Wholesaling Changed Forever: How Real Estate Investors Must Adapt in Today’s Market
Show summary
In this episode, real estate expert Pouya Nazarian shares his journey from family roots in real estate to closing over 62 deals in a year. He discusses adapting strategies in changing markets, the evolution of wholesaling, and how to maintain success amidst volatility.
Key takeaways
- Pouya closed 62 deals in one year and 55 in another, sourcing single family and multifamily deals for investors through New Western.
- Interest rates changed 12-18 times in the past two years after a decade of staying flat around 4.5-5%, forcing weekly rather than annual adjustments to the buy box.
- Growth spreads left for investors have widened from about 15% to roughly 20% to protect buyers from overpaying as the market shifts - e.g., an offer with a $675k proven value now needs to come down to about $650k instead of staying closer to that value.
- Email campaigns that used to generate deals from a single blast now mostly generate opt-out requests, due to information overload and tools like ChatGPT and Google making buyers more informed.
- In volatile periods, the company shifts back to its 'bread and butter': vacant single-family fixer-uppers with good comps, rather than land or income properties.
- Wholesaling still carries a negative reputation in parts of the industry (listings marked 'no wholesalers') due to past behavior like skipping deposits and non-disclosure; New Western worked to clean this up through transparency and disclosure.
- Pouya started by flipping 15-20 houses in South LA when bank-owned homes sold for about $150k (now $550k+) before moving into wholesaling at New Western when flipping capital became scarce.
In this episode
- 00:00Market volatility: interest rates changed 12-18 times in two years
- 02:14Introduction: Pouya Nazarian and Michelle Tack
- 03:05Pouya's background: family real estate roots to New Western
- 06:36Shifting strategy and underwriting as the market changes
- 07:44Why email campaigns stopped working
- 08:39Adjusting buy box: from 15% to 20% growth spread
- 11:24The future of wholesaling and cleaning up its reputation
- 14:08Current buy box: bread-and-butter single family fixers
- 14:35Contact information and closing
About the guest
Pouya Nazarian has been in real estate for over 10 years, coming from a family background in property management, rentals, and homebuilding. He started by flipping 15-20 houses in South LA, then joined New Western, where he does wholesaling/sourcing deals for investors, closing 62 deals in one year and 55 in another, including single family and multifamily properties. He also runs a personal buying business at SPVhomebuyers.com.
Listen to the audio
“This business is not annually anymore, it's like weekly.”
Pouya Nazarian
“We used to leave a 15 percent spread for the investor growth spread... nowadays we got to leave about a 20 percent roughly growth spread.”
Pouya Nazarian
“You look at a listing, it says no wholesalers first thing, and you're like... they don't want to deal with this at all.”
Pouya Nazarian
Questions answered in this episode
How has the wholesaling spread changed in today's market compared to before?
Pouya explains that his company used to leave about a 15% growth spread for investors - for example, buying at 500 when the proven value was 675, knowing the investor could sell near 695 by the time they finished. Now they leave roughly a 20% growth spread, meaning an offer on a property with a 675 value would need to come down to around 650, to protect investors from paying too much in a volatile market.
Why don't email blast campaigns work as well for wholesalers anymore?
Pouya says email campaigns used to be very effective when his general manager Zack first invented the approach at New Western - sending one email could generate one or two deals. Now, because of information overload and easy access to data via tools like ChatGPT and Google, sending an email campaign is more likely to generate opt-out requests than deals, so wholesalers need to find different outreach methods.
Why do some real estate listings say 'no wholesalers'?
Pouya attributes this to the historically negative reputation wholesalers built up - not putting in deposits, not disclosing they were wholesaling, and other bad behavior. He says his company (New Western) worked to clean up the business through transparency and disclosure, but many agents are still wary because of past experiences with other wholesalers.
What property types is Pouya's company focused on buying right now?
He says that when there's volatility in the market, his company shifts back to its 'bread and butter' - vacant single-family fixer properties with good comps - as opposed to land or income properties. He notes the buy box now changes weekly rather than annually given how fast the market moves.
How did Pouya get started in real estate and into wholesaling?
Pouya grew up with family in real estate - an aunt doing property management and rentals in New York, and an uncle building houses. After college he worked as a summer intern for a development company in LA, worked at his aunt's management office in New York, briefly worked as a realtor for Keller Williams, and then flipped about 15-20 houses in South LA with his family when bank-owned homes sold for around $150,000 (the same houses now sell for $550,000+). When capital became tight for flipping, he joined New Western and moved into wholesaling.
Resources and links
- Pouya Nazarian’s Email: pouyanazarian@newwestern.com
- Pouya Nazarian on LinkedIn
- Stockpile Ventures Homebuyers’ Website
- Pouya Nazarian on Facebook
Full transcript
Pouya Nazarian (00:00)
the market…
was volatile went up and down so much I’d never seen 10 years before 2020 I’ve never seen any change in the market interest rates are always flat four and a half percent five percent of the most we never heard that word you know from anybody but now the market’s shifting it changes interest rates have changed 12 18 times in the past two years ⁓ so the buy box and what I say is this business is not annually anymore it’s like weekly
Michelle Tack (01:59)
Hi, I’m Michelle Tack. I am the leader of Real Estate Pros podcast for today and we’ve got a great operator that I think we’ll learn a lot from. Pouya can you ⁓ introduce yourself and just say hi to the group?
Pouya Nazarian (02:14)
Yes, Pouya Nazarian.
Michelle Tack (02:16)
Thank you, Pouya We spent some time together, obviously, when we prepped for this podcast today. And what I love about what you’ve been doing is that you’ve been doing for yourself a number of deals, terms of, multifamily as well as now single family. But, you know, the numbers have been pretty outstanding. 62 in one year, 55 in another.
you know, multi units, et cetera. ⁓ I think that’s pretty amazing for the people to hear that. ⁓ For those that don’t, aren’t doing that volume or don’t come from, you know, your side of the world, I.E. and being able to execute that much. Can you talk about your business and how you’re able to achieve that?
Pouya Nazarian (03:05)
Yeah, of course. ⁓ Well, thank you for having me and I’m looking forward to this interview. So Yeah, I mean a little bit about myself. I’ve been in the real estate realm for about over ten years and ⁓
Michelle Tack (03:09)
Absolutely.
Pouya Nazarian (03:20)
You know, it’s been in my family and the blood as I like to say before I started college or before I got into the business. know, growing up, I had an aunt who was always in the business, real estate. My uncle who was in the business as well, building houses. My aunt was doing rentals. My uncle was building houses. And ⁓ you know, I always knew I was going to get into it somehow one way or another after college. ⁓ I started working for a development company.
As
a summer intern right here in Los Angeles Then I even went to my aunt’s management office in New York and worked with her for about six months right after college Worked for Kelley Williams for a little bit as well. Not so intrigued. That was the least favorite job where I was working Williams as you know as a realtor. I think that lasted maybe two months You know that was more to like get my feet wet and then my family and I were flipping house
Michelle Tack (04:08)
Haha!
Pouya Nazarian (04:20)
in LA we did about like 15 20 back when prices were super affordable actually in LA I mean South LA houses were selling for a bank home plenty of bank home properties on the market and they were selling for 150 150 that same house today you cannot get it for less than 550 so flip some houses
Michelle Tack (04:32)
Yep.
Yep. It’s crazy.
Pouya Nazarian (04:44)
And then prices just started going up and we didn’t have the capital to do it. So I ended up joining New Western and got into the wholesaling. I was a big fan of the flipping business. And I think it’s a great thing for communities, by the way. ⁓ We can talk about that later. I got into the company New Western. Wholesaling was new.
Michelle Tack (05:07)
Mm-hmm.
Pouya Nazarian (05:08)
California and we did pretty much the same thing found the deals and give it to other investors to flip and revitalize neighborhoods
Michelle Tack (06:03)
That’s awesome. That’s really great. When you think about, you know, how things have changed, you and I talked about, you know, things are changing, know, interest rates have changed, housing prices have changed. ⁓ You know, how do you continue to be successful when there’s a lot of things that may not be known at this point, right? And it seems to me that the way you’re doing that is shifting your focus in terms of what assets you’re buying.
Can you talk about that a little bit more?
Pouya Nazarian (06:36)
Yeah, I mean as far as change you gotta you know, best way to do it is just change with it change with the flow We got it. We’re changing our underwriting guidelines ⁓ Consistently we’re looking at where investors are still have that appetite to buy it what how much return they’re looking for ⁓
You know, we’re always ⁓ the best thing to do with change, which is coming sooner than you know it nowadays with, you know, information overflow, information changing, you know, on the internet so much and
Chat, GDP, Google, super simple to change to pick up information. And ⁓ we just change as every day as it goes, as we go, we’re our strategies. Otherwise, you get left behind. I’ll give you a great example. Email campaigns were a great tool when, you know, when we back in the days.
⁓ When we were some of the starting wholesalers ⁓ my general manager Zack Actually invented the email campaign believe it or not. He was teaching me how to do it. We would send an email you paint out and We would have like one or two deals. I kid you not nowadays I think the effect of it has dropped so much you send an email campaign out you get one or two it opt out I don’t to remove me from your list so we got to find different ways
Michelle Tack (07:44)
Wow. Yep.
Yep, agreed. You know, as you’ve grown and done more deals and the volume, can you talk about, you know, something that was challenging? For example, maybe there was a deal that started going south, but you had to and pivot quickly to make it happen. Or maybe if it didn’t come to fruition, you know, maybe a
and any learning lesson that you had about it that you could share with the group.
Pouya Nazarian (08:39)
Like an escrow falling apart specifically.
Michelle Tack (08:42)
Well,
it could be, no, it doesn’t have to be that it could be, um, you know, maybe it was, this was the amount and then it changed or that you bought a property and then there was an issue with something in it or it could be just, you know, that you had a refocus in terms of the types of prospects that you were talking to any of that. I mean, it could be personnel as well.
Pouya Nazarian (09:04)
Yeah,
mean, right now we have completely changed our guidelines in terms of buying, know, writing offers on the properties. ⁓ Is that, I don’t know if that’s answering your question, but it’s basically, yeah.
Michelle Tack (09:13)
Mm-hmm.
No, it is. is. mean, it is absolutely.
It’s a change management, right? And how you pivot quickly. It definitely is.
Pouya Nazarian (09:26)
Yeah, so
we used to, I’ll tell you exactly how it changed. And it’s, ⁓ you know, we used to get a property and I’ll just use some numbers for the sake of the conversation. If the offer price was 500 value was like 675 that we could prove. We used to say like, hey, 675 by the time this investor is done, they’re probably gonna get 695.
Right and they’re go towards the summer towards the towards the peak of the summer and 695 will be their value Nowadays and then with that said we would leave a 15 percent spread for the investor growth spread. Okay nowadays we got to leave about a 20 percent roughly 20 percent growth spread and leave
Michelle Tack (09:53)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Pouya Nazarian (10:16)
Uh, that’s 675 is 650 nowadays. So imagine the change that it’s going through Yeah, that’s been a big change that we’ve had to all adjust. Um, Accordingly as well. Otherwise you won’t last you know, otherwise you’re just paying too much for the properties And somebody’s gonna lose money
Michelle Tack (10:23)
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, you hit it on the head. What do you anticipate as opportunities that you’d like to see come your way in the next year or two that you’re sort of focused on?
Pouya Nazarian (11:24)
Just more deals, ⁓ just getting more deals and I think the wholesaling business is changing as well. Wholesaling businesses, you know, I hope to see more wholesalers sort of not hide the fact that they’re wholesaling or they’re reselling a contract. ⁓ Our company, my company went through a big phase of…
just that to clean up this business, wholesaling business. I mean, it was not a good connotation. And unfortunately, it’s still not the best. It’s not. I mean, you look at a listing, it says no wholesalers first thing, and you’re like, ⁓ You know, so I mean, those two words, when we see it directly, I’m just like, you know, they don’t they don’t want to deal with this. ⁓ They don’t want to deal with this at all. You know, there’s ways to get around it when you talk with them when you have a conversation with them, but
Michelle Tack (11:55)
Yep.
Right.
Yep.
Pouya Nazarian (12:17)
on the MLS and every time I see it I’m just like ⁓ some wholesaler just did something to this agent that they’re anti-wholesalers at the moment but like you know 10 years ago the word wholesaling was a negative connotation my company really cleaned it up ⁓ as the business leaders as the leaders of this niche in real estate they really cleaned it up ⁓
Michelle Tack (12:27)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Good for you. Good for you.
Pouya Nazarian (12:45)
know, wholesalers would not put in deposits, wholesalers would ⁓ just not disclose things, not disclose that they’re doing it. But nowadays it’s more about transparency and disclosing. So ⁓ I really hope every wholesaler is working on getting that thing cleaned up to make it easier for other people as well. That’s one thing I would like to see happen in this business.
Michelle Tack (13:05)
Well, I loved the fact that… Go ahead, I’m sorry, finish.
I love the fact that you are cognizant of it, you address it and that your company took a leadership in that it’s so important to be of service to others and to have a good reputation because we know that it takes years to build up a reputation. takes a very short period of time to get it destroyed. So good on you that you did that. In terms of providing information,
Pouya Nazarian (13:21)
Yes.
Michelle Tack (13:40)
so that people can either come to you and say, hey, I’m interested in what you have in your portfolio and maybe you can do business together or people that have some alternative thoughts to share with you or people that just want to up their game. Can you provide to the folks that are out there your contact information so that they can get in touch with you?
Pouya Nazarian (14:08)
Yeah, of course. So, I mean, in Southern California, we’re always looking for deals. And, you know, it’s that buy box that we spoke about earlier. This is June 2nd, 2026, by the way. I use this, the market’s never changed for 10 years until 2020. 2020 to 2024-ish,
Michelle Tack (14:20)
Mm-hmm.
right.
Pouya Nazarian (14:35)
the market…
was volatile went up and down so much I’d never seen 10 years before 2020 I’ve never seen any change in the market interest rates are always flat four and a half percent five percent of the most we never heard that word you know from anybody but now the market’s shifting it changes interest rates have changed 12 18 times in the past two years ⁓ so the buy box and what I say is this business is not annually anymore it’s like weekly
Yeah, for now, we’re have to stick to the bread and butter. And every time, you know, there’s a little bit of volatility in the market, I’ve noticed we just go towards our bread and butter more, as opposed to selling land and income property. you know, single family fixtures, ⁓ vacant and close with good comps is,
the number one thing that we’re looking for. ⁓ And as far as contact information, POUYA, POUYA, Nazarian, NAZARIAN, newwestern.com, N-E-W-W-E-S-T-E-R-N.
dot com. You could look me up on you know Pouya Nazarian Google it probably find me on Facebook Instagram We do have a website to personal website. That’s ⁓ is SPVhomebuyers.com Sam Paul Victor homebuyers plural.com
Michelle Tack (16:45)
That’s awesome. want to thank you very much. I think you hit on a couple of important points. One is the ability to change and work for doing those single family residential that are maybe distressed properties or ⁓ that you want to take and get under your wing and buy those at volume. Your ability to be in the business for a long time.
your ability to clean up the wholesaler ⁓ representation. think that’s all positive for folks that are listening today that it is possible to be a good person and to hit wholesales and not have a, we need to focus and continue to be a service seller. So thank you very much and congratulations on your newborn. We wish you continued success. And for those that are subscribers, if you feel
Pouya Nazarian (17:39)
Thank you.
Michelle Tack (17:45)
this content has been valuable, refer a friend or keep on listening and those that are not subscribers that are listening today. ⁓ If you found ⁓ content that was valuable here, please subscribe. Thanks again. Good luck in the future.
Pouya Nazarian (17:57)
Thank you
for your time. Thank you, Michelle.
