I've appraised hundreds of these in my career & its caught many unsuspecting investors with the pants down so to speak.

Then they bring in the next crop of unsuspecting victims.

But I guess in a commercial setting IE your renting in a shopping mall or such you may be able to ascertain these answers through public medium but no way with the nature of the MOM and POP industry which is rental houses real estate are the average potential tenants going to be able to find this out.Although I hear what your saying.. just take the sub 2 buyers that rent to unsuspecting tenants only to have the tenant wake one day to a foreclosure notice and they have paid this person there rent..

Personally I think there are better uses of ones time but if that is how one wants to operate I say have at it & good luck...But calling on unsuspecting agents & taking them away from a productive use of their time shows a lack of social respect."

I imagine this FSBO is going to let you USE THEIR HOUSE to BATE UNSUSPECTING BUYERS for your own gain?

They unloaded their Risk position to the unsuspecting Public, who Buys this crap, again Worldwide, thinking that the Monthly Income is Safe until the next Trigger that causes, the Worldwide downturn in all the Economies.

That would make for a bad situation for an unsuspecting Landlord, thanks.

He then tried to sell me on the virtues of the educational benefit of their package to people new to real estate, and I declined this as well.It is my opinion that they are really trying to take advantage of real estate newbies--495.00 times 100 unsuspecting customers is 49,500.00 of income for them even if they never connect a single one of them with an investor.

I just hope some poor unsuspecting BMW driver was not harassed by this guy!!

.. if done the correct way it can be to your bank account the investor you sell a property to and the homeowner .. when i say properly , i mean not shadey ..or fly by the seat of your pants type .. we investors actually like decent wholesalers .. ones who bird dog a property and get it under contract for a decent price .. one who knows a bit about rehab and the cost of it .. one who knows how to determine the ARV and not try to inflate their numbers so they can try get one over on a unsuspecting investor ( any investor worth anything will never rely on your numbers unless you build up a trust over time ) ..or unsuspecting homeowner .. thats where some wholesalers make their mistakes .. they try to make all the profit on the property from one sale .. instead of building a business and trust in the industry .. no matter hiw good a deal is .. it seems that most people care about how much money someone makes for doing something that doesn't require a investment of money or hard work .. please don't get me wrong .. i myself think wholesaling is hard work ..if it was so easy then house flippers like me would be doing it instead of the physical labor and finanical investments that are required when rehabbing houses to flip them .. not every house flipper uses his own money or even swings a hammer for that matter .. some pay others to do it .. and some borrow the money or have investing partners that fund their properties .. i fall somewhere between them .. i have different partners that fund 100% of our deals .. i find them, manage the rehabs and do some of the work myself to maximize profits.. but back to wholesaling ... most investors dont kind paying a wholesaler $5k or even 10k on a deal if there is still a lot of profit potential to be made ..but what i have found is most hate or will walk from a deal if they find out that the wholesaler is trying to sell there interest in the property for $15-20k even $30k .. i seen one property that a so called wholesaler ( who didn't even have the contract to the property but was trying to jump on another's deal ) they marked the property up $64k from what the original wholesaler was marketing it for .. thats just ridiculous ..imagine if you bought that house only to find out that you could have bought it for $64k cheaper if you delt with the actual wholesaler who had a contract with the seller  .. then there's the seller imagine that was your house and even though you were desperate to sell it .. someone came along and took advantage of you at your weekest .. but .. here is the good news .. if you are honest with the seller and explain you are not a realtor but you work with a bunch of investors and you feel you can get him what he needs in price or what ever price you negotiated him for.. and explain you still need to have it inspected but you should be able to close in certain amount of days .. contact the investors you know and offer it to them plus your acquisition fee .. and either assign the contract or do a double close     ( which is actually the legal way to do it ) then everyone's happy .. the seller got what he expected .. the investor bought a profit potential property and you the wholesaler made more in a few days or a couple weeks than working a part time job for 6 months .. get good at it and you could be wholesaling 2-3 a month .. at around  $5-7k a pop on average .. you will have done two things for your real estate investment career.. one .. you will have made enough to start investing in rehab houses yourself .. and two ... you will have learned a valuable tool in real estate investing , thats how to oocate and aquire your own properties without the help of a wholesaler .. although , you may find yourself in the position to want to use them in the future ..because , you might find your time is better spent buying, rehabbing and selling .. than taking the time to bird dog a potential property .. i guess it all depends if you can find a great wholesaler at that time ... i wish you the best of luck , please keep us informed on how your progessing ..