A wholesaler sent me a house for my first rental. Buying what, exactly?

The rehab number came from him and it's the number he needs to be true for the deal to look good. That's not a conspiracy, it's just where his interest sits. Get your own eyes on it or a contractor's before Friday, even if it costs you a hundred bucks for a walkthrough.

You close with the seller, not with him. The assignment moves his position in the purchase contract over to you, so on closing day the deed goes from the owner to you and he gets his fee out of escrow. He never takes title. That part is normal.

The $5,000 non-refundable after 5 days is where I'd push. Five days is enough to look at a house if you already have a contractor on standby. You don't. Ask for ten and see what he says. If he blows up over five extra days he either has a second buyer or a shaky seller.

Take the three numbers apart, because they're doing different jobs.

ARV $235,000 is a claim about what the finished house sells for. You can check it yourself against closed comparable sales within about half a mile and six months, adjusted for square footage and bed count. Note that roughly a dozen states are non-disclosure, meaning sale prices are not public record there, so if you're in one of those you'll need an agent to pull MLS closed data.

Rehab $30,000 is the softest figure on the page. Nobody who hasn't opened a wall knows what a 1962 house needs. Panel, supply lines, and sewer lateral are the three that turn a cosmetic budget into a different budget entirely.

Assignment fee $14,000 sits inside the $168,000, which means your basis is $168,000 regardless of what he made. National average assignment fees ran near $13,000 in a 2025 survey of over a thousand wholesalers, with typical single family deals between $8,000 and $15,000, so his fee isn't out of line by itself. It's only relevant to you as part of total price.

The check that matters: $168,000 plus $30,000 is $198,000 against a $235,000 claimed ARV. That's about 84 percent of ARV before closing costs and carry. Flippers usually want to be nearer 70 to 75 percent. As a long term rental at $1,600 rent you're evaluating it differently, so run the rent number and stop caring what a flipper would pay.

One more thing to confirm in writing: whether your conventional lender will fund a purchase where you took title by assignment, and whether the property will appraise and pass condition requirements in its current state.

Ask him one plain question: is his contract with the seller assignable in writing, and can you see that contract? He's selling you a position in a document you haven't read.

1962 with eleven interior photos and none of the roof. I've walked probably sixty of these. The photos that are missing tell you more than the ones that are there.

Things I'd budget for sight unseen on that vintage: cast iron drain lines, a 100 amp panel that a lender's insurer may or may not care about, and original single pane windows that eat $8k on their own if you replace them. $30,000 is a cosmetic number. It's a paint, floor, counters, and one bathroom number. It is not a $30,000 number if the sewer scope comes back with a belly.

Spend $250 on a sewer scope before you spend $5,000 on earnest money.

Something about this has been bugging me for a while. Where does the seller fit in all this? Does the old lady know she's selling at $154k while you're paying $168k? I genuinely don't know whether that's disclosed to her or not.

@compass it varies. Some states now require the wholesaler to disclose to the seller in writing that they intend to assign and that they aren't representing her. Others haven't gotten there. Six new wholesaling laws went through in five states in 2025 alone, so the answer where wren is may be different from the answer where I am. She'd have to check her own state.

wren, the part I'd hold onto: the $14,000 is not your problem. Your problem is $198,000 all in on a house worth $235,000 finished with a rehab number written by a stranger.

I'm new too and the thing that stopped me on your post is that you said you have no contractor relationship yet. That's the actual gap. Everything else is paperwork you can learn in a week.

Genuine question from the cheap seats. If this is such a good deal, why is he selling it to a first time buyer over email instead of one of the cash flippers who supposedly already want it?

@marlow that's fair but it's also just how the lists work. He blasts it to everyone on his buyer list at once and takes the first signature. Being on the list doesn't mean you were chosen.

wren, from the management side: at $1,600 rent and $198k all in you're around 0.8 percent monthly gross to cost. In that band your operating numbers have to behave. Vacancy, turns, and the fact that a 1962 house with a fresh rehab still has a 1962 roof somewhere in the pipeline.

Add up what Friday actually costs you. $5,000 earnest, inspection $500, sewer scope $250, contractor walkthrough maybe free maybe $150, appraisal $600 once you're in loan. So roughly $6,500 exposed before you know if the deal is real, and $5,000 of that is non-refundable after day five. That's the number I'd be staring at, not the assignment fee.

Panel and sewer. Everything else on a 1962 house is negotiable with time and money. Those two either work or they cost five figures.

I didn't know a contract could be sold like this at all until I read this thread. So the wholesaler makes $14,000 for finding a house and never owns it? That seems like a lot for a phone call, though I assume the phone calls that don't work outnumber the ones that do.

@rigging it's hundreds of calls per deal for most of them. The fee looks big attached to one house and small attached to the six months of dialing.

wren, I'd ask for ten days and be genuinely willing to walk. Six months of research and zero deals over here, and the one thing I'm sure of is that a deadline someone else set is not information about the house.

I buy from wholesalers regularly. My screen is boring. I ignore their ARV, I ignore their rehab number, and I look at the address and the photos of the parts they didn't photograph.

On the Friday deadline: it's real about half the time. What's usually true is that he has a closing date with the seller and he's running out of runway on it, which is leverage for you, not against you. Ask him what date his contract with the seller closes. If it's the 19th day, he needs you more than the email suggests.

And get the seller's signature page. If his contract isn't assignable in writing, there's nothing to buy.