More answers indicating that desk fees aren't necessary helped me come to a solid conclusion. 

It may still be legal if you're actually closing on the property yourself and then quickly reselling it (wholetailing/double close), but as far as wholesaling the "traditional" way i.e. simply assigning a contract, I think Illinois is actually the sate where it is the most clear about that being illegal (again, not a legal expert, do your own research and draw your own conclusions).

Unless you go see the property and neighborhood yourself, and come to the conclusion that it is a worth while deal.

Research crime, sales/rentals dataWith that information and work you can your own conclusions if its an area you want to be invested in or not.

Some conclusions that can be drawn include You are buying a non performing property at a discount. 

Of course there are many more categories in my research but these are my conclusions.

I found that I could buy discounted mortgage loans and lend hard money at greater return with a lot less time invested.My conclusion is that it’s not a part time investors game.

It's not a house that I would personally look at based on where my numbers would have to be, and my client is likely coming to the same conclusion after our showing and crunching his own numbers. 

(How creative, LOL...ask me how the city of NOVI was got their name).Now, if you looked at this info above, most outside observers could come to a rational conclusion about property values, areas to buy for rentals,...flip, and so on...and, most would be wrong. 

We dealt a lot with plumbing issues on 1960's properties, fixing one leak at the time, and again and again - which is both agrevating and expensive.Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that it is long term better (and less expensive) for me to just replace the whole plumbing during rehab top to bottom.