All Forum Posts by: Reginald Smith Jr.

Quote from @Antonio Kinard:

I don’t care what anyone say, I’m going to invest into Jerry Nortons 10k club. I don’t see any of you trying to help someone complete there first deal being an Realtor Investor? If you were as successful as Jerry ask yourself, why am I not in position to help someone else be successful? Clearly the guy has made a ton of money to help someone that’s trying to help themselves. Good luck to all of you and your future endeavors. 

Ditto Antonio! My sentiments exactly! 

Quote from @Joe Norman:

Quote from @Reginald Smith Jr.:

I personally don't particularly care for all the fees, mandatory classes, disclosures, etc. that are normally required of a licensed RE agent.

These pesky licenses and "mandatory classes, disclosures, etc." are there to protect consumers from predatory real estate practices (e.g., promising to buy someone's house for cash with no intention of actually closing). As someone else stated, if one's businesses operates based on a "loophole" then they should think long and hard about whether they are running a legal and ethical businesses, or just a scam to grab a piece of a seller's equity.

That said, my guess is that the South Carolina Real Estate Commission only regulates licenses real estate professionals so this news letter probably doesn't actually affect you or your "businesses". The only possible impact I can see is that a licensed real estate professional would no longer be able to sign a listing agreement with a wholesaler to market the deal.

 Thanks Joe Norman for your reply. However, I think that both you and Ben's reply unjustifiably demonizes the word 'loophole.' Knowing full well that we all use and benefit from these legal 'loopholes' everyday in this business. When we pay less taxes on our long-term-rental properties than the hard-working individual standing on there feet checking out our groceries at Walmart, are we being crooks? When the janitor at our kids school is having his pay checks garnished because he was late paying his tax bill, and we are having our capital gains taxes deferred via a 1031 exchange. Are we dirty business men and women? Of course not. We are simply taking advantage of some legal 'loopholes' that was put in place to be used by a select few in the know, long before you and I both got into this business. I used the word in my post assuming that it didn't need an explanation amongst mature Re professionals such as yourself and Ben. Thanks again for your reply and much success in your business as well.

Quote from @Ben Zimmerman:

I have a pretty big dislike for wholesalers in general for a wide variety of reasons, if you need a loophole in order to operate your business, then you probably shouldn't be in business in the first place.  This is especially true when there are hundreds of thousands of dollars on the line, and the ability to completely screw over a seller if things don't go right.

With that said, the SC real estate commission doesn't dictate what is or is not considered 'equitable interest'. Only applicable state laws and/or court rulings can do that. Unless a new law/court case just came out then I would largely ignore the SC commission. As always if you are putting up $100 or some other trivial amount of EMD for wholesaling then you are likely going to have problems in court justifying how $100 should be considered 'equitable interest' in a 300k home. On the other hand if you are putting down something like 3% EMD, then you would be hard pressed to find a court that wouldn't think that to be equitable.

Thanks for your reply Ben Zimmerman. Di-spite your prejudice against anyone that Wholesale real estate deals. Your answer actually makes a lot of sense. I agree with you though. There are a lot of crooks out here that are giving a bad name to the practice of Wholesaling. Nevertheless. I myself resist the temptation to allow myself to deem all Wholesalers as verified conniving get overs with the same intensity that I resist the temptation to accept the narrative that all attorneys are crooks. I think that that kind of all inclusive prejudice adds more toxicity to the RE industry, than the manifold of crooked Wholesalers that has caused individuals such as yourself, to prejudge honest part-time RE professionals such as myself as being scoundrels. Thanks again. Much success in your business sir.

Mike Hern
I am a Writer and full-time Artist and only invest in RE part-time. I personally don't particularly care for all the fees, mandatory classes, disclosures, etc. that are normally required of a licensed RE agent. Perhaps it would be worth my while if I was investing full-time. However, since I don't, I rather pay for the use of my RE agent's valuable expertise and services instead. What I don't care for is the fact that it looks like now I may be forced to do all of my Wholesale deals through my RE agent only, via a more costly double-close on top of that.

Russell Brazil
I think the email was sent to my RE agent directly from the South Carolina Real Estate Commission.

Hello all. I'm a property Wholesaler in Florence, SC. My Realtor received a disturbing news letter today from the South Carolina Real-Estate Commission titled, "Wholesalers." The newsletter was informing her that EMD's do not, or no longer will, be considered as a buyer's "equitable interest" anymore in the state of SC. Which would strip all non licensed real estate professionals of there ability to market there assignable contracts. If this is true, this could potentially negatively effect my business and every other RE professional that does business with me big time. As the 'equitable interest' loophole was the only way that we were allowed to 'legally' market our assignable contracts in the first place. My question to the RE attorneys out there is, is this true? Or, is it just some kind of scare tactic designed to put what they believe are there non-licensed competitors (Wholesalers) out of business? And FYI: I haven't submitted this questing to my attorney yet. I kind of wanted to see what the consensus on here was before I pop the question. Thanks in advance for all of your expertise.