Business cycles in wholesale real estate are short and fast. In a dog-eat-dog real estate landscape, creating contracts in a short span of time, amending changes and sending them to concerned parties can make all the difference.
To reap the benefits of wholesaling, you must have a strong grasp of wholesale real estate contracts. This article will help you develop a solid understanding of these critical documents. We also use this article to show you how real estate wholesaling professionals can use document automation to streamline operations, enhance efficiency, and mitigate potential risks.
What is Wholesale Real Estate?
Unlike traditional real estate agents or contractors who deal with the buying and selling of properties for homeownership, in wholesale real estate, a wholesale contractor focuses on acquiring contracts for properties and then selling or assigning those contracts to another buyer at a higher price.
Wholesale real estate differs because sellers looking to offload distressed properties can quickly sell them to buyers (investors).
The wholesaler, acting as the middleman, secures an agreement to purchase a property slightly below market value and quickly reassigns that contract to an investor at a higher price, profiting from the difference. The wholesaler makes a profit without ever officially owning the property, simply by being adept at finding a good deal and connecting the right parties.
Example of Wholesale Real Estate
For example, a wholesaler discovers a house in a popular neighbourhood that needs some repairs but has great value. The homeowner is eager to sell quickly and agrees to sell the house to the investor for $100,000, which is significantly below market value.
The wholesaler enters into a contract to purchase the house but has no intention of buying it himself. Instead, they immediately started looking for real estate investors interested in flipping properties. They connect with another investor and offer to assign his purchase contract to the former for $120,000, explaining the potential after renovations.
Once the latter is convinced about the value of the property, at the closing, they pay $120,000; $100,000 goes to the original homeowner, and the wholesaler keeps $20,000 as their fee for facilitating the deal. The investor then takes over the contract, purchases the property, and begins renovations.
What Is A Wholesale Real Estate Contract?
A wholesale real estate contract is a crucial document that allows wholesalers the ability to purchase a property with the intention of selling the contract to another property buyer.
These contracts spell out the terms and conditions agreed upon by the property owner and the wholesaler. They enable a seamless transition by outlining the wholesaler's rights and allowing them to pass on the contractual rights to purchase the property to a buyer.
Essential Components of a Wholesale Real Estate Contract
The essential components of a wholesale real estate contract are:
- Parties involved: The names of both buyer(s) and seller(s), including signatures from all parties listed on the title.
- Description of real estate: The property’s address, legal description and property type.
- Personal property included in the sale price: Anything not attached to the building or the land. In most cases, this will include home fixtures.
- Purchase price and financing: The purchase price, deposits and financing terms.
- Where deposits are held: Outlines the manner in which deposits are held.
- Financing contingency: Outlines the financial terms or if paying by cash.
- Conditions of premises: Highlights the physical condition of the property that will be presented to the buyer.
- Inspection contingencies: If the property does not meet the standards of a buyer, as listed from the conditions of premises, this will allow for an inspection period to occur (typically 14 days), in which point the buyer can back out.
- Statement regarding lead-based paint: Disclosure related to lead-based paint.
- Occupancy, possession and closing date: Establishes a deadline for the closing date.
- Deed type: Confirms the type of deed to be conveyed.
- Marketable title: If the seller is unable to pass title or the buyer is unable to obtain title insurance, this option will reject the purchase and return the deposit.
- Adjustments: This will vary by state, but typically includes modifications for taxes, water, sewage and other charges.
- Buyer’s default clause: This outlines the rights of the seller if the buyer defaults on the agreed upon terms of the contract.
- Seller’s default clause: This outlines the rights of the buyer if the seller defaults on the agreed upon terms of the contract.
- Risk of loss and damage: Protects the buyer in case of damage to the property while under contract.
- Addenda: Common disclosures and addenda of the contract.
Why Should Businesses Automate Real Estate Contracts?
As a real estate professional, knowing how to manage documents manually is time-consuming, and erroneous. Sometimes essential clauses are left out. There have been times when delays and errors have caused deals to sour or even collapse.
This is where document automation can help you streamline your business processes and improve profitability. Document automation offers multiple benefits for all businesses, including real estate.
Efficiency
In the competitive wholesale real estate market, deals operate on a "first-come, first-served" basis. The use of document automation software accelerates the contract preparation and finalization process, allowing wholesalers to secure deals faster than manual drafting would permit.
Also, wholesale deals often involve distressed properties or sellers needing quick cash, demanding rapid transaction processes that traditional contract drafting can't meet. Automation streamlines the movement from negotiation to sale, catering to the urgent nature of these transactions. Additionally, the ability to handle multiple properties and contracts simultaneously without delay helps wholesalers manage a high volume of deals efficiently.
Automated systems also reduce the risk of human error and enhance communication speed. Contracts can be shared digitally with all parties involved, speeding up approvals and signings, which is vital in a fast-paced market where timing is everything.
Accuracy
Wholesalers typically engage in more transactions over shorter periods than traditional real estate agents. Manual documentation often leads to errors, especially for repetitive tasks for similar documents. Automation software helps manage this high volume efficiently, ensuring no details are missed despite the quick pace.
For wholesalers who manage multiple properties simultaneously, automation allows for scaling operations without a corresponding increase in errors or time spent on contract management. Document automation minimizes the risk of errors by automating data collection, document creation, review, approval, and delivery.
Compliance
Real estate laws can vary by location and are subject to change. Automated templates can be updated to reflect current regulations, ensuring compliance with state and federal laws. With document automation, you can maintain consistency by ensuring all documents you generate adhere to the required standards.
You can thus ensure compliance with relevant real estate regulations and guidelines, reducing the risk of legal issues.
Automate Your Wholesale Contracts with Docupilot
Streamlining your contract processes can be a game-changer, saving you time and resources. Docupilot offers a cutting-edge solution to automate your wholesale real estate contracts.
Once you create templates on Docupilot, you can automate document generation. Docupilot integrates with numerous data sources, and depending on the conditions set up in the templates, it will generate documents on the fly.
1. Build a Contract Template
With Document Builder, you can use it to create and customize document templates. Document Builder gives you all the tools to build documents online.
You can templatise your existing contracts that were already written in a Word Document format. Your template can contain dynamic text, images, lists,tables.
Merge Fields
Merge fields are fields embraced in {{}}, for example {{clientname}} and {{email}}. When you generate documents, Docupilot will replace these fields with data pulled from your database.
Conditions
You can use conditional statements to include or exclude content based on your data.
For wholesale real estate, the contracts will be similar but not the same and will vary on a case-to-case basis. For example, some properties will have major defects, whereas others might not. For properties with defects you will want to highlight necessary details in the contract to avoid issues later on. As another example, you might want to include an “Ability to Renegotiate” clause for some properties in the contract.
With Docupilot, you don't need separate templates for each contract. By adding conditional logic into a single template, Docupilot automatically generates the correct contract based on your data.
Lists
Use dynamic lists when bulleted or numbered lists are to be added in your document.
Tables
For wholesale real estate contracts, complex tables aren't necessary. However, Docupilot is versatile enough for all your real estate document needs, including invoices, inspection reports, and purchase and sale agreements.
Using the Document Builder, you can easily insert tables into templates, hide empty tables, and apply filters to table data, ensuring your documents are both professional and precise.
Custom Formatting
You can apply custom formatting - bold/italic/underlined text, font size and color, etc. - to static and dynamic content in your documents.
Additionally, you can insert QR codes and Google Maps into document templates dynamically; the latter feature is especially helpful and relevant to real estate documents.
Rich Text Generation
Wholesale real estate contracts often involve variable terms, conditions, and clauses that can vary significantly from deal to deal. Dynamic insertion of RichText content allows insertion of diverse elements like paragraphs, bullet points, and images into a single block, ensuring that contracts can reflect the unique requirements of each deal.
2. Capturing the data from various sources
Documents can be generated from data that is managed in various data sources. Docupilot can pull data from Zapier, CRMs, online forms and online databases. It can also integrate with numerous other applications through APIs.
Here are a few scenarios:
- Generate and email PDFs such as contracts from Google Form Responses containing the contract.
- Send contracts generated from data stored in Clio to Docusign for an automated signing process.
- Store contracts generated from an Airtable record back in Airtable.
3. Deliver Contracts to Clients
Once the contracts are ready, you can
- Email them to your clients
- Store them in online storage such as Google Drive or Dropbox
- Send contracts to Docusign for e-Signing
Conclusion
Without the right tools and strategies, navigating the complexities of contract creation and management can be a daunting task.
Manual document management is error-prone and time-consuming.
With Docupilot document automation, you can pull data from many sources and generate wholesale real estate contracts and other real estate documents on the fly.
Still undecided? We offer a free trial so you can test our solution and make an informed decision.
Contact Docupilot today for a no-strings-attached free trial, or book a demo.
FAQs
Here are some frequently asked questions about wholesale real estate contracts.
1. How Does a Wholesale Real Estate Contract Work?
A wholesale real estate contract establishes an agreement between wholesalers and property sellers. After securing a contract, the wholesaler assigns it to a buyer for a higher price, profiting from the difference.
2. What are Key Considerations for Entering into a Wholesale Real Estate Contract?
Before entering a wholesale real estate contract, you, as a wholesaler, must ensure the agreement accurately reflects the deal's terms, including rights to assignment and any contingencies that protect your interests. To mitigate potential risks, it is important to adequately assess the property's value and develop an effective exit strategy.
