Why Novation Are Better Than Wholesaling

[Dawson Brewer]

Here’s why I’ve started using novations over wholesaling.

1. Sellers Get More Money

With wholesaling, sellers often need to take a low cash offer. With novations, I can offer closer to market value by selling to retail buyers, making it easier to get deals accepted.

2. Bigger Assignment Fees

Instead of selling to investors looking for steep discounts, I market to end buyers willing to pay market price. This means I make more per deal than a typical wholesale assignment.

3. No Double Closings or Hard Money

Since the seller stays on title, I don’t have to use hard money or worry about double closing fees. I just facilitate the sale and collect my fee at closing.

4. More Buyers, Less Competition

Wholesaling relies on a limited pool of cash buyers. Novations open up the MLS and conventional financing, bringing in a larger pool of buyers and reducing competition from other wholesalers.

5. Easier to Scale

With less reliance on deep-discount deals and cash buyers, I can scale novations faster than traditional wholesaling.

Final Thoughts

I’m not saying wholesaling is dead, but novations have helped me close deals I would’ve lost before. Anyone else using novations? What’s been your experience?

[Stephen Morales]

We do both net listings (in FL) and novation agreements. They are both very similar but they are not the same.

The true use of a novation agreement is to improve a property for the Seller without taking ownership. A great example of this is when we work with land owners and offer to develop the property further to resell paper lots or sometimes we go vertical with either a new home or a small multifamily building. In the easiest sense of doing a novation, you would just be doing a moderate rehab to get the property to ARV to sell.

We like offering an additional split to the Seller when we get higher returns than expected. Let's say a property is worth $250k and the seller is happy with $150k. It needs $30k in rehab and we pay all closing cost. We end up selling for $260k or $10k more than what we thought the property was worth. Any of those additional funds above our target mark would be split 50/50 with the Seller or sometimes we offer a more favorable share to the Seller to get the deal done.