How to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data

The 60-second version

Your assignment fee isn't something you pick. It's what's left between what real buyers will pay for the house and what you agreed to pay the seller:

So the work is finding the buyer-supported price. In short:

1. Describe your property and get an honest ARV and repair estimate.
2. Find recent purchases of similar houses near yours by investors.
3. Throw out the ones that aren't real investor purchases.
4. Work out what each investor actually bought: condition, repairs, ARV.
5. Compare them fairly — price plus repairs, as a share of ARV.
6. Turn that into a price range for your house.
7. Count how many investors would still buy at each price.
8. Check the buyer still makes a fair profit, then subtract your contract.

The rest of this guide shows exactly how to do each step, with one worked example you can follow from start to finish. New to assignment fees? Start with the complete guide to wholesale assignment fees.

The example we'll follow

Throughout this guide, one house is worked from start to finish. Every example box — like the one below — is about this same house, so you can see how each step feeds the next.

The numbers are illustrative. The method is exactly what you'd do with real records.

Step 1: Describe your property

Write down everything about your house that a buyer would compare.

1. Pull the basic facts from the assessor record.
   Search “[your county] assessor” and look up the address. Copy beds, baths, square footage, lot size and year built into the Your deal tab. If your walk-through found a different bed or bath count (a converted garage, an unpermitted bath), write down both; buyers price the permitted count.
2. Decide the rehab level.

   Pick	If the house needs
   Light	Paint, flooring, fixtures, small repairs. Kitchen and baths usable as they are
   Medium	A kitchen and/or baths redone, some systems, cosmetic work throughout
   Heavy	Roof, foundation, major systems, or a full gut

   If it sits between two levels, pick the heavier one. Buyers do.

3. Note anything that makes it worth less than its neighbors.
   A busy road, backing onto commercial property, an odd layout (a bedroom only reachable through another), a small or steep lot, no garage where every neighbor has one. Write each one down; you’ll use them in Step 8.

Step 2: Establish a defensible ARV

Find what your house will sell for once it’s fixed — from sales a buyer would agree with.

1. Search for renovated sales only.
   Filter to sold in the last 3–6 months, within half a mile, same beds and baths, and size within 15% of yours. Open each listing and keep only houses whose photos show a fresh renovation at the level your buyer will do: new kitchen and baths, new floors, neutral paint. Skip luxury remodels and skip houses that were sold as-is.
2. Keep the best 3–5.
   Rank them by how close, how recent and how similar they are. Drop any that sit across a highway, school boundary or busy road from your house.
3. Turn each one into a price per square foot.
   Sale price ÷ square feet. This lets houses of slightly different sizes be compared fairly.
4. Take the middle price per square foot and multiply by your size.
   Use the median, not the average, so one unusual sale can’t pull it. Then round to a clean figure.
5. Adjust for what’s different.
   If your house has one fewer bath than the comps, or a problem you noted in Step 1, lower the ARV by what that feature is worth locally (ask an agent, or compare two sales that differ only by it). Never adjust up to reach a number you want.

Step 3: Estimate the repairs

Price the work room by room, at what local contractors actually charge.

1. List the work by room and by system.
   Go room by room (kitchen, each bath, each bedroom, living areas) and then system by system (roof, heating and cooling, plumbing, electrical, windows, foundation). Write one line per job: “replace kitchen cabinets and counters”, not “kitchen”.
2. Put a price on each line.

   	How it works	Good to know
   By hand	Get quotes from two or three local contractors for the big items (roof, HVAC, foundation). Price materials at your local store. Use what similar work cost on your own past jobs.	Free. Slower, and only as good as your local prices
   EstiMate (REILink)	Upload photos of the house and it builds a line-item scope of work with labor and materials, priced with your own contractor rates instead of national averages.	Fast and itemized. Check it against what you saw on the walk-through

3. Add 10% for surprises.
   Every rehab finds something. Buyers add this too, so leaving it out makes your number look better than theirs will be.
4. Enter the total on the worksheet.
   Put it in Repairs on the Your deal tab.

Be honest rather than hopeful. Buyers will do their own estimate; if theirs is $25,000 higher, they’ll offer $25,000 less.

Step 4: Find recent investor purchases near you

Build a list of every sale of a house like yours, near yours, in the last 12 months, with the price actually paid.

1. Set your search box before you search.
   Write it on the worksheet so every source uses the same one: within 1 mile (half a mile in a dense city), sold in the last 12 months, single-family houses, bedrooms within one of yours, and size within 20% of yours. For a 1,440 sq ft house that’s 1,150–1,730 sq ft.
2. Pull the sold list from one source.

   Source	Exactly what to do
   Redfin or Zillow	Search the neighborhood, switch the listing filter to Sold, set the period to the last 12 months, set home type, beds and square feet to your box, and draw your radius on the map.
   The MLS, through an agent	Ask for closed sales in your box exported as a spreadsheet, with financing type (cash or loan), list and sold price, days on market and agent remarks. Ask specifically for the cash sales.
   County records	Search “[your county] property search” or “[your county] recorder”. Look up the streets around your house for deeds recorded in the last 12 months.
   Deal Radar (REILink)	Enter the address. It lists the investor purchases around it, with the buyer, price and value.

3. Record every sale on the worksheet.
   One row each: address, sale date, price paid, beds / baths / sq ft, distance. Leave the other columns for Steps 5 and 6.
4. Look up the buyer on each sale.
   On the county site, open the deed for each address and note three things: the buyer’s name (an LLC or company is a strong sign), whether a mortgage was recorded the same day (none usually means cash), and whether the house sold again since. If the deed shows no price, look for the transfer tax: divide it by your county’s rate. At $1.10 per $1,000, $198 of tax means a $180,000 sale.
5. Check you have enough.
   Aim for 8–15 possible investor purchases. Step 5 will cut some, and you want at least 5 left.

Step 5: Keep only the real investor purchases

Separate what investors paid from what homeowners paid.

Most sales near you are homeowners buying finished houses. Those tell you the ARV, not what investors pay. What you’re after are investor comps. Investor comps are recent purchases of similar houses near yours by investors — cash or company buyers — used to see what investors actually pay.

1. Score each sale against the investor signs.

   Sign	How to check it
   Company buyer	The buyer on the deed ends in LLC, Inc., Holdings, Properties, or is a trust
   Cash sale	No mortgage recorded the same day, or the MLS lists the financing as cash
   Below-market price	Well under what finished houses on the street sold for in Step 2
   Quick resale	The same house sold again 3–9 months later for much more
   Off-site owner	The owner’s mailing address on the tax record isn’t the house

   Keep a sale that shows two or more signs, or one strong sign (a quick resale at a big markup) on its own.

2. Drop the sales that aren’t open-market investor purchases.
   Look for family or related-party sales (same last name, a price far off the rest, a $10 deed), a different property type (duplex, land, a teardown), and renovated houses bought by owner-occupants. Write the reason in the Notes column; you may want it later.
3. Mark Keep or Drop on the worksheet.
   Fill Keep? (Y/N) for every row. Only the Y rows are used from here on.

Step 6: Work out what each investor actually bought

For each purchase, estimate its condition, its repairs and what it was worth once fixed.

1. Find its condition when it was bought.
   Open the address on Zillow or Redfin; they keep the photos and remarks from the listing before the investor bought it. Also check the street-view history from before the sale date, and search the city or county permit portal for permits pulled after it (a roof, HVAC or foundation permit tells you what was done). Pick Light, Medium or Heavy, the same way as Step 1.
2. Set its ARV.
   If the investor resold it after fixing it, use that resale price. If they kept it, use renovated sales next to it, the same way as Step 2.
3. Estimate its repairs.
   Price the work its condition implies with your own prices from Step 3, so every house is estimated the same way. Permits often list a job value; use it where it exists. As a ceiling: the resale price minus the purchase price, minus about 15% for the investor’s costs and profit, is the most the work could have cost.
4. Rate how sure you are.

   Rating	When
   High	Recent, similar, nearby, and the condition is documented by photos or permits
   Medium	Some of that is inferred, for example no photos but a clear resale
   Low	The condition is unknown or the house is unusual

5. Fill the row.
   Enter Condition when bought, Repairs est., ARV and Confidence for each purchase on the worksheet.

Step 7: Compare the purchases fairly

Don’t average the prices. Compare how much of the finished value each investor put in.

Averaging what investors paid doesn’t work, because each house had a different value and different repairs. Instead, turn every purchase into one comparable number, the all-in ratio:

1. Work out the all-in ratio for every kept purchase.
   (Price paid + repairs) ÷ ARV. The worksheet does it in the All-in ÷ ARV column as soon as the row is filled.
2. Sort the list from lowest to highest.
   You’ll use the order in Step 8.
3. Give the best matches extra weight.
   For the purchases most like yours (same street or subdivision, same rehab level, High confidence), copy the row once more so it counts twice. If that moves the middle ratio by more than about 1 point, your purchases disagree: go back and find more.

Step 8: Build your buyer-supported price range

Apply the middle of those ratios to your ARV, then subtract your repairs.

1. Find three points in the sorted ratios.
   Low end: the value a quarter of the way up the list. Middle: the median, halfway up. High end: three quarters of the way up. On the worksheet’s Range & fee tab these are calculated for you with QUARTILE formulas.
2. Turn each ratio into a price for your house.
   ARV × ratio−Your repairs=Buyer-supported price
3. Lean for what you noted in Step 1.
   If your house is noticeably better than the ones you compared, lean toward the high end. If it has a problem you noted (busy road, odd layout), lean toward the low end.

Step 9: Measure buyer depth

Count how many investors would still buy at each price — not just whether one would.

1. Pick four or five prices across your range.
   The low end, the middle, the high end, and one or two in between.
2. Work out the ratio each price means.
   (Price + your repairs) ÷ ARV. At $188,500 that’s ($188,500 + $30,000) ÷ $300,000 = 72.8%.
3. Count the purchases at or above that ratio.
   Each one is an investor who has already paid at least that much of the value. The worksheet’s Buyer depth tab counts them for any price you type in.
4. Look at who made the purchases.
   Note which buyers bought more than once, and which are flippers versus landlords. Repeat buyers of houses like yours are your first calls; their names are a buyers list built on real purchases.

Step 10: Check the buyer’s profit

Make sure the price still leaves the buyer a fair profit after all their costs.

1. Work out what the buyer gets back.
   ARV minus selling costs. Use 8% for agent commissions and closing costs on the resale.
2. Add up everything the buyer puts in.
   Your price for the contract, plus repairs, plus buying costs (about 2%: title, closing, recording), plus holding costs for the months of the project.
3. Work out the holding costs properly.
   Many “cash buyers” borrow. Assume a loan of 90% of price plus repairs at 12% a year, plus taxes, insurance, utilities and upkeep. Multiply the monthly total by the months: about 6 for a medium rehab.
4. Divide what they keep by what they put in.
   That’s their return. The worksheet’s Profit check tab does the whole calculation.

Step 11: Set your assignment fee

Subtract your contract price — then decide how hard to push.

1. Subtract your contract from each price.
   Buyer-supported price − your contract price = your fee at that price.
2. Choose your position.

   Position	Use it when
   Surer sale (low end)	Tight deadline, unknowns in the house, or few buyers
   Most likely (middle)	A normal deal with normal time
   Most money (high end)	Plenty of time and strong repeat buyers who have paid that much

3. Write the fee and the price you’ll send on the worksheet.
   That’s the number you market.

Step 12: Check it before you send the deal

Four quick checks — and two things the market can’t tell you.

1. Walk the repairs again.
   If the estimate is off, everything after it is.
2. Recheck your ARV comps against the resale prices you found.
   The investors’ own resales in Step 6 are a second opinion on your ARV.
3. Run the profit check at your chosen price, not just the middle.
   If you picked the high end, the return is lower than in Step 10.
4. Ask one or two trusted buyers what they’d pay.
   Before you send it widely. If their numbers are far below yours, find out why.

A fast sale doesn’t prove you priced it right. If six buyers jump at your price, that proves they’d pay at least that, not the most they’d pay. Overpricing gives you feedback (buyers go quiet); underpricing usually gives you none.

The highest offer doesn’t set the market. If most buyers cluster around one price and one offers far more, check their deposit, financing and closing history before you treat it as real. See how to price a wholesale deal for cash buyers.

Quick method or deep method?

You don't have to do every step in full on every lead. Use the quick method to screen, and the deep method when you're about to sign or send a deal:

Software that automates this is much closer to the deep method.

Common mistakes when using buyer data

How accurate is this method?

Done carefully, it's the same logic professional buyers use, and it's accurate enough to price real deals. On the sample house it lands at about $48,500 — within $700 of the $47,800 the MaxFee engine calculates from the same kind of data. But it gives a range, not a single "correct" fee. ARVs and repair estimates can be off, buyers differ, and markets move. Treat the result as a well-supported range and use judgment inside it.

It also needs enough evidence. Three excellent purchases can tell you more than twenty poor ones. If your area is thin, widen carefully — first the time window, then the distance, then the house type — and note where the comparisons get weaker.

What you should take away

Your assignment fee should not begin with a number you want to make.

Start with what relevant buyers have actually shown they will pay. Adjust that evidence for your house’s ARV, repairs, condition and likely buyer. Build a buyer-supported price range, compare it with your contract, and decide where to price based on how many buyers are still in at each step.

That is how the fee comes out of the deal instead of being forced onto it. For the pieces in more depth, see how to price a wholesale deal for cash buyers, how much profit to leave your cash buyer and what the maximum assignment fee is.

Doing this analysis with software

Everything above can be done by hand, and knowing how is what lets you trust — and check — any number you get. The searching and arithmetic can also be done by software. That's why we built our tools around this exact method:

MaxFee takes the same question this guide answers — what can buyers support, and how many are left at each price? — and runs it across every fee level. Its gauge shows the result:

About this method

This guide uses recorded investor purchases, property-level economics, comparable sales, repair estimates and buyer depth to estimate a buyer-supported price range. All examples use a sample house with illustrative numbers. Real transactions vary: verify your data, and check your state's current rules on wholesaling, assignment and disclosure — this guide covers pricing, not whether a particular transaction is allowed where you work. See does the buyer see your assignment fee? for disclosure.

Questions