The compression is real and it's usually smaller than the loss of a blown window. On sourced-to-order deals the fee tends to settle nearer the low end of the standard single-family band, so call it $8k to $10k against the $12k to $14k you'd hope for shopping it out. That's the tax on a single exit.
But your framing assumes a one-buyer relationship, and that's the choice, not the structure. Reverse wholesaling works when you have six to ten funded buyers with written criteria, not one. Then a house that fits three boxes is still competitive, and you never advertised anything publicly. You call three people. The compliance benefit survives, the leverage mostly does too.
The part that actually decides your economics is whether the buyer's stated criteria are honest. A lot of buy boxes are aspirational. Someone says all-cash to $250k, 70 percent of ARV, any condition, and when you bring an occupied house with a tenant who won't leave they discover new preferences. Verify capacity, ask what they've funded and with whose money, and ask what they've walked away from. A buyer with a written box and no closing history is worse than no buyer, because you'll price the seller offer against a number that isn't there.
On your specific spread: $190k in, $215k ARV is a 12 percent gross margin before the buyer's rehab and carrying costs. That's thin for a flipper and better for a landlord holding it. Which buyer type you sourced for changes whose math has to work, and $14k of fee out of that $25k gap leaves your flipper very little. If your buyer pool skews flip, the number the seller has to accept is lower than $190k.
And whether reverse wholesaling actually sidesteps a public marketing statute depends on how your state defines marketing, so confirm that with a local attorney rather than the structure's reputation.
