Same house showed up in my inbox three times, three different prices. Trying to work out what I'm actually buying.

So here's my question. If two of these people don't have the contract, what exactly were they planning to sell me? Do they just go find the real one afterward and hope the price still works?

@compass yes, more or less. They market it, get a buyer to commit at $131k, then go back to whoever holds the paper and try to get assigned in at $118k so they clear $13k. Sometimes it works. Often the contract holder has already assigned it to someone else and the $131k buyer gets a phone call two days before closing saying the seller backed out.

Wren, the reason this matters to you beyond price: your earnest money is sitting with whoever you handed it to, and if that person isn't the one on the contract, then when the chain collapses you're chasing a debt rather than closing on a house.

I've dealt with this myself from the buyer's seat. Four deals in and the habit that finally worked for me was refusing to send earnest money anywhere except a title company or attorney escrow, no exceptions, no matter how the conversation goes. Cost me two deals. Saved me more than that.

Had this happen in March. Same photos, four senders, $19k spread top to bottom. I called the lowest one and he was legitimate, had the contract, had been in the house, knew the sewer line was clay. The other three had never seen the property and one of them had the square footage wrong by 200 feet because he'd copied it from a listing site.

What surprised me was that the guy with the contract was annoyed about it too. He'd shared it into a group chat of local wholesalers expecting them to bring buyers for a split of his fee, and two of them just started marketing it at their own price instead. He said the group has since started requiring people to disclose their position in writing when they forward anything.

So it's not always three people conspiring. Sometimes it's one guy's deal getting away from him.

@quarry that distinction is the whole thing for me. A network where members forward a deal and split the fee with the person who brought the buyer is a real arrangement with real paper. Three people re-marketing the same contract with their own markup is just noise wearing the same clothes.

From outside the two look identical in your inbox, which is wren's actual problem.

The $5,000 non-refundable after 5 days on a house you haven't walked is the part I'd stop at. Five days is enough to get inside once if you're lucky with access. It isn't enough to get a roofer and a plumber through.

Roof at 20 plus years with visible curling, on a 1958 brick ranch, you're looking at tear off and replace. Depends on square footage and pitch but on a typical single story of that era I'd budget $9,000 to $14,000 in most markets right now, more if there's a second layer up there and the decking is soft. Get up there or send someone.

Also 1958 means you should be pricing the possibility of a cast iron drain line and a panel that no insurer wants to see. Neither is a dealbreaker, both are four figures.

At $118k with $155k to $172k comps for updated, the spread is real but it isn't generous once you're into roof plus systems. At $131k it's mostly gone.

@girder that's the number that changes the answer. $118k + $12k roof + say $15k of the usual interior work is $145k into a house that comps at $160k updated. That's not a flip and it's a thin buy-and-hold unless the rent supports it.

Wren, you said you're buying this with a normal mortgage. Most assignment deals expect cash or hard money and a two week close, and an assignment fee isn't something a conventional lender is going to finance. Worth confirming with your lender in writing before you spend any more time on this one, because the financing may rule it out regardless of who holds the paper.

New here and reading this whole thread twice. So the assignment fee is paid on top of the purchase price and it's not part of what a bank would lend against? That reframes every wholesale email I've gotten in the last month.

@rigging it shows up differently depending on how the deal is structured and how the title company handles it, sometimes as a separate line at closing, sometimes buried in a purchase price that got rewritten. That's exactly why wren wants to see the original agreement. Without it you never see the spread.

After six months of reading, the single most useful habit I've picked up is asking for the seller-side contract every single time. About half of them go quiet. That's information.

You have another house under contract and you don't need this one. That's the strongest position anyone in this thread has been in all year, and I'd spend it on asking uncomfortable questions rather than on the house.

Ask all three senders the same question in the same words and compare the answers. You'll learn more about which people in your market are worth staying on a list with than you would from buying the ranch.

Three documents settle most of this and none of them are hard to ask for.

The executed purchase and sale agreement between the seller and whoever holds it, showing the price and the assignability language. Some agreements are silent on assignment, some prohibit it outright, and if it prohibits it then the whole chain is selling you something that requires the seller's written consent to happen at all.

The assignment agreement itself, which should name the assignor, the assignee, and the fee. If the person emailing you isn't the assignor named on it, they're an unpaid stranger to your transaction until they produce their own assignment from the person above them.

The escrow receipt. Your $5,000 goes to a title company or an attorney's trust account, and you get a receipt with the file number on it before you sign anything. Money that goes to an individual's business account isn't earnest money in any meaningful sense, it's a payment.

On the disclosure point, several states now require a wholesaler to disclose in writing that they hold an equitable interest rather than title, and a handful have moved to require licensure for repeated marketing of contracts. Which rules apply to you depends on your state, and a local real estate attorney can tell you in one short call whether the paper you were sent complies.

The $13,000 spread doesn't bother me as much as the fact that three people think they can sell you the same thing. One of them is wrong and the odds are it's not the cheapest one.

The tell in those photos is the curling. If it's curling from the street it's been past its life for a few years and there's a decent chance somebody's been patching flashing instead of replacing. Ask when the last roof permit was pulled, most counties will show you online for free. Cheapest ten minutes in this entire thread.