A Wholesale Deal, Taken Apart Line by Line (Example Numbers)

The lead and the first call

The example starts the way most real ones do: an inherited house. The seller, in our example, inherited a 3-bed, 2-bath from a parent, lives two states away, and has been paying taxes and insurance on an empty house for a year. The house is not destroyed — it is dated, with a roof near the end of its life and a kitchen from another decade. The seller's problem is distance and drift: every month costs money, and managing a renovation from two states away is not happening.

On the call, the wholesaler's job is mostly listening: timeline (they want it done within about a month), condition honesty (they describe the roof themselves), and the number question asked the right way — not 'what do you want?' but 'if we could close in three weeks, as-is, no cleanout, what would make this feel done for you?' Their answer in this example: somewhere around $95,000. That answer is information, not a commitment. The math decides what can actually be offered.

The comp work that set every later number

Three comparable sales within a mile, all 3-bed homes that sold renovated in the last six months in this example: $178,000, $185,000, and $172,000, with adjustments for a garage and a slightly larger footprint landing the ARV at $180,000. That number — not the seller's hope, not the wholesaler's optimism — becomes the anchor. Repairs are scoped room by room: roof $9,000, kitchen refresh $12,000, two baths $6,000, flooring and paint $7,000, systems and miscellaneous $4,000, plus a contingency line, totaling $38,000 rounded. Honest, itemized, and deliberately not padded — padding the repair number to justify a lower offer is the fastest way to lose a sharp buyer's trust.

MAO = ($180,000 × 0.70) − $38,000 = $88,000. That is the ceiling for the end buyer. The wholesaler targets a $10,000 fee, which sets the maximum seller price at $78,000. Compare that to the seller's $95,000 wish: there is a $17,000 gap, and no amount of salesmanship legitimately closes it. What closes it is the seller's actual situation — and a conversation about what the alternatives really cost them.

The negotiation: trading certainty, not arguing price

The offer made in this example is $76,000, as-is, seller leaves anything they do not want, closing in 21 days at a title company, earnest money deposited within three days. The gap to $95,000 is addressed head-on: listing with an agent means the renovation question stays (buyers will discount for the roof), months of carrying costs continue, and agent-side buyers will still underwrite it as an investor deal because of condition. The seller counters at $82,000. The wholesaler re-runs the chain: at $82,000, the assignment price is $92,000 — $4,000 over the buyer's MAO. That does not work as structured.

The move that resolves it is a fee decision, not a math invention: the wholesaler trims the target fee to $6,000, putting the assignment price exactly at the $88,000 MAO, and accepts the seller's $82,000 with a 10-day inspection period. The deal is thinner than planned — $6,000 instead of $10,000 — and that is the honest arithmetic of this house. The alternative, pushing the assignment price over MAO and hoping a buyer overpays, trades the wholesaler's reputation for $4,000. Not worth it, here or anywhere.

Marketing the assignment and the near-miss

The deal goes to the buyers list with comps attached, the repair scope itemized, and the price stated plainly: $88,000 assignment price, $6,000 fee disclosed to buyers in the package. Two buyers pass — one because his crew is booked for six weeks, one because he underwrites ARV at $175,000 and will not stretch. A third, a landlord-flipper with criteria that match exactly, verifies the comps, walks the house on day four, and signs the assignment on day five.

Then the near-miss: the title search finds a small municipal lien the seller did not know about. Because the assignment price sat exactly at MAO with no slack, any cost pushed at the buyer kills the deal. The resolution is disclosure and speed: the wholesaler tells both sides the same day, the seller — who owns the lien problem — agrees it comes out of their proceeds at closing, and the timeline holds because nobody learned about it late. This is why the inspection period and an early title order matter: problems found on day six are phone calls; problems found on closing day are funerals.

The closing statement, read plainly

At closing in this example: the buyer pays $88,000 total for the house — $82,000 to the seller under the original contract, plus the $6,000 assignment fee to the wholesaler, both lines visible on the settlement statement. The buyer's all-in after closing costs is roughly $90,500, against an ARV of $180,000 and a $38,000 rehab — a flip or BRRRR entry with the margin the 70% rule was designed to leave. The seller nets their $82,000 minus the lien payoff, in 21 days, with the cleanout problem simply gone.

Read the walkthrough once more and notice what is absent: no pressure tactics, no hidden numbers, no invented urgency. Every party could see the full chain and chose their side of it. That is not the saintly version of wholesaling — it is the repeatable version, the one where the buyer takes your next call and the title company answers on the first ring.

What this example deliberately left out

Three real-world complications were simplified to keep the walkthrough readable, and you should know they exist. First, taxes and transfer specifics vary by state and county, and the settlement statement in a real deal itemizes more lines than this example showed. Second, the buyer's financing — cash here — changes timelines and title requirements when a lender is involved; a financed end buyer may not be able to take an assignment at all, which must be known before the contract, not at the table. Third, real sellers are not arithmetic: grief, family disagreement, and distrust of the process itself kill deals that pencil perfectly, and the wholesaler's patience through those is part of the service the fee pays for.

Hold those caveats and the core lesson stands: every dollar in this deal was visible to every party before anyone signed. The seller knew the price and why it was the price. The buyer knew the fee, the comps, and the deadline. The title company knew the structure on day one. When a deal is built that way, the near-misses — a lien, a pass from two buyers — stay near-misses instead of becoming collapses, because nobody is recalculating their trust at the same time as their numbers. That is the standard to copy, whatever your market's numbers look like.