How to Wholesale Real Estate in Ohio (2024 Updated)

In this article, you’ll find the information necessary to start wholesaling houses in Ohio.

We will review everything you need to know about wholesaling real estate here, including legal details and business strategies that work in the local market.

Keep reading to learn the basics of wholesaling real estate in Ohio.

When people first start getting interested in learning about wholesaling houses in Ohio, their first concern is often, “Is it legal to wholesale real estate in Ohio?” The answer is yes.

Wholesaling houses is legal in Ohio as long as you first understand the risks of wholesaling real estate and educate yourselves on Ohio real estate wholesaling laws.

A good place to start is to review the Ohio Revised Code 4735.02, which outlines the actions that require an Ohio broker’s license.

The biggest and costliest mistake to avoid is marketing your under-contract properties as if you are the owner or a licensed Ohio real estate agent.

Always remember that you are marketing the rights and obligations to the contract rather than the property itself.

If you make the mistake of using the wrong wording in your marketing efforts, you could face a fine of up to $1,000 for each day your marketing efforts are public.

When learning how to wholesale houses in Ohio, you will need to understand the two different
methods for closing on your deal.

You can utilize a contract assignment or a double closing method.

In the following section, we will discuss both methods and when to use which.

Also, remember that you can wholesale in Ohio even if you do not live in the Buckeye state. Virtual wholesaling is becoming more and more popular.

Contract Assignment

When learning about wholesaling real estate step by step, most hungry new investors are taught about contract assignment.

Contract assignment involves getting a property under contract with a seller and then assigning the contract to a third party for closing.

This method of wholesaling real estate in Ohio is the easier of the two. But in this business, reputation matters.

Therefore, if you put a lot of properties under contract and let most of the contracts expire without closing, you open yourself up to scrutiny by The Ohio Real Estate Commission.

Double Closing

When creating your real estate wholesaling checklist, don’t forget about the benefits of double closing.

A traditional double closing is when two separate real estate transactions on the same property happen simultaneously.

Ohio title companies used to accommodate traditional double closings. While it used to be legal in Ohio to use the end buyer’s funds to close with the seller, this is no longer the case.

An investor-friendly Ohio title company would put the end buyer’s funds in escrow, and the wholesaler would use these funds to close with the seller.

However, in 2017, Ohio amended the Good Funds Law and abolished this practice.

Now, the wholesaler has to obtain transactional funding (if they don’t have their own cash) to first close on the property.

Transactional funding is a short-term loan, often for just 24 hours. It allows you to close with the seller before turning around and closing with the buyer.

Thankfully, transactional funding is easy to qualify for as long as you have solid contracts. The lender wants to know that you can pay the loan back quickly.

Therefore, qualifications for a traditional loan, such as a high credit score and employment history, are not needed when obtaining transactional funding.

These loans are normally provided by Ohio hard money lenders whose business is lending to investors and wholesalers.

Virtual Wholesaling

The ability to exchange and sign documents electronically makes it possible to complete the real estate wholesaling process without stepping foot in the state where you are wholesaling.

To practice virtual wholesaling in Ohio, you will want to either do your due diligence before putting your first property under contract.

You will need a reliable contractor or home inspector in Ohio who can walk your properties and give accurate rehab estimates.

Or you can have the homeowner sign the contract before inspection and have the investor inspect the property themselves.

In this case, make sure the agreement contains an inspection contingency.

One of the investor-friendly real estate agents in Ohio could also help you with showing the property to investors, signing paperwork, and overseeing closings.

You also need to find a wholesale-friendly title company to ensure your closings run smoothly without you being present and who will wire your assignment fee to you after closing.

These three methods are not everything you need to know about wholesaling real estate in Ohio. A large part of it is marketing.

To build a successful Ohio wholesaling business, you will need to master finding properties to wholesale.

Successful wholesale deals almost always come from motivated sellers of different types.

Those are normally homeowners who need quick cash and don’t have the funds to fix their properties up and list with a realtor.

Keep reading to learn about the three methods you can utilize to connect with these sellers.

Buy Ohio Distressed Seller Leads

If you have the marketing funds available, you can buy Ohio motivated seller leads from a real estate investor lead generation service.

Many companies across the United States are willing to do the grunt work to comb through public records and find distressed sellers who are likely to sell their properties at a discount.

Some examples of lists these companies generate include properties whose owners face:

• pre-foreclosure
• probate
• unpaid water and/or electric bills
• recent divorces
• need for major repairs
• other situations making them want to sell their house to an investor

Individuals that fall in these categories are more likely to consider a discounted offer.

Keep in mind that these companies will often charge you on a pay-per-lead basis, so you will want to analyze your budget before choosing this option.

The price per lead may be different based on your target city in the Ohio real estate investment market.

When looking for a lead generation service provider, consider REB Leads.

It’s a program by Real Estate Bees designed to supply wholesalers with industry’s most affordable and highest quality motivated seller leads. Sign up for it now.

Hire an Agency to Do Marketing for You

If you want to outsource your marketing completely, you can hire a real estate investor marketing agency to do it for you.

These companies will work with you to build or improve your lead-generating website and plan campaigns to drive motivated sellers to you.

Some examples of campaigns these digital marketing agencies will set up for you include:

1. Pay-per-click and social media ad campaigns
2. Social media marketing
3. Real estate investor SEO and content development

Keep in mind you will most likely need to pay a monthly retainer to utilize a digital marketing agency. Also, digital marketing efforts take time to develop and start bringing in leads.

However, once you have your website and social media pages improved, these resources will stay with you even after you stop using the agency.

Do Your Own Marketing by Yourself

If you have time, you can try doing motivated seller lead generation yourself.

First, you must build a lead generating real estate investor website and then utilize the same strategies as described in the previous section to drive sellers to it.

Be sure to choose a solution that will allow you to create a user- and search-friendly website. Select one from the best website builders for real estate investors that we reviewed for you.

Additionally, look into offline motivated seller lead generation methods such as using bandit signs and driving for dollars.

The advantage of doing marketing yourself is being in full control of everything while saving money on fees paid to agencies or buying wholesale real estate leads.

However, taking care of marketing on your own will require you to dedicate a substantial amount of time that you’d rather spend on tasks that can’t be outsourced.

Some real estate wholesaling software tools and real estate investor website builders can help you set it all up quicker.

Finding motivated sellers is one part of the equation. The other one is finding real estate investors to wholesale properties to.

Different kinds of cash buyers may be interested in you finding distressed properties for them. They include:

1. Hedge funds
2. Individual Ohio cash house buyers
3. Real estate investing companies

Hedge funds typically have billions of dollars and want to buy lots of properties in a growing area.

Many successful wholesalers in Ohio build strong relationships with one or two hedge funds and sell them all their deals.

To market Ohio wholesale properties, you want to have a solid list of different types of real estate investors.

If a deal with one buyer falls through, you want to be able to pivot quickly and still close on the seller’s terms.

To target cash buyers, you can use the following wholesale real estate marketing strategies.

Build Your Own Cash Buyers List

Here are three strategies you can use:

1. Build relationships with quality contractors who work on flips for investors. These contractors can pass your information to investors looking for more investment properties.
2. Attend real estate investment association meetings and use other local networking opportunities.
3. Join local real estate investing Facebook groups. Many wholesalers market their deals there.

However, any of those methods won’t let you build a list quickly.

Rather than going through a continuous process of building your own list via traditional methods, use the Real Estate Bees’ revolutionary invention — Property Marketplace Widget for Wholesalers.

It basically allows you to build your own cash buyers list on autopilot, and it’s the only online tool of this kind on the market.

What’s even more powerful is that this tool lets you syndicate your contracted properties directly to Real Estate Bees’ massive marketplace of wholesale deals for sale in Ohio and instantly reach thousands of potential buyers!

Leverage Other People’s Cash Buyers Lists

If you are new to the area or wholesaling virtually in Ohio, you can take advantage of others’ cash buyers lists.

Ohio real estate wholesalers, real estate agents, or other real estate professionals can allow you to get access to companies that buy houses in Ohio whose contacts they have on their lists.

However, keep in mind that they will want compensation, sometimes charging as much as 50% of the assignment fee.

Rather than giving away a large chunk of your profits, try a robust property syndication tool developed by Real Estate Bees to help wholesalers with the disposition.

The tool lets you leverage Real Estate Bees’ extensive list of Ohio cash home buyers to blast your contracted properties for free.

To take advantage of this cutting-edge functionality, create your free account and list your contracted property.

Contract Assignment

When assigning an Ohio real estate contract, you need two documents to close:

• Contract to purchase real estate
• Assignment contract

The contract to purchase real estate is the initial agreement between you and the seller. This document will lay out the purchase price and address and needs to be signed by the seller.

Then, you will also want to have both the buyer and seller sign an assignment contract.

This assignment contract will state that you are not buying the property but are assigning your interests to an end buyer.

You will want to work with an Ohio real estate attorney to draft your contracts.

Double Closing

Double closings are often utilized when the wholesaler makes a large enough assignment fee that they don’t want their seller or end buyer to see their profits.

With double closings, you will need two separate purchase agreements to close successfully:

1. Contract to purchase real estate (by the wholesaler from the seller)
2. Contract to purchase real estate (by the end buyer from the wholesaler)

You need two contracts because you will be doing two closings.

When wholesaling houses in Ohio, you do not need an active real estate license to operate legally.

However, wholesaling with a real estate license can be beneficial. This would allow you to market a contracted property to the general public if selling to an investor doesn’t work out.

You must join a brokerage to have an active real estate license in Ohio.

Many Ohio real estate brokerages don’t want their agents wholesaling, so choose a brokerage that allows you to do it if you decide to get a real estate license in Ohio.

There is no age requirement for wholesaling real estate in Ohio.

However, you must be 18 to enter into a binding contract anywhere in the United States.

If you want to wholesale and are under 18, consider working under an active wholesaler. This will also allow you to learn the business better before starting to work solo.

Operating as an LLC is not required for wholesaling real estate in Ohio.

However, there are a lot of advantages to establishing a business entity for your wholesaling business. This way, you will qualify for tax breaks.

An LLC will also allow you to qualify for business loans that would not be available if you worked under your own name.

Finally, creating a business entity helps protect real estate from a lawsuit. It is harder to sue an LLC than an individual.

However, if you don’t want to create an LLC right now, you can operate as a sole proprietor. But in this case it’s highly advisable to have a solid umbrella policy.

Wholesaling real estate is relatively inexpensive compared to other real estate investment strategies.

This is why so many people start their journey in the Ohio real estate investing market by wholesaling.

If you follow the contract assignment strategy, you will need funds for an earnest money deposit (usually within the $1,000-$2,000 range).

And if you are going to utilize a double closing, you will need transactional funding for the whole price of the house.

Use our “request financing” form that will allow you to compare loan rates from multiple reputable Ohio real estate lenders without scouring the internet yourself.

Your potential profit is determined by the amount of work you are willing to do.

Many wholesalers quit their full-time jobs after mastering their marketing strategies and building their cash buyers list.

But to give you a rough estimate, an assignment fee for an average house ranges from $10,000 to $15,000 in a neighborhood with an average property value of $150,000.

The rest depends on how quickly you will close deals.

The city and neighborhood where you plan to operate determine how good a local market is for wholesaling real estate in Ohio.

But as a general estimate, look at the real estate investment market trends in the state of Ohio.

For Ohio real estate investors, cities with college campuses, growing infrastructure and lots of older homes are great places to target.

Below are the top 10 cities for wholesaling real estate in Ohio:

1. Columbus OH
2. Dayton OH
3. Cleveland OH
4. Cincinnati OH
5. Toledo OH
6. Youngstown OH
7. Delaware OH
8. Marion OH
9. Mansfield OH
10. Akron OH

When starting your Ohio wholesaling business, you don’t want to be unprepared.

There are different ways to learn what to do but, more importantly, what not to do when wholesaling houses in Ohio.

Below we will discuss some of the ways to learn how to start wholesaling houses.

Courses

Tens of online courses will teach you how to wholesale step by step.

However, there are also a lot of scammers out there who want to take advantage of ambitious investors looking to learn.

If you want to perform some quality control, review Real Estate Bees’ list of the best real estate wholesaling courses to ensure you get the most bang for your buck.

Books

Some successful wholesalers have made their wholesaling business their full-time job and written books to teach others.

Some great books to read when learning how to wholesale include:

1. The Wholesaling Blueprint by Luke Weber
2. Real Estate Investing for Beginners by Jonathan Smart
3. How to Be a Real Estate Investor by Phil Pustejovsky

Discover more by looking through this list of the best wholesale real estate books.

Investor Clubs

If you are a hands-on learner, joining local investor clubs is a great opportunity to learn from experienced real estate professionals and build connections with them.

Not only will you be updated on the local market trends, but you could also find cash buyers for real estate wholesale deals to add on your buyers list.

Many real estate investment associations and investor clubs require a paid membership, but they often allow newcomers to attend one or two meetings for free.

Look through Real Estate Bees’ list of real estate investor clubs in Ohio to figure out where to start.

Real Estate Wholesaling Mentors

Finally, a great way to invest in your education is to hire one of the best real estate investing mentors in Ohio.

You will want to find someone who has experience wholesaling houses in Ohio as they will be up to date on the laws and regulations surrounding the practice.

Some coaches will charge you a percentage of each deal to help walk you through the process. This payment model is preferable to a monthly fee as it keeps the mentor interested in your success.

Investing in your education and letting someone help you avoid costly mistakes is a great way to learn quickly and streamline your business.

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About the Author

With over 20+ years of experience in real estate investment and renovation, Brian Robbins brings extensive knowledge and innovative solutions to the HouseCashin team. Over the years Brian has been involved in over 300 transactions of income producing properties across the US. Along with his passion for real estate, Brian brings with him a deep understanding of real estate risks and financing.