Wholesaling
Wholesale Real Estate Calculator: What to Offer Sellers
The offer to the seller is the end buyer's price minus your fee. A calculator earns its place by getting the buyer's price right, fast enough to use on the phone.
Wholesalers lose deals two ways: offering too much and killing their own fee, or offering too little and watching someone else tie up the contract. This guide covers the formula a wholesale calculator solves, how comps drive it, how to size the fee, a worked deal, and how to run the numbers on a live seller call.
What a wholesale offer has to satisfy
A wholesaler contracts a property with a seller and assigns that contract to an investor for a fee. The seller has to accept the offer, and the investor has to accept the assignment price, which means the offer is constrained from both sides at once.
The end buyer's side is the harder one. A flipper underwrites the deal exactly as if they had found it themselves: ARV, repairs, holding, selling costs, and a required profit. The wholesale calculator does that underwriting first, then subtracts the fee to find what the seller can be offered.
The wholesale formula explained
The formula has two layers. The end buyer's investor price is solved from their return target and costs. The offer to the seller is that price minus your fee.
Investor price = ARV ÷ (1 + target ROI) − Repairs − Buy closing − Holding − Selling costs
For a cash flipper. Total cost is capped at ARV divided by one plus the return the buyer requires; everything they spend other than the purchase price comes out of that cap.
Offer to seller = Investor price − Assignment fee
The 70% rule is a rough version of the first line with every cost collapsed into a single 30% discount. It is fine for deciding whether to look closer. It is the wrong tool for the offer, because the buyer's real costs vary with price band, financing and market speed.
| Method | Investor price | What it assumes |
|---|---|---|
| 70% rule | $138,000 | 30% of ARV covers profit, holding, selling and closing, everywhere |
| Solved, cash buyer, 20% ROI, 6 months | $143,800 | 8% selling costs, $4,000 holding, $3,000 closing, 20% return on total cost |
| Solved, hard money, 20% ROI, 8 months | About $134,000 | Same, plus interest and points on an 85% loan over a longer hold |
The rule is $5,800 too low for the cash buyer and $4,000 too high for the financed one. On a $16,800 fee, either error matters.
How comparable sales drive the offer
ARV enters the formula divided by 1.20 for a 20% target, so every $10,000 of ARV moves the investor price by about $8,300 and the offer by the same. No other input has that leverage, which is why the comps deserve more care than the fee.
Pull renovated sales, not listings
Three to five closed sales within about a mile and six months, in the condition the end buyer will deliver.Convert to price per square foot and weight
Closest, most recent and most similar count most. A house 30% larger than the subject is not a comp.Exclude anything that does not belong
An estate sale, a corner lot with an extra unit, a house across the highway. Dropping one bad comp can move the ARV by 5% and the offer by thousands.Cross-check against investor purchases
If nearby flips were bought at $95 per square foot and your solved price is $130, something upstream is wrong.
A calculator that shows its comps, with price, size, distance and a match score, and recalculates when you exclude one, keeps this step honest. One that hides the ARV behind a single number cannot be argued with, which also means it cannot be trusted.
How to size the assignment fee
Size the fee against ARV, then confirm it against the buyer's return. Around 5% of ARV is a fair fee, 7% is good, 10% or more is excellent, and below 3% the deal is barely worth the paperwork.
| Tier | Share of ARV | On $240,000 ARV |
|---|---|---|
| Excellent | 10% or more | $24,000 or more |
| Good | 7% to 10% | $16,800 to $24,000 |
| Fair | 5% to 7% | $12,000 to $16,800 |
| Marginal | 3% to 5% | $7,200 to $12,000 |
| Poor | Under 3% | Under $7,200 |
Example uses public listing data for illustration. See disclaimer.
A worked deal: from ARV to Offer to Seller
A 1,600 square foot house with a $240,000 ARV from renovated comps. Cosmetic rehab of $30,000 including contingency. The end buyer is a cash flipper who requires 20% on total cost and expects six months to resale. You want a Good fee.
Solving the investor price and the offer
- Maximum total cost$240,000 ÷ 1.20
- $200,000
- Repairs with contingency
- −$30,000
- Buy-side closing
- −$3,000
- Holding costsTaxes, insurance and utilities for 6 months
- −$4,000
- Selling costs8% of ARV
- −$19,200
- Investor price
- $143,800
- Assignment fee7% of ARV, a Good fee
- −$16,800
- Offer to seller
- $127,000
Example uses public listing data for illustration. See disclaimer.
Running the numbers on a live seller call
The first offer on a call is an estimate, and the seller knows it. What matters is that it is anchored in the neighborhood's numbers rather than a guess, and that it moves predictably when the facts change.
Before the call: address and size
Enter the property and pull the ARV and comps while you dial. Investor activity nearby tells you the local discount before the seller says a word.During the call: what needs work
Kitchen, baths, roof, systems. Choose a repair band from the seller's description and set the fee and the buyer's target. The Offer to Seller updates as you type.Give a range, then a number
Quote the offer with the repair assumption attached: about $127,000 if the roof is sound, less if it is not. The walkthrough turns the range into a firm offer.After the call: send the seller copy
A report that shows the cash offer with the comparables and the repair estimate behind it, on your letterhead, does more than a second phone call.
Example uses public listing data for illustration. See disclaimer.
Calculator, spreadsheet or mental math
All three can produce the same offer on a quiet afternoon. They differ when the seller is on the line, when a comp turns out to be wrong, and when the buyer asks to see the numbers.
| Need | Mental math | Spreadsheet | Calculator with comps |
|---|---|---|---|
| ARV from real comps | A guess from the listing | Manual entry from another site | Pulled and scored, excludable |
| Investor purchases nearby | Rarely known | Separate research | Flagged automatically |
| Flip and rental exits | One or the other | Two tabs, if built | A toggle |
| Time to a first offer | Seconds, unreliable | 20 to 40 minutes | About a minute |
| Something to send the seller | Nothing | A screenshot | A branded seller copy |
The dedicated wholesale deal calculator in Smart Rental Investor does the version in the last column. For the manual method behind it, read how to analyze a wholesale deal.
Frequently asked questions
What is a wholesale real estate calculator?
A calculator that solves the offer to the seller from the numbers an end buyer cares about: the after repair value, the repair budget, the buyer's required return and your assignment fee. It replaces the 70% rule with the buyer's actual cost structure and produces a price you can explain to both parties.
How is the wholesale offer formula different from the 70% rule?
The 70% rule discounts ARV by a fixed 30% and subtracts repairs. A wholesale calculator instead solves the most an end buyer can pay for a stated return after their real holding, closing and selling costs, then subtracts your fee. The two agree on an average deal and disagree, in both directions, on everything else.
How much should I charge as an assignment fee?
Size it against the after repair value: 5% is fair, 7% is good and 10% or more is excellent on most deals. In dollars that is roughly $10,000 to $25,000 on a $200,000 to $250,000 ARV. The constraint is the buyer's return, not the percentage; a fee that breaks the buyer's target does not assign.
Does the calculator work for buy-and-hold end buyers?
Yes. With a rental exit selected, the investor price is solved from the rent estimate, the buyer's financing and operating expenses, and their target cash-on-cash return rather than from ARV. In strong rental markets that produces a higher price and a larger fee than the flip exit.
Can I run the numbers while I am on the phone with a seller?
That is the point. Address, size, a repair estimate from what the seller describes, your fee and the buyer's target return are enough for a first offer in about a minute. Refine the repair number after the walkthrough and the offer updates with it.
Keep reading
How to Analyze a Wholesale Deal: The Complete Guide
The five-step method behind every number the calculator solves.
Read articleWhat Are Investors Paying for Properties in Your Area?
The sanity check on any solved investor price.
Read articleHow to Calculate ARV (After Repair Value)
The input that moves the offer more than any other.
Read articleFix and Flip Profit Margins: How to Calculate Your Spread
Why the end buyer's costs decide what your fee can be.
Read articleKnow your Offer to Seller before you pick up the phone
Smart Rental Investor's wholesale analysis pulls the comps, solves the end buyer's price for a flip or a rental exit, grades your fee, and prints a seller copy and an end buyer copy of the same deal on your letterhead.
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