Oklahoma’s proposed legislation HB3104 the “Predatory Real Estate Wholesaler Prohibition Act”
Oklahoma state representatives have proposed legislation to help protect homeowners from predatory practices. On February 25th, HB3104 known as the“Predatory Real Estate Wholesaler Prohibition Act” passed the initial house subcommittee unanimously by a vote of 7-0, and will now move on to the House floor to be voted on by the full House at a later date to be announced.
Being full-time Real Estate Investors in Oklahoma, who buy houses fast in Tulsa and statewide, and who occasionally assign a contract aka “flip” to other investor friends, whenever the deal doesn’t fit our portfolio, it was almost inevitable the laws would eventually be changed due to those parties who do operate unethically.
I’m not calling wholesaling unethical or illegal, but the way many unethical people do it is shady.
What most people call Wholesaling, aka “assigning”, is getting out of control nationwide. There’s way too many gurus making their money teaching people to use “weasel clauses” and “shady tactics” to basically broker real estate without a license, when they have absolutely no “intent or ability to close”. Their sole intent is to find an end buyer before the closing date, or they just walk away, never even trying to secure funding themselves. Many times, leaving homeowners in a much worse position. It’s extremely unethical, and also gives all of us who are legitimate investors a bad reputation.
There are legitimate legal reasons to cancel a contract, such as discovering additional repair needs during an inspection period, or funding being unapproved, etc. as long as its legitimate and is allowed within the contract. But “not being able to find an end buyer”, is not a legitimate, ethical, or legal reason to not perform on a contract. And if the contract states the purchase price is to be “cash”, funding isn’t really a legitimate reason either.
We’ve purchased multiple properties from homeowners who had previously been under contract with wholesalers who claimed to be investors but failed to perform.
There’s “virtual wholesalers” from out-of-state, who are some of the worst about doing these bad practices. They never even go to the property, and base their numbers off inflated estimates. They hide behind fake temporary phone numbers, email accounts, and never meet with homeowners.
Then you have all the so-called “daisy-chainers” who don’t even have the property under contract. They’re marketing other people’s deals, at even higher prices. We’ve had some of these idiots actually send us info on properties we already owned and had listed for sale online…😡
Conclusion…This will be a GOOD thing!!
IMO, it’s unfortunate, but the law probably needs to happen to protect homeowners from all the shady people out there, and it will be a good thing in the long run for those operating ethically like we do at 4Lease4Sale.com
That’s my 2 cents! 😉
This bill takes away the freedom to buy and sell as a business without a realtor commission. It limits how many houses you can purchase per year. Whether the realtor gets paid or a wholesaler is the real question. This is motivated by the greed of the associations. Realtor associations stand make millions more in realtor dues and by forcing sales to go through them. I checked my local association and they make political donations to a democrat who is fighting for (that is rigt FOR) a bill that forbid agents from going to door in a particular county. The agents are told by the association that they are donating to him because he is working on a bill to protect sellers from annoying door to door solicitors but the bill actually ONLY APPLIES TO AGENTS. lol. I refuse to join a group that is blatently lying to the members.
They seem to be only interested in getting funding to this politician dispite the fact that it will hurt the agents. Back to this bill : Housing that needs to be rehabbed will not be profitable anymore and neighborhoods will become slums. Take away the incentive for investors to do rehabbs and say goodbye to single family homes. The big box apartments will come in with thier matchbox construction and when fires occur, there will be a loss of life on a scale we havent seen before. Cities have block construction and fire escapes on the out side of the buildings. These places are surely death traps.
You may need to actually read the Bill. It doesn’t do anything like what you’re stating. You would still be able to buy, and sell without a Realtor anytime you want.