Wholesalers Rising
By Tod Snodgrass
The Real Estate Investor ( REI ) landscape is starting to change in both residential and commercial markets . Since the 2010s , most of the country has experienced a seller ’ s market with rising housing prices benefiting all property owners . However , what many people are discovering is that a lot of properties are currently suffering from a slow shift to a buyer ’ s market . After all , prices cannot go up forever .
Signs of the shift to a buyer ’ s market include : recent price discounting , listed properties are on the market for longer periods of time , vacancies are going up in some markets , there is even speculation about the possibility of a nationwide recession arriving in 2024 . These trends , if they continue , will eventually cause more and more property owners to put their properties on the market in order to take advantage of all the equity they have built up over the past decade or so .
As the number of properties up for sale starts to climb , past history has demonstrated that this may cause even more property owners to put up For Sale signs , since the “ herd instinct ” often kicks in , as it has in previous housing downturns . The good news is that all these market changes may open up new opportunities for REIers .
Take wholesalers for example . They make their money acting as middlemen between sellers and investors . However , what many people are discovering is that , due to COVIDrelated issues and other related problems , a lot of properties are currently suffering from clouded title issues , which may include ( but are not limited to ) the following types of problems : property tax lien , preforeclosure , mechanics lien , HOA lien , lawsuit , lis pendens , divorce , probate dispute , IRS lien , state income tax lien .
Clouded title issues can present major headaches for REIers in general and wholesalers in particular ( since they feed deals to others and are the frontline troops in many cases who help jump start deals ). In fact , clouded title issues can stop a deal dead in its tracks if the underlying issues are not properly addressed . See more about solving clouded title issues below .
CASE STUDY
Situation : A wholesaler had a property that he wanted to micro flip via a double close . The good news is that it came with a good amount of equity in it , and he had a cash buyer lined up , ready to go via a double close . ( It could not be done via an assignment because , like a growing number of states , assignments are illegal in the state where the property was located .)
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