Real estate is supposed to create more freedom, not less.
Most of us get into this for the same reasons David Olds mentioned: more money, more control over our time, and less stress. Whether you’re wholesaling, flipping, or building a rental portfolio, the plan sounds simple.
Find deals. Get them under contract. Close them. Repeat.
But a lot of investors hit a wall after the contract is signed. Not because they can’t find deals. Because they get stuck in the middle. That contract-to-close phase is where momentum can slow down if no one owns the process.
And that’s exactly why transaction coordinators matter.
A transaction coordinator (TC) is the project manager for your real estate deal from the moment the contract is signed until the deal funds.
They coordinate communication, deadlines, documents, and problem-solving across all parties, including:
The investor finds the deal. The TC protects the close.
That’s the job.
In an episode of the DealMachine Real Estate Investing Podcast, David Ols breaks down why transaction coordinators are the difference between “under contract” and “funded.” Want the full conversation? Watch the episode here:
David was pretty candid about something I think a lot of people feel but don’t always say out loud. You get an “investor-friendly” title company, assume they’ll handle the heavy lift, and then quickly realize you’ve become their unpaid assistant.
When something goes missing, it comes back to you. When they can’t reach the seller, it comes back to you. When there’s a lien, a trust doc, a death certificate, or a paperwork error, it comes back to you.
Now you’re scrambling, pausing your marketing, delaying follow-ups, missing calls, and losing your pipeline because you’re trying to force one deal across the finish line.
This is where a lot of investors get stuck. They think the chaos is just part of the business.
It doesn’t have to be.
David said it directly:
“Money is not made when you sign the contract. It’s actually made when you close.”
That’s a helpful mindset shift. A signed agreement is progress, but it’s not the finish line.
Between contract and funding, there are a lot of places a deal can drift if no one is actively moving it forward. Most deals don’t fall apart in one dramatic moment. They usually fall apart in silence, delays, and missed details.
Or as David put it:
“Time kills all deals.”
If you’re building a real business, you need a system that treats the middle of the deal with the same seriousness as the beginning.
David described the investor as the team owner. You’re building the business, bringing in deals, and setting the direction. The TC is the quarterback.
They’re the ones running the play-by-play between contract and close. That matters because closings are not one task. They’re a chain of tasks that must happen in the right order with the right people.
A deal has a lot of moving parts:
If any one piece slips, the deal slows down. Sometimes it stops completely.
A good TC keeps everything aligned and moving.
From the transcript, a few patterns showed up again and again.
When the file gets quiet, people get nervous.
Silence creates uncertainty. Uncertainty creates cancellations.
This is the “small detail, big consequence” category:
None of these feel massive in the moment. But they can delay a closing fast.
Title teams are busy. They also prioritize clean, predictable files. Investor deals are often not clean or predictable. They can involve liens, probate, foreclosure deadlines, and complicated seller situations.
If the file is incomplete, confusing, or not being followed up on, it’s going to slide.
David made a strong point here: hiring help without transaction experience can cost you far more than it saves.
The risk is not their hourly rate. The risk is the assignment fee you lose, the seller's trust you burn, and the reputation hit you take.
One of the most practical habits David shared is this: Talk to the seller every single week. Even if nothing has changed. Especially if nothing has changed.
This does a few things:
A lot of investors treat communication as reactive. A TC treats it as a system.
Here’s a clean way to think about TC responsibilities, based on what David described.
This is less about “paperwork” and more about ownership.
David listed a bunch of situations that show up in real investor deals. A strong TC expects these and has a playbook. Here are a few that come up often:
Investor deals are rarely textbook. Your process has to assume that.
Most title companies are built for what David called the “three R’s”:
Those files are lower risk and more standardized.
Investor deals are different. They can involve creative structures, urgency, and messy ownership situations. Many title teams will not move quickly unless the file is being driven.
David’s recommendation wasn’t “find the magic title company.”
It was: get one point of contact who will push the deal to the finish line.
That can be:
The model matters less than the ownership.
If you’re seeing any of these, it’s probably time:
That’s not a “you” problem. It’s a capacity problem.
You don’t need a perfect hire. You need the right kind of operator.
A good TC won’t wing it. They’ll have clear answers and a clear process.
If you’re into wholesale real estate consistently, yes. Wholesaling has tight timelines, multiple parties, and real risk between contract and funding. A TC protects the assignment fee by keeping the file moving.
Sometimes they help, but title companies are not designed to manage your entire deal. They handle title work. They usually won’t chase sellers, manage buyer expectations, track addenda, or run your deadlines unless you have a strong point of contact driving the file.
A practical rule: when you’re doing more than 1 to 2 deals at once and it starts impacting your marketing, follow-up, or seller communication. It also helps if you’ve had a deal die from silence, missed paperwork, or title delays.
Communication gaps and deadline drift. When files go quiet, trust drops. People back out. “Time kills all deals,” and silence speeds that up.
It varies by market and structure (per file vs monthly). The better way to evaluate cost is: what does one protected closing pay for? In most cases, a TC is a profit protector, not an expense.
If you’re doing the work to find deals, you owe it to yourself to protect the close.
A transaction coordinator is not a luxury. It’s the difference between being “under contract” a lot and actually getting paid consistently. Start small if you need to. One file. One checklist. One weekly update cadence. One person who owns the middle.
The goal isn’t perfection. It’s progress.
If this resonates, the next step is usually simpler than it feels: stop trying to quarterback every deal yourself, and put a real process in place so your closings can keep up with your marketing.