How Landlords Can Avoid Being Taken by Wholesalers

The real-estate game can be really tricky in these current times. A lot of landlords are getting taken advantage of by wholesalers of real-estate. When wholesalers advertise their so called great deals they may be using values that are not accurate. Beware of investors taking estimates from Zillow. Those types of estimates are the ones you would not want to buy an investment property based on. Be sure the properties they are comparing are recent and in the general area of the subject property.

Another value that wholesalers are using is the properties tax record. Property tax records mean nothing at this point in time. The values listed for property in your county tax assessor office are over inflated. The numbers you are looking at is what the property was worth before the mortgage meltdown. Those values will not be back for another 7-15 years. A good investor can not accurately say those properties will sell for that price now. The tax assessor office in your county will not adjust the assessment value of properties in their systems because it would mean less revenue in taxes for them. I went down to my tax assessment office and requested that they lower the appraised value of my house to save a few dollars on my taxes for the year.

I unlike many others have access to the multiple listings service available to real-estate agents. Having access to the comp tool within the service gives me a real good idea of what property is selling for in any specific area at any specific time. Therefore I’m sure that I never get ripped off. I once new a wholesale company that was selling property for double what they were really worth because they were using tax assessment values instead of current comps.
Wholesalers are also marketing foreclosed properties by using the last sale date. In the marketing pitch they may tell you what the subject property last sold for. These are not good numbers to go by because that was during a time that anyone could get a mortgage loan even Charlie the hobo at your local corner store, and because of this people was selling property at ridiculous prices. Please be smart with your buying, and do not let wholesalers entice you by using figures that are not likely for that particular property for another ten years. All it takes is a little research and a reliable comp service like realquest or siteX.