@John Thedford John that is an incredible reply and very informative
Why would you want to deal with people that skirt laws? Most of them are operating illegally. Here is what I warn people about before they deal with these types:
BEFORE you deal with any unlicensed broker consider these ideas:........
I can tell you here in the NY market, specifically the city, queens, brooklyn, bronx - there are so many investors a wholesaler wont do any of those things, actually here its like you have to beg these guys(gals) to even give you a call, and they flip it fast to somebody they usually know and have been working with, in other words here the responsibility is on the buyer, like if you told the guy to give me a comp or whatever - he will hang up on you, yes they will say "the house is $300k, you need to put $80k into it, and you can sell it for $450k" but your right, they have no idea and their numbers make it look good, where it might cost way more to repair it, (actually now that you mention it I am sure their are great wholesalers here that might do some of what your saying, but they wouldnt waste their time with somebody like me yet because I am not known yet, or like the big guys that do 20 - 30 properties at a time)
or I had one guy offer me one (after I kept calling him) and "This is a 2 family house, etc etc" and when I looked it up "it was actually an illegal conversion from 1 family to 2 family - very common here, and from what I am gathering very costly to and time consuming to fix"