaning or anything else, they just get a check, grab what they want, get in the car and done. Even me knowing everything that I know I support the decision, they are not locked by a specific timeline, the house is packed with stuff accumulated over the last 30 years, they just don’t want to deal with any of it, let alone the idea of dealing with realtors, cleaning, scheduling showings, they don’t want to deal with that. For a potential $30k to $35k they value flexibility and peace more than that amount of money they would get. Ultimately I still want to make sure they get a fair amount for the house but even after inviting the wholesalers to do the appraisal the numbers were fair, the explanation of expectation was very clear, and they are happy with the results. Just like realtors, contractors, or investors, not everyone is a good person or has the best intentions but I want people to understand that wholesaling is just another tool, with real value and is not all about profit. There are ways to help someone and be compensated in a fair way for providing true value for someone else club need.

I hope my story can help as an example of the power of the tools that are available to all investors and why it is important to be familiar with them. People need to realize a wholesaler is not always a person just taking advantage of someone in need and understand that the issue is not the tool but the people wielding that tool so don’t disregard it as just a way to fool people.

Good luck to you all and to the ones involved in this beautiful profession trying to make the world a better place a big thank you.

You are making a difference