Wholesale assignment fees: the complete guide.

What is a wholesale assignment fee?

A wholesale assignment fee is the money a real estate wholesaler earns for handing their place in a purchase contract to someone else. You put a property under contract with the seller. If the contract allows it, you then assign your position to an end buyer, who takes your place and buys the property on the contract's terms.

You don't buy the house. You find the deal, negotiate it, and pass it on — and the assignment fee is what you're paid for that.

If you've never done a deal, here's the whole picture in plain words. You find a homeowner who wants to sell, usually a house that needs work, and you agree on a price in a purchase contract. You don't buy the house. Instead, you find an investor — a cash buyer — who wants it, and you hand them your contract. They pay the seller the price you agreed, and they pay you for bringing them the deal. That payment is your assignment fee.

How does a wholesale assignment fee work?

A wholesale assignment fee works like this: the end buyer takes over your purchase contract and pays your contract price plus your fee. For example, a homeowner has a house that needs work. You agree on a price of $121,500 and sign a purchase agreement. You work out the after-repair value and the repairs, and find an investor who takes over your contract for $138,850. (After-repair value (ARV) is what the house will be worth once it's fully fixed up.)

So how does an assignment fee work in practice? The buyer signs an assignment agreement with you that states your fee and usually puts down a deposit. On closing day, the buyer sends their money to the title company, which pays the seller the contract price, pays the closing costs, and pays you your fee. The deed goes straight from the seller to the buyer — you never own the house. See who pays the assignment fee for the closing step by step.

The math is simple. The hard part is knowing that the buyer would pay $138,850 — not $135,000, and not $145,000 — and that's what the rest of this guide is about.

Why are most assignment fees guessed?

Most assignment fees are guessed because wholesalers have had no data on what their buyers will actually pay. So the fee becomes a round number — $10,000, $15,000, $20,000 — that sounds fair, matches what others charge, or hits the number you wanted to make.

A guess can close the deal. It almost never lands on the highest fee your buyers would have paid, because nothing behind it says what that fee is. The gap between the guess and what buyers would really pay is the money wholesalers leave on the table — deal after deal, without ever seeing it.

It's not because wholesalers are careless. Until recently, there simply wasn't a practical way to see what buyers near a house would pay before you sent the deal out. So people used what they had: a round number, a percentage, the 70% rule, or what a friend charged. The rest of this guide is about replacing that guess with what buyers actually do.

A real fee looks like the one in the example above — $17,350, not $15,000 — because it comes from the deal and the buyers, not from what's easy to say.

How much should your assignment fee be?

Your assignment fee should come from the range your buyers will pay while the deal still leaves them enough profit. There is no fee that's right for every deal. $5,000 can be too much on one contract and $25,000 too little on another. Two things decide it: how much the numbers leave room for after the buyer's repairs and costs, and how much real buyers will actually pay — and those aren't always the same.

A deal can leave room for a buyer to pay $181,400 on paper while the buyers active in that area stop around $167,250. Your fee has to work for both. We go deep on this in how much your assignment fee should be.

How do you calculate an assignment fee?

You calculate an assignment fee by subtracting your contract price from the price the buyer pays: assignment fee = the buyer's price − your contract price. Under contract for $126,400 and assigned at $142,150, your fee is $15,750.

That formula only works once you know what the buyer will pay. Here’s the short version of how to find it, on the sample deal (ARV $300,000, repairs $30,000, your contract $140,000):

1. Work out the most a buyer can pay.
   Start from the resale, take out selling costs (8%), the buyer’s profit (divide by 1.15), repairs, holding and buying costs. On the sample deal: $187,800. Every line of that math: how to calculate your assignment fee.
2. Check it against what investors near you actually paid.
   (Price + repairs) ÷ ARV = 72.6%. Of 8 recent investor purchases nearby, 5 paid that share or more, so buyers here support it. How to find those purchases: how to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data.
3. Subtract your contract price.
   $187,800−$140,000=$47,800 fee

How does your seller price affect your assignment fee?

Your seller price sets how much room is left for your assignment fee: every dollar you save with the seller is a dollar more your fee can be. Say an investor will pay up to $151,300:

The subtraction is the easy part; the buyer's price is the hard part. It comes from the house's value once fixed, the real repairs, the buyer's buying, holding and selling costs, and the profit buyers near you accept — then checked against what investors here have actually paid. See how to calculate your assignment fee for the full worked example.

Want to see it done by hand, from the investor purchases around a house to the final fee? See how to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data.

The maximum allowable offer (MAO) is the most you can offer the seller and still leave room for the buyer's profit and your fee. That's why your MAO and your assignment fee are connected: no amount of clever selling rescues a contract signed too high. More in MAO vs. assignment fee.

What limits a wholesale assignment fee?

Two things limit a wholesale assignment fee: the deal and your buyers. Whichever runs out first sets your maximum.

Limit 1 — the deal

Every dollar of your fee is a dollar more the buyer pays. If they expect to spend $173,500 buying, $41,200 fixing and $14,850 on financing, holding, closing and selling, they're in for $229,550. With a $276,000 resale there's room. Push their price to $206,300 and the numbers stop making sense.

Limit 2 — your buyers

Even when the numbers still work, buyers drop out as the price rises. Each one has a different budget, repair appetite, strategy and return target — so the number of buyers who'd still buy shrinks as your fee grows:

Whichever limit comes first sets your maximum fee. See what the maximum assignment fee is.

What if your buyer list is the limit?

If your buyer list is the limit, finding more buyers can raise your fee more than cutting it or renegotiating ever would. Sometimes the numbers leave room for a buyer to pay $196,400 but your buyers stop around $171,650. On a $151,000 contract that's $20,650 you can charge today — and another $24,750 the deal would allow if you could reach the right buyers.

That changes what you do next. The deal isn't the problem, and cutting your fee or renegotiating the seller won't fix it. Marketing the deal wider might. It's also why buyer depth matters even though you only need one buyer: buyers back out, lose financing or change their minds. If your price leaves 100 buyers in, losing one is an inconvenience. If it leaves one, losing that one is a problem.

Why is a low assignment fee so hard to notice?

A low assignment fee is hard to notice because the deal still closes. Price too high and buyers go quiet — you find out fast. Price too low and the contract sells in minutes, everyone's happy, and nothing ever tells you the buyer would have paid more.

Under contract at $100,000, assigned at a guessed $110,000, sold by lunch. If those same buyers would have paid $114,750, you didn't lose the deal — you lost $4,750, and you'll never know. A fast sale proves someone would buy at your price. It doesn't prove your price was the highest they'd pay.

Can a wholesale assignment fee be too high?

Yes — a wholesale assignment fee is too high when it pushes the buyer's price past what works for them, or past what enough buyers will pay. There's no dollar amount that's "too high" on its own: a $19,600 fee can sink a $152,000 house and barely register on a $706,000 one. More in can an assignment fee be too high?

Before you cut your fee, check what's actually wrong:

• The seller price is too high. If the buyer can't make money even with a $0 fee, no fee cut fixes it — the deal was contracted too high.
• The repairs are off. If you estimate $31,400 and buyers see $54,900, you're $23,500 apart before your fee even comes up.
• The ARV is off. An ARV of $402,000 when the comps say $351,500 makes a big fee look fine on your sheet while buyers keep saying no.

How much profit should you leave the cash buyer?

You should leave the cash buyer the profit that real buyers in your area actually accept — and that's something you can measure, not assume. Your fee and the buyer's profit come out of the same room in the deal: every dollar more for you is a dollar less for them.

Buyers show you their line in what they do. Recorded purchases show what investors here have actually paid for houses like yours, relative to their value; buy boxes show their budgets and limits. As your fee rises, the buyer's profit shrinks — and you can watch the real buyers drop out. The right amount to leave is where enough of them are still buying. More in how much profit to leave your cash buyer.

Does the 70% rule set your assignment fee?

No — the 70% rule does not set your assignment fee. The 70% rule is a rule of thumb that an investor should pay no more than 70% of the ARV minus the repairs. It's a quick screen for what an investor might pay. It doesn't know your market, your price range or your buyers, so it can't tell you what they'll actually pay for this contract. See why the 70% rule doesn't set your fee.

Percentages have the same problem: 10% of a $100,000 ARV and 10% of a $1,000,000 ARV aren't the same room in the deal. See what percentage an assignment fee should be.

Averages tell you what other wholesalers earned, not what your deal allows — yours might support $4,350 or $34,900. See the average wholesale assignment fee.

What is a good wholesale assignment fee?

A good wholesale assignment fee is one inside the range the deal and your buyers support — not a big number or a small one. That's not greedy: it's the price real buyers in your area are paying. Taking every last dollar until the buyer makes nothing doesn't maximize the deal; it kills it. More in what a good assignment fee is and how to price a wholesale deal.

Is a wholesale assignment legal?

Whether a wholesale assignment is allowed depends on your contract and your state. Wholesaling, assignment contracts, marketing a contract, licensing and disclosure are regulated differently across states, and the rules change. Don't assume what works in one state works in another. Make sure your purchase agreement allows assignment, follow your state's disclosure rules, and talk to a local real estate attorney when you're unsure.

For a beginner, the safest habits are simple: use a purchase contract that allows assignment, give sellers any written disclosures your state requires before they sign, tell your title company you're assigning, and have a local real estate attorney review your documents once before your first deal. Rules changed in several states in 2025 and 2026, so check your state's current rules. See does the buyer see your assignment fee?

How do you stop guessing your assignment fee?

You stop guessing your assignment fee by working out what buyers actually support, instead of starting from a number that sounds right. Find what investors near the house have paid for similar houses, compare those purchases fairly, turn them into a buyer-supported price range, and see how many buyers are still in as the price rises. Your fee is the room between that range and your contract.

There are two ways to do it:

• By hand. Pull the recorded investor purchases, work through them in a spreadsheet and build the range yourself. Every step, with a worked example and a free worksheet, is in how to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data.
• With software. MaxFee applies the same method across every fee level: it checks the buyer's profit and how many buyers are still in at each fee, so you can see the range and choose where to price.

Either way, the method is the same. Knowing it by hand is what lets you check any number a tool gives you.

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