Hi all. Thank you for your feedback and sorry for the super delayed response. I really appreciate all of your comments and feedback. I know net listings are a pretty tricky subject as noted by Anthony.
Are there any workarounds for this? My overarching goal here is to be able to list my wholesale deals on the MLS in order to increase buyer exposure and reduce the risk of holding onto an unsold property. Surely there must be people here in the Pittsburgh area that do this, right?
I think it'd be possible to do so long I am seen separate from the wholesaling business, right? And I think this could be accomplished by setting up my wholesaling business in an LLC and making sure my name doesn't pop-up in any of the contracts.
For example, a deal flow may look as follows:
1. ENTER INTO CONTRACT WITH MOTIVATED SELLER: Find and enter into an agreement with a motivated Seller for $30,000 (while disclosing that I am also an agent). Have the Seller sign an agency and MLS listing agreement, providing permission to list on the MLS. The Seller will not be responsible for paying any commissions, but instead, I will pay the commissions from my wholesaling fee. I will have an administrative assistant or VA sign the copies on behalf of my LLC (the Operating Agreement will grant such authority) thereby leaving my name off the contract entirely.
2. ENTER INTO CONTRACT WITH BUYER INVESTOR: I find and enter in an agreement for sale of real estate with a buyer investor for $40,000 (thereby creating a baked in wholesale fee spread of $10,000). Let's assume 6% in commissions paid to both buyer and seller agent. So $1,200 to buyer agent and $1,200 to seller agent (i.e. my brokerage). And let's assume a 80/20 split with my brokerage. So I'd get $960 and my brokerage would get $240.
What do you guys think of this plan? Is this possible? Is there a better workaround that I'm not seeing?
What brokerages allow these kinds of transactions? I'm sure there are some that are OK with it—especially if the wholesaler is high volume enough that it brings it good revenue for the brokerage.
Alternatively, I could always partner with another agent at my brokerage and have him/her handle the transactions for a small fee so that my name is off the transaction altogether.
Again, I don't want to do anything that is blatantly illegal here. And to me this seems like it'd enter a grey area with no real understanding as to whether or not this is truly considered legal or illegal.
Any help or input would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
