How to Wholesale Real Estate in Utah (2024 Updated)

This guide will inform you on the basics of wholesaling houses in Utah. We will discuss the wholesaling methods, marketing strategies, and more.

We’ll also review valuable resources to get you started wholesaling property in Utah.

Read on to learn how to start your wholesaling career as soon as possible.

If you are new to the world of real estate wholesaling, you’re probably wondering, “Is it legal to wholesale real estate in Utah?”

It is: wholesaling properties is legal in Utah and throughout the USA. However, you must understand and follow US and Utah real estate wholesaling laws.

Having a thorough understanding of the laws includes learning about the risks of wholesaling real estate.

Using improper wording when marketing a property is the most significant risk to a burgeoning wholesale business.

While it’s legal to wholesale properties in Utah, real estate laws limit what you can do with those properties and how you can market them.

Homeowners and licensed Utah real estate agents are the only two parties that can legally market and sell a house.

Wholesalers can’t legally market a house. As a wholesaler, you can only market your rights to purchase a house.

When you find a house to sell, you and the seller will create a purchase contract. You can then market the rights to that contract to an end buyer or investor.

To better understand Utah real estate wholesaling laws, review the Utah Real Estate Commission’s rules and regulations.

After familiarizing yourself with the rules, team up with one of the best Utah real estate attorneys to draft purchase agreements and look over completed contracts.

In Utah, you can wholesale homes either through contract assignment or double closing.

Also, to do this business, there’s no need to live in the state. These days, you can work from anywhere and complete the real estate wholesaling process entirely online.

Contract Assignment

Most newbie wholesalers learning how to wholesale houses in Utah will try the contract assignment strategy first.

This easy-to-follow method is perfect for wholesalers just starting their business because it requires little startup money.

The contract assignment method first requires you to find a motivated seller and an investor as the end buyer.

Once you have a seller and an end buyer, getting the house under contract is the next step. First, you and the seller will sign a purchase contract similar to if you were buying the house.

Despite signing the purchase contract, you won’t actually be buying the house. Instead, the contract will contain a clause stating you can assign the contract to an end buyer at a fee.

After you’ve obtained the signed purchase contract, the motivated seller and the end buyer will then sign the assignment contract.

The assignment contract allows you to transfer the purchase rights to the end buyer. Once both parties sign the contract, the end buyer can then buy the house.

The end buyer will also pay you an assignment fee for transferring the contract to them. This fee is how you will make a profit as a wholesaler.

As we discussed, the contract assignment method is popular with new real estate wholesalers because it requires little initial capital.

You don’t need to have money to buy the house when using the contract assignment method. However, you will need one to two thousand dollars for a refundable earnest money deposit.

Double Closing

To learn everything you need to know about wholesaling real estate, you need to understand the contract assignment and double closing method.

While new wholesalers prefer the contract assignment method, wholesalers who make a lot of money from the assignment fee prefer double closing.

The double closing method involves closing with the seller before turning around and closing with the buyer. The two separate closings allow you to keep your profits confidential.

Just like with the contract assignment strategy, there are pros and cons to wholesaling by using the double closing method, too.

Double closing is an appealing strategy because it allows you to keep your earnings private from both the seller and the investor.

However, to use the double closing method, you need to have enough of your own money to close on the property.

If you don’t have enough of your own cash, you can get transactional funding. This funding can be obtained from the best Utah hard money lenders.

If you’re interested in using the double closing method, finding a wholesale-savvy title company needs to be at the top of your real estate wholesaling checklist.

Teaming up with a reliable, wholesale-friendly title company that understands and can facilitate double closings is essential.

Virtual Wholesaling

Regardless of where you’re physically based, virtual wholesaling in Utah is possible if you understand wholesaling real estate step-by-step.

First, you should network. Networking builds valuable relationships with other professionals who can help you while you learn everything you can about wholesaling.

Before getting your first property under contract, find two essential vendors.

1. A home inspector in Utah or a dependable contractor who can help you analyze real estate deals and give you rehab estimates on your under-contract homes. Always include an inspection contingency clause in your contracts. This clause ensures your contractor can enter the property to give you an accurate estimate.

2. A Utah wholesale friendly title company that’s able to conduct remote closings.

Communicating with the motivated seller and your end buyer throughout the entire process can get complicated.

Collaborating with Utah investor friendly real estate agents who can handle all communications will save you time while streamlining the process.

If you plan on working remotely, choosing an electronic signature software is essential. DocuSign and Dropbox Sign are two options that allow you to sign closing documents virtually.

To build a successful real estate wholesaling business, you need to learn how to find houses to wholesale. These should be properties sold cheap.

In wholesaling, owners who want to sell their properties at discounted rates are called motivated sellers.

There are many different types of motivated sellers, but they all need to sell their properties quickly for cash.

Some motivated sellers don’t have enough money to maintain the property, while others are struggling to resolve family matters or other problems and just can’t sell the traditional way.

Whatever the reason for selling, there are plenty of motivated sellers if you know where to look.

Let’s look at three strategies you can use to find distressed properties.

Buy Utah Distressed Seller Leads

Buying leads from a reputable lead provider is the simplest way to find distressed properties.

These vendors use marketing and other techniques of finding motivated sellers for wholesalers like you.

You can also use software for real estate wholesaling. Some of these tools provide leads or help you locate them.

These services collect distressed sellers’ contact details and information on their properties and situations.

You can learn exactly why a homeowner wants to sell their property to Utah investors for cash and therefore assess how motivated they are to sell below market value.

These companies specialize in finding various types of leads, including:

• elapsed MLS listings
• properties with absentee owners
• homes about to be foreclosed on by a lender or the government
• probate properties

You can expect to pay these companies a subscription fee, although some charge on a per-lead basis.

Not every lead will result in an actual deal, but some companies offer higher quality leads than others.

Before choosing a lead provider, make sure they’re a reputable company with a good track record.

REB Leads is an excellent resource for wholesalers looking for providers of lead generation services for real estate investors.

Also, we at Real Estate Bees created our own program to provide wholesalers with high-quality and affordable motivated seller leads. Sign up for it now.

Hire an Agency to Do Marketing for You

Hiring an agency with experience in real estate investor marketing services and outsourcing wholesale real estate lead generation is another way to find leads.

Work with a digital marketing agency to build a plan that matches your current budget and future business goals.

Digital marketing agencies take care of:

• filling your website with content
• creating professional real estate website design
• conducting SEO for real estate investing
• providing management of PPC ads for real estate investors

and other related tasks.

When choosing a service, keep in mind that some strategies will make you wait longer for seeing results.

For example, it takes longer to get ROI from engine optimization than with digital advertising. However, digital advertising is more expensive than SEO.

Once you and the agency decide on the right services for your business, the agency will charge a monthly retainer to run your campaigns.

Unfortunately, it can be difficult to distinguish between high-quality agencies that will get results and ones that just want to collect a paycheck.

Finding the right agency can take a lot of research.

If you are leaning towards hiring an agency, you have to be able to sift through an overwhelming sea of bad companies to find one that will serve you as advertised.

But since you are our reader, our team has already done all the heavy lifting for you. We’ve polled and surveyed thousands of our real estate wholesaler members and the overwhelming majority recommended Magnyfi, run by Jacob Hicks.

The service provided by Magnyfi is not cheap. But it is definitely worth it if you are serious about growing your real estate wholesaling business.

Go ahead and watch Jacob’s video presentation on the Magnyfi profile page discussing their methodical process they have been successfully helping other investors grow their businesses.

Do Your Own Marketing by Yourself

Many wholesalers, when just starting out, have a small marketing budget. If this describes you, doing your own marketing is a great option.

The first thing to do is build a real estate investor website intended for motivated seller lead generation.

This tool will allow you to attract leads from social media ads, organic Google search, and other channels.

Your website will be your primary marketing tool, so you should build one that’s search- and user-friendly.

The easiest way to ensure you have a high-quality website that’s easy to find and navigate is to use one of the best website templates and builders for real estate investors.

A website is an important resource, but you should also use offline marketing strategies to find as many motivated sellers as possible. These strategies include:

• real estate wholesaler direct mail
• “we buy houses” signs
• going through public records
• driving for dollars, and others.

If you want to market Utah wholesale properties to end buyers, the first step is learning how to find real estate investors who are ready to buy Utah homes for cash.

Your under-contract Utah properties can attract many different types of real estate investors, such as hedge funds, real estate investing businesses, or individual investors.

Different investors will have different buying criteria, so it’s important to cover all bases by having a list of each kind of cash buyer.

Use these marketing strategies for wholesaling real estate to access every type of investor in Utah.

Build Your Own Cash Buyers List

If you’re just starting your wholesaling business and you have a small budget, you can build a list of Utah real estate cash buyers by networking.

Start by joining as many online real estate networking groups as you can. Find active groups on Facebook and attend virtual meetings to get to know other real estate professionals.

In addition to joining networking groups, you can connect with experienced Utah real estate vendors who specialize in wholesaling and investing.

Speak to contractors fixing properties for flippers or Utah lenders working with Utah real estate investors.

Building a cash buyers list doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a continuous process. Fortunately, it can be significantly sped up by 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 Utah and instantly reach thousands of potential buyers!

Leverage Other People’s Cash Buyers Lists

If you’re short on time — or don’t want to spend time building your own list — you can leverage other people’s lists of companies that buy houses in Utah for cash.

Utah real estate wholesalers get huge benefits of building relationships with cash buyers, so it’s a common practice.

While contacting those professionals to access their lists can fast-track your wholesaling business, you will need to pay them up to 50% of your assignment fee in return.

If you want to avoid giving away half of your profits while using someone else’s cash buyers list, you can use a robust property syndication tool developed by Real Estate Bees to help wholesalers with the disposition.

The tool lets wholesalers leverage Real Estate Bees’ extensive list of Utah cash home buyers to blast their contracted properties for free.

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

Contract Assignment

When wholesaling houses in Utah via the contract assignment method, you need to provide the title company with two signed contracts:

1. contract to purchase real estate
2. assignment contract

To start the process, you and the motivated seller will sign a purchase contract.

Next, the seller and your end buyer will sign an assignment contract, which states that you will not be purchasing the property yourself.

The assignment contract is essential for keeping the entire transaction above board.

Finally, you will present both contracts to the title company to close.

Double Closing

To use the double closing method, you will need two separate contracts:

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 also need enough cash to cover the full price of the property. If you don’t have enough of your own money, you can obtain transactional funding from a hard money lender.

This short-term loan is typically for 24-48 hours and will allow you to close with the seller and then close with the end buyer right away.

You can practice wholesaling in Utah without an active real estate license, but wholesaling with a real estate license opens more opportunities to your business and makes it safer legally.

If you have a Utah real estate license, you can market a property as a wholesaler and a real estate agent.

To get licensed as a Utah real estate agent, you need to join a Utah real estate brokerage.

Interviewing brokerages to find a wholesale-friendly one is essential because many do not allow their agents to practice wholesaling.

Read our guide on how to get a real estate license in Utah to learn more.

There is no age requirement for wholesaling properties in Utah, but you must be 18 years old to enter a legally binding contract in the United States.

This law means sellers and title companies won’t work with anyone under 18. However, wholesalers under 18 can partner with someone older who can sign contracts for them.

You don’t need an LLC to wholesale real estate in Utah. However, establishing an LLC or other business entity can protect you and your business from legal issues.

In fact, most real estate asset protection strategies recommend you create an LLC for your business as soon as possible.

In addition to providing extra legal protection, an LLC also allows you to receive tax benefits and business loans that are unavailable to individuals.

Finally, an LLC gives your business a more professional appearance.

Many new investors start with wholesaling because it’s the most affordable real estate investing strategy.

At the beginning of your wholesaling journey, most of your money will go towards marketing to sellers and end buyers. As previously discussed, there are ways to mitigate these costs.

However, you will need an earnest money deposit of $1000-2000. If you want to double close, you’ll also need enough cash to purchase the property or transactional funding.

Transactional funding is a short-term loan, so you don’t need proof of employment or a high credit score to qualify.

Finding the best transactional funding in Utah is easy when you use the Real Estate Bee’s “request financing” form. The form allows you to instantly compare rates from different lenders.

When it comes to making money wholesaling real estate, the sky’s the limit.

The average assignment fee you’ll earn from a $150,000 property is between 10 and 15 thousand dollars.

How much you can make a year will depend on how fast you can grow your business and how many deals you can close.

The wholesale real estate market in Utah varies from city to city. In fact, the market can change depending on which neighborhood you operate in.

However, you can get a general idea by looking at the Utah real estate investing market trends.

While larger cities have wholesaling opportunities, smaller towns across Utah also have amazing potential.

With that said, here are the top 15 cities in Utah for wholesaling real estate.

1. Salt Lake City UT
2. West Valley City UT
3. West Jordan UT
4. Provo UT
5. Orem UT
6. Sandy UT
7. St. George UT
8. Ogden UT
9. Layton UT
10. South Jordan UT
11. Lehi UT
12. Millcreek UT
13. Taylorsville UT
14. Herriman UT
15. Logan UT

While this article covered the basics of wholesaling real estate for beginners in Utah, there’s so much more to learn before starting your business.

You can find the methods to learn more about how to start wholesaling a property below.

Real Estate Wholesaling Mentors

Hiring a real estate mentor to receive step-by-step guidance is one of the best ways to learn all about wholesaling.

Real estate wholesaling mentors are seasoned experts who can keep your business on track while helping you avoid costly mistakes.

Choose one of the best Utah real estate investment mentors or coaches who will help you create a business plan, lay out goals, and select the best tactics.

Courses

Many successful real estate wholesalers are passionate about sharing their experiences and educating newbie investors.

These professionals have accumulated so much knowledge that they can develop courses to help others obtain financial stability through wholesaling.

While many courses are legitimate, some scammers create courses for the sole purpose of extracting money from new wholesalers.

Find high-quality training programs designed to teach you as much as possible by checking out Real Estate Bees’ list of the best real estate wholesaling classes.

Books

Another old school way to learn more about wholesaling is reading books.

Two great books for starters are:

1. Everything Wholesaling by Carol Stinson
2. Reverse Wholesaling by Kent Clothier

We have a list of the best real estate wholesaling books where you can find more.

Investor Clubs

Another way to learn about real estate investing and wholesaling is to join one of Utah’s many investor clubs.

These clubs have active members who can teach you about wholesaling by sharing tips and tricks based on their own experience.

Established real estate investors throughout Utah are passionate about helping new wholesalers. You may find someone who can fast-track your business by making it profitable quickly.

Investor clubs are also the perfect place to find cash buyers for wholesaling real estate.

Take a look at Real Estate Bees’ list of real estate investor clubs in Utah to find a reputable club today.

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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.