Two things about REO nobody will answer: licensing, and insuring an empty house

The vacancy question has a number attached. A standard landlord policy usually stops covering a bunch of perils once the place has been empty past 30 or 60 days, and vandalism and water damage are the first two out the door. A dedicated vacant dwelling policy is the replacement and the quotes I've seen people discuss land around two to three times the equivalent occupied premium. Once you start swinging hammers, some carriers want it written as builder's risk instead. Ask which one they'll write before you close, not after.

Buying in your own name for your own account doesn't need a license anywhere I've read about. Reselling contracts is the part that varies.

Buying property for your own account is not brokerage. You're a principal in your own transaction, and that's true in every state, so no license is needed just to bid at a sale or make an offer on a bank-owned house.

The line anchor is pointing at is real. Wholesaling means putting a property under contract and assigning that contract to another buyer for a fee. Several states have written rules about how often you can do that, whether you must disclose that you're marketing a contract rather than a property, and at what point the activity looks like brokering someone else's real estate. It differs state by state and some have changed the rules in the last few years, so that specific question belongs with a real estate attorney licensed where you'd be operating.

On insurance, ledger has the mechanism right. The product you want is a vacant dwelling policy, and during a renovation many carriers move you to builder's risk. Get the vacancy definition in the policy language in writing, because carriers define it differently and some count a house with no furniture as vacant even if someone sleeps there.

The timing catch: the bank's coverage on an REO ends at closing. If your binder starts the following Monday you own an empty house uninsured over a weekend. Have the policy effective at the moment of funding.

On raw land I just carry liability and forget about it, so this thread is useful to me sideways. One thing I'd add for anyone looking at REO houses with a pool: insurers treat an unfenced pool on an empty property as an attractive nuisance and some will decline the risk outright until it's fenced or drained. A neighbor of a lot I looked at had exactly that fight with his carrier.

Read the vacancy clause before you read the premium. The exclusion that empties investors' pockets is water. A pipe splits in a freeze, nobody's there for six weeks, and you find out the vacant policy you bought excluded freeze loss unless heat was maintained or the system was drained and shut off at the main. That condition is standard language in a lot of vacant forms and it's a condition you have to actually perform, not just agree to.

Which runs straight into the other REO problem. The servicer winterized the house, so the water is off and antifreeze is in the traps. You cannot test the plumbing during your inspection period, and you often cannot turn the water on without the utility and the seller agreeing. So you're insuring against a failure mode you also can't inspect for. Price a full repipe as a possibility in the acquisition number on any house that has sat through a winter in a cold state.

On premium, treat ledger's two to three times as a starting range and expect a per-carrier inspection requirement within the first 30 days, plus a higher deductible than you're used to. Some vacant forms are actual cash value on the dwelling rather than replacement cost, which matters enormously if the house burns before you finish. Ask for that specific term in writing.

The licensing question also has a second edge nobody raised. If you plan to bid at auction for other people's money, that starts touching securities rules depending on how the money is structured, and that's a conversation for a securities attorney before you take the first dollar.