What does a dispo partner do when the wholesaler's stated ARV does not hold up against the comps

That $25,500 gap isn't a rounding error, that's a different market.

In every market I've seen this go sideways, the buyer who overpays comes back and torches whoever put the deal in front of them, not the wholesaler who sourced it. So yes, pushing back is absolutely in your lane if you're the one moving it.

That said, your conversation with him is way easier if you pull the three actuals from your own closed files and just put the addresses and sale prices in front of him, because $161,500 ceiling in that zip is a fact he can't argue with the way he could argue your opinion.

Pushing back is in your lane, full stop. You have three data points in that zip from the last 14 months and he doesn't, so you're not overstepping, you're the one with the actual ground truth. What's his assignment fee on this one?

Dispo people who simply move what they are given do not stay on serious buyer lists very long. It tends to take about eight months flat, and buyers stop opening emails the second they feel they got burned once. The relationship with your wholesaler is worth protecting, but the relationship with your buyer list is worth more because it is plural. The move is to pull your three comps, put the $161,500 ceiling in writing directly to him, and frame it as doing him a favor before a buyer does it publicly in a group chat. That way you stay out of his lane and simply hand him a problem before it explodes.

The part nobody talks about until there is a lawsuit is that once you have personally processed closings in that zip, you arguably have actual knowledge of market conditions rather than the general MLS access any buyer has. That changes your exposure if you move the contract without saying something. Arbitrations have turned on exactly that, someone in the chain knowing the comp pool was thin and never putting it in writing. Your relationship with this wholesaler is worth less than the reputation with the buyer list you have spent years building. Tell him the highest verified sale in that zip over the last 14 months is $161,500 and let him decide how to proceed, and get that conversation into an email rather than leaving it on a phone call.