What is the average wholesale assignment fee?

What is the average wholesale assignment fee in 2026?

The average wholesale assignment fee is about $13,000, according to a Real Estate Bees survey of more than 1,000 professional wholesalers. But another source puts it at about half that: Buy Box Cartel reports an average of $6,704 on deals closed through its marketplace.

So which one should your fee be? Neither. Both numbers describe other people's deals. Neither can tell you what buyers will pay for yours. New to assignment fees? Start with the complete guide to wholesale assignment fees.

What is the average real estate assignment fee?

The average real estate assignment fee — what wholesalers earn for handing over a purchase contract to an investor — is about $13,000 in the most widely cited survey, and $6,704 on one marketplace's closed deals. Those figures are for residential wholesale deals; assignment fees on commercial properties or land can be very different, and there's much less public data on them.

Whichever average you look at, it's the middle of many people's deals, not a benchmark for yours. Treat it as background, then price your own deal from what buyers near you actually pay.

Why do sources report different average assignment fees?

Sources report different averages because they measure different deals in different ways. The $13,000 figure is a survey: wholesalers reporting their own average fee. The $6,704 figure comes from actual closings on one marketplace, with its own mix of wholesalers, markets and price ranges.

Neither is wrong, and neither is a full count. There's no government or public record of every wholesale assignment in the country, so every "average" is a sample — self-reported in one case, one platform's deals in the other. Treat them as rough context about the industry, not as facts about your market.

Think of it this way. If you asked 1,000 restaurant owners "what's your average bill?", you'd get a number — but it would mix diners, steakhouses and food trucks, in cheap towns and expensive cities, and it would depend on who chose to answer. Assignment fee averages work the same way. They're real information about the industry, but they tell you nothing about the particular house you have under contract.

What is a typical wholesale assignment fee?

A typical wholesale assignment fee is commonly put at about $5,000 to $20,000 per deal, with industry sources citing the $13,000 survey average as the middle of that range. Plenty of deals fall below it and some go far above it.

"Typical" tells you where many deals land. It doesn't tell you where yours should.

For a beginner, that range is mostly useful as a sanity check. If you work out a fee of $300 or $300,000, it's worth rechecking your numbers. Anywhere in between, the range can't tell you whether you're right — only your deal and your buyers can.

What is the wholesale assignment fee range?

The wholesale assignment fee range most often quoted is about $5,000 to $20,000 per deal. In the Real Estate Bees survey, state averages ran from about $5,000 to about $22,000, and individual deals go well outside that in both directions: on the sample deals in this guide, the fee buyers would pay ranged from $4,850 to $122,000.

So the range is wide for a reason. Fees follow the room in each deal — the gap between your contract price and what buyers will pay — and that gap can be small or very large.

What is the difference between an average and a typical assignment fee?

An average is one number calculated from a set of deals — $13,000 in the survey. A typical range is where most deals tend to fall — about $5,000 to $20,000. A few very large fees can pull an average up, so the average can sit higher than what most wholesalers actually earn on most deals.

Both are benchmarks. Benchmarks are useful for comparison and dangerous as pricing instructions.

What is a normal assignment fee?

A normal assignment fee is whatever sits in the middle of what other wholesalers charge — roughly $5,000 to $20,000, with the average wholesaler fee around $13,000 in the largest survey. "Normal" describes the crowd. It doesn't describe your deal: a normal fee is too high on a thin deal and far too low on a rich one. See what a good assignment fee is — and whether $10,000 is good.

Do assignment fees vary by market?

Yes — assignment fees vary a lot by market. In the same survey, state averages ran from about $5,000 in Arizona to about $22,000 in North Carolina and Georgia, and the highest city average was about $25,000 in St. Louis.

House prices, repair costs, how many investors compete for deals and what they pay all differ from place to place. A fee that's normal in one city is impossible in another — which is one more reason a national average can't price your deal.

The same is true within a single city. A light cosmetic flip in a neighborhood where investors compete hard and a heavy rehab in an area few investors buy in can sit a mile apart and support completely different fees. Markets differ, but so do streets and houses — which is why the useful comparison is always what investors near your property have actually paid.

Why do assignment fees vary so much?

Assignment fees vary because every deal has its own room in it. The things that decide the fee change on every deal:

• Your contract price — a better seller price leaves more room.
• The ARV and repairs — what the house will be worth and what it takes to get there.
• The buyer's costs — buying, holding, financing and selling.
• The profit buyers need — more for a risky rehab, less for a simple one.
• How many buyers shop at that price — plenty on some houses, few on others.

Do higher-priced houses have bigger assignment fees?

Often, but not always — a high ARV doesn't guarantee a big fee. On sample deals, a $600,000 house with no repairs supports a $122,000 fee. A $680,000 house with $114,955 of repairs, under contract for $375,000, supports $14,750 — barely above the average, on a more expensive house.

The price of the house matters less than the room between your contract and what buyers pay.

How much do wholesalers make per deal?

Wholesalers make roughly $5,000 to $20,000 per deal in assignment fees on commonly cited numbers, with survey averages around $13,000 and some platforms reporting less. But an assignment fee is revenue, not what the wholesaler keeps. Marketing, lead costs, staff and software come out of it.

A $20,000 fee on a deal that cost $6,000 in marketing isn't twice as good as a $10,000 fee from a free referral. Compare fees for what they are — the price of one contract — not as a measure of a whole business.

It's also worth separating a good deal from a good business. A wholesaler who makes an average of $8,000 on four deals a month with low marketing costs can keep more than one who makes $25,000 on one deal a month and spends heavily to find it. The fee on each deal still matters — every dollar left with the buyer is a dollar your business never sees — but it's one number in a bigger picture.

Is a $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 assignment fee good?

A $5,000, $10,000 or $20,000 assignment fee is good only on a deal where buyers won't pay more — and too high on a deal where they won't pay that much. The same fees on three sample deals:

The average is the same $13,000 on all three. It's too high on one, too low on another and far too low on the third. See what a good assignment fee is.

Should you base your fee on the national average?

No — basing your fee on the national average makes you overcharge on some deals and undercharge on others:

• You overcharge when the deal won't bear the average. On Deal A, buyers pay at most $8,750. Insist on $13,000 and the deal sits.
• You undercharge when the deal bears far more. On Deal B, $13,000 leaves $34,800 with the buyer — and the deal sells so fast you never find out.

The average doesn't know your ARV, your repairs, your contract price or your buyers. Your deal isn't an average, so its fee shouldn't be one either.

There's a subtler cost too. Once you know the average, it quietly becomes a target. Beginners who reach "above average" on a deal feel successful and stop looking — even when the buyer would have paid far more. The average isn't just the wrong price for your deal; it can become the reason you never find out what the right one was.

Does an above-average fee mean you got the most from the deal?

No — beating the average doesn't mean you got what the deal would bear. Make $15,000 on Deal B and you're above average; you also left $32,800 behind. Being above average can become a ceiling: once you feel you're doing well, you stop asking whether buyers would pay more.

It works the other way too. $7,500 is below average, but on a deal where buyers pay at most $8,750, it's close to everything the deal had. Judge each fee against its own deal, not against other people's.

Do experienced wholesalers make larger assignment fees?

Often, yes — but not because experience makes a house worth more. Experienced wholesalers tend to negotiate better seller prices, judge repairs and ARV more accurately, and have more buyers. Each of those raises the most they can charge on a deal.

What experience doesn't change is the limit on a given house. On Deal A, an experienced wholesaler still can't charge more than about $8,750 — they're just more likely to know that, and to spot the deal where buyers would pay far more than the average.

Why do so many wholesalers price from the average?

Because there's usually nothing else to go on. Without data on what buyers near you actually pay, an average feels safer than a guess — it's a number other people seem to get, so it can't be too far off.

That's exactly the problem. The average is still a guess, just a borrowed one. It feels like a benchmark, but it's someone else's deals in someone else's markets. The fee that fits your deal comes from your buyers, and that's data you can actually have.

What actually decides your assignment fee?

Two numbers decide your assignment fee: your contract price with the seller and what buyers will actually pay for the contract. The fee is the gap between them. The national average is neither.

What buyers will pay comes from the deal and the buyers: what investors near you actually paid for houses like this, and how many still buy at each price. See how to calculate your assignment fee and what the maximum assignment fee is.

To find that number yourself from the investor purchases near your house, see how to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data.

How do you find your fee instead of using the average?

You find your fee from your own deal and your own buyers. On the sample deal (ARV $300,000, repairs $30,000, your contract $140,000), here’s what that looks like next to the average:

1. Find recent investor purchases of similar houses near yours.
   Cash or company buyers, the last 12 months, within about a mile. Aim for 8–15, then keep the real investor purchases.
2. Turn each into (price + repairs) ÷ ARV.
   That compares houses of different values fairly. Here the middle half runs 71.0–73.3%.
3. Apply that range to your house.
   ARV × ratio − your repairs. Here: $183,000–$189,900, most likely $188,500.
4. Subtract your contract.
   A supported fee of $43,000–$49,900, most likely $48,500.
5. Compare with the average.
   An average fee of about $13,000 here would price the contract at $153,000: 61% of value, below every investor purchase, with the buyer keeping 36.3%. The average tells you about other people’s deals.

Every step in detail, with a free worksheet: how to determine your assignment fee from real buyer data.

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