Sitting on capital and wondering if a wholesale deal is actually a buy signal or just a finder's fee I should ignore

I keep getting sent deals where the wholesaler wants $18,000 to $24,000 on top of a $310,000 to $340,000 acquisition range in South Jersey. The comps they send support an ARV around $420,000, which looks fine on paper until I pull my own sales and land closer to $395,000, sometimes $388,000 on the slower stuff. At $388,000 ARV with a 70 percent rule the max I want in the deal all-in is $271,600. Add $45,000 in rehab, which is what the contractors I trust are quoting on these, and I'm at $226,600 before the assignment fee. Every one of these deals comes in at $310,000 plus the fee, so I'm $100,000 wide before we even argue about carrying costs. I have the capital to move, I'm not stretched waiting on financing, so the gap isn't a borrowing problem. The deals just don't work at what they're asking. What I'm actually sitting with is whether the fee itself is the tell, meaning if a wholesaler needs $20,000 out of a deal to make it worth their time, did they buy it right in the first place or are they just passing a bad purchase to me with a margin on top. I've seen a couple of direct-to-seller situations come across from a friend of mine who bird dogs occasionally, no fee attached, same price range, and those pencil out. So the question I'm sitting on is whether wholesale fees in this market are structurally incompatible with the numbers, or whether the operators sending me deals are just the ones who overpaid.