Every wholesale deal reaches a point where you decide how the money actually moves: assign the contract to your buyer, or buy the property yourself and immediately resell it. Most investors default to whichever one they learned first and never revisit it, which is expensive, because the two behave very differently depending on the deal.
The decision is usually made for you by one of four things: what your state permits, what the title company will handle, how large your fee is, and whether the seller would object to seeing it.
What Each One Actually Is
An assignment transfers your contractual right to buy. You never own the property. Your buyer steps into your position, closes directly with the seller, and your fee appears on the settlement statement as an assignment fee. One closing, minimal cost, and you need no money of your own.
A double close is two separate transactions, usually minutes apart. You buy from the seller, then sell to your buyer. You genuinely own the property in between, however briefly. Two sets of closing costs, and you need funds for the first leg even if they are only in play for an afternoon.
The practical difference that decides most deals: in an assignment, everyone sees your fee. In a double close, the seller sees what you paid and the buyer sees what they paid, and neither necessarily sees the other number.
When to Assign
Assignment is the default for good reasons and it should stay the default when the conditions suit it.
Use it when your fee is unremarkable enough that nobody blinks. What counts as unremarkable varies by market and price point, and the honest test is whether you would be comfortable explaining the number to the seller directly, because you may have to.
Use it when you have no capital to deploy, which is the situation assignment exists for. Use it when speed matters, since one closing is simpler and faster to coordinate. And use it when the seller understood from the start that you might assign, which is the position you want to be in anyway and in several states is a written requirement, covered in whether wholesaling is legal in your state.
The situations where assignment fails are specific: some sellers will not permit it, most institutional and bank-owned sellers prohibit it outright, and properties bought through certain government or foreclosure channels frequently carry deed restrictions that forbid it.
When to Double Close
Double closing costs more and solves problems assignment cannot.
The most common reason is a large spread. When your margin is big enough that showing it would blow up the deal, a double close keeps the two transactions separate. Be clear-eyed about what that means though: you are choosing not to volunteer a number, which is different from concealing one, and if a seller asks directly you answer honestly.
The second is a seller or contract that forbids assignment. Bank-owned, REO and many institutional sellers do, and a double close is the standard route around a non-assignability clause.
The third is your buyer's lender. Some lenders will not fund a purchase from someone who is not the record owner, which makes assignment impossible regardless of your preference.
The fourth is title seasoning. Some lenders impose minimum ownership periods before the property can be resold, and while that mostly affects longer holds, it is worth checking on any financed exit.
What a Double Close Actually Requires
Three things, and the first two trip people up.
A title company that will do it. Not all will, and the ones that will have specific procedures. This is the single most important thing to establish before you need it rather than during a closing week. Ask directly whether they handle back-to-back closings and what they require.
Funds for the first leg. Sometimes your buyer's funds can be used, sometimes not, depending on the title company and the state, and where they cannot you need transactional funding, which is covered in how transactional funding works.
Two sets of closing costs. Recording fees, title fees, transfer taxes where applicable, potentially twice. On a thin margin that can consume the deal, which is the arithmetic that should decide it rather than preference.
How to Actually Choose
Run it in this order and the answer usually falls out.
First, is assignment even permitted here, by the state, the contract and the seller? If not, the decision is made.
Second, will the buyer's funding allow it? If their lender requires a record owner, the decision is made.
Third, is the fee one you would be comfortable having visible? If yes, assign, because it is cheaper and simpler.
Fourth, if the fee is large, does the extra cost of a double close still leave a deal worth doing? If the answer is no, the honest conclusion is that the deal is thinner than it looked and the numbers need revisiting, using the arithmetic in the 70 percent rule.
The Version Nobody Recommends
Worth naming the failure mode: deciding at the closing table.
Discovering on the day that the contract is non-assignable, or that the title company will not double close, or that your buyer's lender objects, turns a deal into an emergency and frequently loses it. All three are knowable in advance, and all three should be established when the contract is written rather than when it closes.
Which means the exit structure belongs on the deal record next to the numbers, alongside whether the contract is assignable, what the seller was told, which title company is handling it and how the buyer is funding. The case for keeping that together is in the guide to the real estate investor CRM, and the buyer-side prerequisites are in vetting cash buyers.