How To Wholesale Real Estate In Indiana: 9 Steps, HB 1068 Compliance & Top Markets (2026)

Written by

Alex Martinez — Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills. 14+ years of investing experience wholesaling, fixing and flipping, and buying rental properties across the country, including places like Indianapolis and Fort Wayne.

RZ

Reviewed by

Ryan Zomorodi — Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills. Reviewed and verified the market data, deal timeline, Indiana purchase agreement and assignment contract requirements, HB 1068 disclosure language, and 9-step process for Indiana before publication.

✓ Updated May 2026 ⚡ 9-Step Indiana Process + HB 1068 Watch on YouTube

Publication history: Originally published December 15, 2020. Updated May 2026 to reflect HB 1068 (P.L. 47-2024) disclosure requirements, ATTOM Q1 2026 Indiana foreclosure data, current Indianapolis and Fort Wayne market figures, Indiana purchase agreement and assignment contract requirements, and updated deal timeline and income figures. Market data and contract requirements verified by Ryan Zomorodi, Co-Founder & COO, Real Estate Skills.

Learning how to wholesale real estate in Indiana is by far the most underrated skill an investor can hone this year.

ATTOM's Q1 2026 foreclosure data lists Indiana at the #1 spot in the country for foreclosure rate per housing unit, with one in every 739 housing units receiving a foreclosure filing. Indianapolis and Evansville both rank in the top five worst foreclosure metros in the United States. That's not a quirk in the data. It's a sustained trend. Motivated sellers in volume, every month, in cities you can actually build a business around.

Here's what most wholesaling guides leave out. Indiana passed HB 1068 in 2024. This legislation altered the rules of solicitation in this state, and all communication to property owners (mailers, postcards, text messages, voicemails, and emails) must include specific disclosure language. The disclosure clearly states that the person doing the soliciting is an unlicensed entity interested in purchasing the property for the purpose of resale. Most wholesalers reading this don't have this language on their outreach. Their offers get ignored. Their contracts get rescinded. They wonder why Indiana feels harder than the YouTube videos made it look.

This guide is built around how Indiana wholesale deals actually work in 2026. Everything you want to know about wholesaling properties in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and the rest of the state. The 9-step process for closing deals in this market. HB 1068 compliance baked into every solicitation. Title-company-led closing. Deal math at Indianapolis and Fort Wayne price points. Use the links below to jump to any section:

How To Wholesale Real Estate In Indiana (STEP-BY-STEP)!

I walk through the exact 9-step process for wholesaling in Indiana. How HB 1068 changes the way you market deals. Where Indianapolis and Fort Wayne investors find motivated sellers. How to lock down your first assignment fee in the state with the highest foreclosure rate in the country.

 

What Is Wholesaling Real Estate?

Wholesaling real estate allows you to acquire the right to purchase a property and then immediately sell that right to another buyer for a fee. The real estate wholesaler never takes title to the property. Instead, they sell the contract that they signed with the property owner.

You are not taking ownership of the property. You are selling the contract rights to purchase the property for a fee to a buyer. That distinction is the entire reason wholesaling sits outside of licensed brokerage activity.

This type of contract is typically referred to as an Assignment of Contract. It is the most common method of wholesaling real estate. You negotiate a purchase contract with the seller, and then, through the doctrine of equitable conversion, you find a buyer and transfer your rights to them for an assignment fee. This method is considered the safest path for the wholesaler, since you are only transferring a contract rather than a property. The end buyer takes over your purchase contract, and you receive a fee for finding them the deal.

Wholesale Real Estate Example

Imagine a distressed Indianapolis property worth $245,000 after renovation. The seller is motivated. You negotiate a purchase agreement with the seller at $165,000.

You don't have to purchase the property. In this Indianapolis distressed real estate deal, you assign the contract to a Marion County fix-and-flipper for a wholesale fee of $12,000. The seller gets paid $165,000 by the flipper. The flipper does all the work to rehab the house, and you get paid a wholesale fee of $12,000 for introducing the two parties to each other and setting up the transaction through your Indiana title company.

Some Indiana deals can't be assigned. The seller can object to the assignment language within the contract. The spread may be too large, and disclosing it would risk losing the deal altogether. In these situations, a double closing is used instead. The wholesaler purchases the property first and then immediately resells it to the end buyer. As with the assignment of a contract, both closings are facilitated by an Indiana title company, and the two transactions appear on the same settlement statement.

The Assignment of Contract is by far the most common form of wholesaling in the state of Indiana. Simpler. Lower closing costs. And Indiana is a title-company state, so title companies are accustomed to handling assignment contracts on the same settlement statement without friction.

Why Wholesale Real Estate In Indiana?

Indiana has the deepest motivated-seller pipeline in the country. That's the entire pitch.

ATTOM Data Solutions recently released their Q1 2026 Foreclosure Market Report. The report ranks states across the country with regards to foreclosure rates on a per-housing-unit basis. Indiana takes the top spot in the country with one in every 739 housing units currently in some stage of the foreclosure process. Within the state, Indianapolis (Marion County) and Evansville (Vanderburgh County) both rank in the top five worst foreclosed metros in the country. There are currently 3,998 properties in foreclosure in the state. Of those properties, 431 are bank-owned and 1,063 are scheduled for auction. Every one of those is a potential wholesale lead.

The pricing makes the math work. Indiana's statewide median home value is $253,628 (Zillow, Q2 2026). Indianapolis median sale price is $245,000 (Redfin, March 2026). Fort Wayne is $219,041. At these levels, an $8,000 to $20,000 assignment fee leaves your cash buyer a very healthy profit margin. The deal closes. Should you attempt to wholesale a property in a market such as California or Boston where the prices are in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars, your fee would likely be eaten by the price of the home, or the cash buyer would back out of the deal due to an ARV (after rehabilitation value) estimate being off. This is why Indiana is the perfect place to begin learning the art and trade of wholesaling without one bad ARV estimate killing the deal.

HB 1068 is the wrinkle. The law became Indiana Public Law 47-2024 and took effect July 1, 2024. Every mailer, postcard, text, voicemail, and email to a property owner now carries disclosure language identifying you as unlicensed and seeking to acquire the property for resale. Build it into your outreach from day one and the law is a non-issue. Try to work around it and you're handing the seller a two-day exit ramp out of your contract.

Not all Indiana markets are equal. Here's a look at median sale price for residential properties, current foreclosure stats, and estimated levels of competition between wholesalers in several key Indiana markets. If you are serious about wholesaling real estate in Indiana, here's where to start.

Median prices sourced from Redfin and Zillow (March 2026). Assignment fee ranges reflect actual Indiana wholesale deal spreads. Foreclosure activity ratings reflect ATTOM Q1 2026 metro-level data. Competition levels reflect active investor density reported by Indiana wholesalers.

In Indianapolis, which is our first recommended market for a new wholesaler, there is plenty of real estate volume going on. Title companies in the Indianapolis metro are more than happy to facilitate assignment contracts. For new wholesalers, Indianapolis real estate deals offer a better spread for mistakes made in the negotiation or property evaluation process. Fort Wayne is a close second, due to lower competition than is found in Indianapolis, and the fact that you can build relationships and do business more quickly than in Indy because of the smaller investor network. Save Gary for after you have completed a few real estate deals, because while there is plenty of distressed property that has gone through the foreclosure process, the after-repair value of the properties in Gary is lower — one poor estimate of ARV could wipe out your entire profit for the deal. Evansville is another very real opportunity for wholesalers, but the pool of potential buyers can be somewhat smaller. South Bend is a viable secondary market for wholesalers.

How To Wholesale Real Estate In Indiana (9 Steps)

Here's the step-by-step process for wholesaling real estate in Indiana:

1. Partner With A Wholesale Mentor
2. Learn Indiana Real Estate Wholesaling Laws And Contracts
3. Understand The Indiana Real Estate Market
4. Build A Cash Buyers List
5. Find Motivated Sellers And Distressed Properties
6. Put Distressed Properties Under Contract
7. Assign Contracts To Cash Buyers
8. Close Deals And Collect Assignment Fee
9. Double Close When Necessary

Before walking through each step, here's how long an Indiana wholesale deal actually takes from first contact to collected fee:

1. Partner With A Wholesale Mentor

Most of the people who call themselves a "wholesaling mentor" are people who have done very little to no wholesaling in the state of Indiana. They typically have done deals in other states such as Texas, Florida, or California. They will go through a generic wholesaling course and start teaching the same course to people in other states. They usually don't have any knowledge of the laws, the local market, or the local investors in the state of Indiana.

An out-of-state wholesaling mentor typically won't have any experience wholesaling properties in Indiana, and so won't have the knowledge of the HB 1068 disclosure language that has to appear on solicitation letters. They typically won't know which title companies in Marion County complete assignments cleanly and on time, and which will hold up a closing for a week or more. They typically won't know how to speak with a listing agent in Indianapolis who has already received 10 other amateur offers on the property that day. They typically won't know which local real estate investors in Fort Wayne actually close the deals that they say they want to partner on, and which will tie you up on a contract for weeks only to ghost you. None of this can be learned from a book. It is hands-on information, learned from someone who has been doing the work within the state of Indiana.

To find an Indianapolis wholesaling mentor, start by looking for local CIREIA groups. The Central Indiana Real Estate Investors Association holds monthly meetings in Indianapolis. For the Fort Wayne REIA, the meetings are held monthly in Fort Wayne. The smaller crowds and close networking is what makes the local meetings the highest-leverage events for the respective markets. Post on Facebook looking for "Indianapolis real estate investors" and "Indiana wholesalers." Several active groups exist, and they can carry deal flow as well as help you find a wholesaling partner. Don't waste time on national REI groups. The Indiana real estate investors who can help you close your first Indianapolis deal live near Indianapolis.

One thing to keep in mind when looking for a wholesaling mentor is that they should be able to show you proof of completed deals in the state. If they can't provide you with HUD statements or settlement statements from past closings in Indiana, you should look elsewhere for a mentor. They are going to teach you a market that is very specific, and you don't want to get caught learning from someone who is just running off of theory.

How Chloe Virtually Wholesaled Her First Deal In Indianapolis

Chloe lives in Reno, Nevada. Her first deal closed in Indianapolis — a market she'd never visited. With mentorship from our Pro Wholesaler VIP Program, she found a stale Indianapolis listing on PropStream that had been sitting six months, negotiated the price down $50,000 from list (including a mid-contingency renegotiation), found her cash buyer through Craigslist, and assigned the contract for a $3,000 fee. Completely virtually. Watch the full interview to hear how she analyzed the property remotely, handled the listing agent, and closed her first Indianapolis deal without ever setting foot in the state.

 

Chloe received her first fee of $3,000 for a deal in the Indianapolis, Indiana market. Not life-changing, but the deal got done. And the deal was completed while Chloe was not located in Indiana — she states that she had little knowledge of the Indianapolis real estate market when she started completing deals. She credits her mentor with providing her with critical knowledge, such as the correct filters to use in PropStream to surface distressed properties, and how to approach the listing agent who turned out to be the seller's sister. The two parties negotiated the contract price down during the inspection contingency period after the original number stopped working for Chloe's buyer. The deal closed remotely through an Indiana title company.

A few additional details about Chloe's progress: She did this deal part-time. Therefore, she only worked on it three hours a day. In the morning to pull listings, at lunch for calls with Indianapolis agents, and in the evening to follow up and to do numbers on the file. In total, 15 hours a week. Just enough to do the first deal in the first market she went into part-time while working full-time at another job that is currently paying her bills.

2. Learn Indiana Real Estate Wholesaling Laws And Contracts

The principal-buyer exemption lives in IC 25-34.1-3-2(b)(8). You can acquire property for your own account without a real estate license. You're not a broker. You're not an agent. You're a principal buyer reselling your contractual interest. Settled Indiana law for decades.

HB 1068 is newer. It became Indiana Public Law 47-2024 effective July 1, 2024. Every solicitation to a property owner needs disclosure language identifying you as unlicensed and seeking to purchase the property for resale. Mailers. Postcards. Texts. Voicemails. Emails. If the seller signs your contract and the solicitation that led to that contract didn't carry disclosure, they get a two-day right to rescind. Indiana sellers exercise that right. Title companies pause closing when disclosure isn't documented.

Most national wholesaling guides skip HB 1068 entirely. That's why wholesalers from out of state keep losing Indiana deals at the rescission stage. Build the disclosure into your outreach from day one, and the law disappears as a problem. Try to work around it and you've handed the seller an exit before you've even started negotiating.

The full Indiana legal framework — HB 1068 statutory text, exact disclosure language requirements, double-closing compliance, co-wholesaling treatment, and how Indiana's Department of Financial Institutions handles enforcement — lives in our dedicated guide: Is Wholesaling Real Estate Legal In Indiana? →

3. Understand The Indiana Real Estate Market

Successful Indiana wholesalers don't guess. They know which Indianapolis zip codes are producing foreclosure inventory month after month, which Fort Wayne neighborhoods have active flipper demand, and which Marion County areas turn over fast at price points where the spread actually works.

Generic "study your market" advice is useless. Here's the specific Indiana data that matters.

The Indiana Association of Realtors publishes monthly Indiana market data at the state and metro level. MIBOR — the Indianapolis-area MLS — publishes weekly Central Indiana housing trend reports that capture Marion County and surrounding counties at a granular level. Both feed the same data picture: Indianapolis inventory tightening, days on market drifting up, distressed share holding steady.

The local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) is the single highest-leverage place to find Indiana motivated sellers. Step 5 treats it as the primary deal-finding channel for a reason — the data is real-time, the contact info works, and listing agents pick up the phone.

Wholesaling With Realtors & Agents In Indiana

The MLS exists so listing agents and buyer's agents can find each other and split commissions. If you don't want to work with an Indiana real estate agent directly, you can pull MLS-syndicated data through Redfin, Zillow, or Realtor.com. All three carry Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, and Evansville listings within hours of MLS upload.

Full Indiana MLS access — with confidential remarks and direct agent contact info — is what you actually want. Get it one of two ways. Become a licensed Indiana real estate agent. Or request assistant access through an Indiana broker for a quarterly fee — usually around $75 per quarter through a brokerage that supports investor assistants. Both work. The license is more expensive upfront and pays off long-term. Assistant access is cheaper and gets you operational this month.

Building A Strong Indiana Investor Network

Your Indiana network is what produces deals when the MLS goes quiet. Build it locally:

• CIREIA — Central Indiana Real Estate Investors Association: Monthly meetings in Indianapolis. The single best place to network with Marion County wholesalers, flippers, landlords, lenders, and investor-friendly title-company reps.
• Fort Wayne REIA: Monthly meetup for Allen County. Smaller than CIREIA, tighter network. Everyone knows everyone. Build a good reputation here and it follows you for years.
• Indiana Real Estate Facebook Groups: "Indianapolis real estate investors" and "Indiana wholesalers" are both active. Deal flow, JV partnerships, buyer leads all move through these groups daily.
• Investor-Friendly Indiana Title Companies: Find two or three closing agents in Marion and Allen counties who handle assignments routinely. They see deal flow before the MLS does and can refer cash buyers who actually close.
• Local Meetup Groups: Search Meetup.com for real estate investing in Indianapolis or Fort Wayne. Smaller groups, lower-pressure first networking environment for new wholesalers.

Part of your Indiana network is the buyers willing to pay your assignment fees. That's Step 4.

4. Build A Cash Buyers List

A cash buyer is an investor who can purchase a property for cash. Liquid funds. Sometimes private money. Sometimes hard money. The thing that holds true for all cash buyers is they can close on their schedule.

Most new wholesalers do this step in reverse order. First, they locate some distressed real estate property for sale in Indianapolis, lock up the property under contract, and then start scrambling to find a buyer. By Day 10 of their inspection contingency they're panicking. By Day 14 they're emailing strangers on BiggerPockets. The inspection contingency period will eventually come to an end and the property contract will expire because no one had time to properly evaluate the wholesaled property.

Do it the other way around. Build the list of potential buyers first. Know exactly who buys in 46201, who buys in 46218, who flips Fort Wayne three-bedroom ranches, who holds Marion County rentals. When the deal hits, you already know who's going to take it.

How To Find Cash Buyers For Wholesaling! [FREE]

Indianapolis cash buyers concentrate around Marion County flippers, Fort Wayne landlords, and out-of-state investors targeting the foreclosure inventory. Finding them costs nothing. In this video I walk through the Craigslist trick that surfaces active buyers in any Indiana metro, plus the free online channels that consistently produce qualified leads before you ever make your first offer.

 

You don't need a list of fifty Indiana buyers. You need three to five quality buyers. The difference matters more than most people realize. A buyer who closes deals consistently, tells you exactly what they buy, and gives you honest feedback on price is worth more than ten "buyers" who say they're interested and never close anything.

Here's how to build the list in Indiana:

For each buyer you connect with, get three things. Their target Indianapolis or Fort Wayne neighborhoods (specific zips, not "the metro"). Their dollar-per-square-foot repair rate for a cosmetic flip (this is what you'll use in Step 6 to estimate repairs). Their target buy price range. Get this data on the first call. Save it in a spreadsheet. You'll reference it on every Indiana deal you analyze from this point forward.

5. Find Motivated Sellers And Distressed Properties

A large majority of novices dismiss MLS listings because someone on YouTube told them "all the on-market deals are gone." That's wrong. In Indiana, every day, new distressed listings are added to local MLS listings by their respective listing agents. Probate properties. Out-of-state owners. Inherited properties. Failed flips. Tired landlords. Court-ordered sales. They all land on the MLS first because that's where Indiana sellers go to sell.

The MLS is also legally safer. Cold-calling Indiana homeowners directly puts you in TCPA territory if you make one wrong call. Contacting listing agents is safer than contacting homeowners directly. They expect calls from real estate investors. Their contact information is typically easily accessible. They get paid when the deals close. They're the right people to talk to.

The Day Zero Strategy

Pull all new listings in Indianapolis or Fort Wayne every morning from the last 24 hours. Apply distressed filters — "cash only," "as-is," "investor special," "needs TLC," "estate sale," "probate." Call the listing agent the very same morning. This is how you lock up deals in Indiana while other wholesalers are searching for listings all day long.

Speed wins. In Indianapolis and Fort Wayne, at any given time, there are 50-200 new listings on the market. Of those listings, approximately 10-20 will be distressed. If the wholesaler is the first or second person to call the listing agent after the new listing has hit the market, they will have a clean shot at the deal. If the wholesaler is the 10th caller, the listing agent will already have three or four offers on the table, and the wholesaler's call will not be taken seriously by the agent.

Old Listings Sitting 60+ Days

Second-best Indiana strategy. Properties sitting 60+ days on the Indianapolis or Fort Wayne MLS are tired listings. The seller's expectations have softened. The agent is frustrated. Repairs they didn't want to make are now negotiable. This is where Chloe's deal came from.

Chloe was able to locate distressed Indianapolis real estate by using PropStream to find 60+ day listings. One of those properties sat on the market for six months prior to her making an offer on the property. The listing agent on this property turned out to be the seller's sister. Chloe negotiated the contract price down from the list by $35,000 as a starting point. During the inspection contingency period, Chloe negotiated an additional $15,000 off the price of the property — $50,000 below list total. This is the type of distressed real estate listing that can be located in order to wholesale Indianapolis distressed real estate for significant profits with only hours of MLS work and no marketing dollars.

Keyword Search

Within the MLS search fields there is a keyword search field that is not normally used by beginners. By adding keywords that indicate distress within the MLS search field, the distressed inventory will come to the surface. The following distressed keywords work within the MLS search for properties within the state of Indiana:

• cash only · needs TLC · fixer · investor special · as-is · handyman special · estate sale · probate · trustee sale · foreclosure · pre-foreclosure · bring offers · motivated seller · quick close · relocation · tax sale · bank owned · REO · auction · needs work

Save the search. Run it daily. The Indianapolis and Fort Wayne MLS feeds will surface 5 to 15 properties with at least one of these keywords every week.

Coming Soon Listings

The MLS has another filter most investors are not even aware of: "Coming Soon Listings." These are listings that the listing agent has signed the seller to list, and the agent is in the process of preparing the listing for the MLS. They are marked as "Coming Soon" on the MLS. If you call the listing agent before the property has even hit the MLS, you have a chance to make an offer on the property with almost no competition. One of our students did this recently and closed a $100,000 wholesale fee on the deal.

While there are 100-200 properties listed as "Coming Soon" on the Indianapolis MLS at any time, not all of them will be distressed listings that you're looking to wholesale. But every week, two or three of them usually are.

The Discovery Call: How To Talk To Indiana Listing Agents

Finding the distressed listings is half the work of wholesaling. The second half is locking up the deal on the phone with the listing agent.

Most wholesalers text agents. Or email them. Or blast generic offers through a tool. None of that works on Indianapolis listing agents — they've seen all of it. The wholesalers actually closing deals here pick up the phone, ask the right questions in the right order, and walk away from the call with enough information to write a calculated offer that gets accepted.

Five questions that matter most on the first call:

1. Will you represent me as my buyer's agent? Indiana listing agents make double commission if they represent both sides of the transaction. If you don't have a buyer's agent and they agree to represent you, they earn the buyer-side commission they would have lost otherwise. Approximately 80% of Indianapolis listing agents say yes when asked properly. This single move tilts the playing field in your favor.

2. What's the seller's reason for selling? Divorce. Probate. Job relocation. Behind on payments. Inherited property they don't want. Each answer tells you exactly how motivated the seller is. The listing description never gives you this. The agent will.

3. What's the overall condition of the property? Get the agent talking. Let them describe the distress out loud. The listing description gives you a watered-down, overly positive view of the home's condition. The agent on the phone will give you an honest view from top to bottom. The more they tell you about what's wrong with the property, the more leverage you have when you submit your offer below the list price.

4. How's the activity been so far — offers, calls, showings? Are you the first call or the tenth? Are existing offers from homeowners or investors? Are any offers planned to come in this week? This question gives you your competitive position in 60 seconds.

5. What price do I have to come in at today to get under contract? Ask it directly. Then be silent. Indianapolis listing agents will often give you a number that's lower than the list price — sometimes significantly lower — if they trust you'll actually close.

The full 15-part discovery call methodology is its own discipline. The video below walks through every question, the exact phrasing, and how to handle the responses that come back. The downloadable script gives you the same questions in a printable format you can keep next to the phone.

The 15-Hour-Per-Week System For Closing Indiana Deals From A Full-Time Job

Indianapolis listing agents upload new distressed properties to the MLS every single day. The wholesalers actually closing deals here call those agents the same morning a property hits. In this full 2026 master class I walk through the Day Zero strategy, the keyword searches that surface distressed Indiana listings, the dual-commission move that gets your offer accepted over the competition, and the part-time schedule that lets you run this without leaving your day job. The same system Chloe used to close her first Indianapolis deal from Reno, Nevada.

 

The Discovery Call Script That Gets Indiana Listing Agents To Work With You

Indianapolis and Fort Wayne listing agents are professional. They're experienced. They're on the phone with investors all week. The ones who get their offers accepted aren't the ones with the lowest price. They're the ones who sound like a principal buyer on the first call — extracting seller motivation, qualifying distressed leads, and securing the listing agent as their buyer's representative. This free script gives you the exact questions to ask on every Indiana MLS discovery call, the framework behind why those questions work, and the technical answers you need before you submit your offer.

Download Your Free Discovery Call Script Here

Off-Market Channels (Direct-To-Homeowner)

Although most property transactions in Indiana are conducted through the MLS, off-market channels close real deals too — especially in Marion County, where probate filings and tax-delinquent lists are publicly accessible online. The cost is more time and more compliance discipline.

The Indiana off-market channels that actually produce:

• Marion County Probate Court Filings: Publicly searchable online. New filings every week. In many cases, heirs are looking to sell properties inherited within Indianapolis in a quick cash transaction in order to avoid the difficulties of renovation or the hassle of trying to coordinate with other beneficiaries.
• Marion County Tax-Delinquent Lists: This list of public records details properties for which the owner is delinquent on their Indianapolis property taxes. Many of these distressed sellers are motivated to sell their homes at a discount price in order to prevent their homes from going to the sheriff's sale.
• Driving For Dollars In Indianapolis: Drive the distressed-heavy zips 46201, 46218, 46226, and reach out to the owners of properties that have boarded-up windows, overgrown lawns, and code violation notices on their doors. With a simple pull of public records, you can find the owner of distressed properties in Indianapolis and send them a letter or make a call with appropriate HB 1068 disclosure language.
• Absentee Owner Lists: Indianapolis properties owned by out-of-state addresses. Many are tired landlords. PropStream and DealMachine both pull these lists for Indiana metros.
• Indianapolis Sheriff Sale Lists: Marion County publishes upcoming sheriff sales weekly. Contact the property owner before the sale — some are motivated enough to sell before losing the property entirely.

Every single off-market solicitation needs HB 1068 disclosure language. Every mailer. Every postcard. Every text. Every voicemail script. No exceptions. That's not a recommendation. That's the law.

If you're going to do direct-to-homeowner outreach in Indiana, do it right. Know the script. Know HB 1068 disclosure language by heart. Know what to say when a homeowner picks up. The Cold Calling Script below gives you the openers, the objection-handling, and the disclosure framing that keeps you compliant while still building rapport.

Download Our Free Cold Calling Script

Don't let a lack of words cost you a deal. If you don't know how to talk to Indiana homeowners or real estate agents with confidence, we can help. This resource downloads our complete Wholesaling Cold Calling Script for free — giving you the exact lines to navigate objections, build rapport, and sound like a pro from your very first dial.

6. Put Distressed Properties Under Contract

Before you submit an offer, calculate three things:

• After-Repair Value (ARV)
• Estimated Repair Costs
• Maximum Allowable Offer (MAO)

After-Repair Value (ARV)

ARV is what an Indianapolis or Fort Wayne property will be worth after a Marion County or Allen County flipper has finished the repair work. Not what it's worth today. Not what the seller thinks it's worth. The future value, post-rehab.

3-5 comparable sales. Within a half mile of the subject. Same number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Approximately the same square footage. Sold within the last 90 days. Renovated to the current market standards. That is how you arrive at a defensible value for an Indianapolis property. Skip any of those filters and your number drifts — usually upward, which is the worst direction for a wholesaler to drift.

An example would be a property currently worth $165,000 with an estimated $50,000 in repairs, which would result in a post-repair value of $215,000. Comp it against three renovated Indianapolis properties in the same zip that have sold for $210,000-$220,000, and you have a defensible number. Now your buyer has a target to underwrite against. Now you know how much you can safely pay for the property without killing the spread.

Estimating Repair Costs

We have found that the quickest and most accurate way to estimate the repair costs of houses in Indiana is by using a dollar-per-square-foot method, which we have developed and refined by actually gathering a pool of cash buyers in Step 4.

The average Indianapolis house flipper is doing cosmetic work in houses at $35-$45 per square foot. So a 1,200 square foot house would cost $48,000 to repair. But you will have some that need foundation work, some that need new roofs, some that need new HVAC systems, and some that need to be completely rewired for electrical safety. And then there are the houses that only need cosmetic work.

Use the dollar-per-square-foot figures that your three to five Indiana cash buyers from Step 4 use for their cosmetic renovations in their target zip codes. Not the textbook number. Not the YouTube number. Their number. That's the number that matters for your Indiana leads, and that number should form the basis of your offers when you send out your platinum platter email in Step 7. You can call them to ask what that figure is for a cosmetic renovation in the Indianapolis area zip codes where they intend to buy.

Need a deeper estimating method? Our rehab cost estimating guide walks through the line-item approach — useful for unusual properties or when your dollar-per-square-foot number is producing offers your buyers consistently reject.

Wholesale Real Estate Contracts: How To Fill Out (FREE CONTRACTS)!

Your Indiana purchase agreement needs the "and/or assigns" clause, the HB 1068 disclosure embedded in the contract body, and language your title company closing agent can work with cleanly. Ryan Zomorodi, our Co-Founder and COO, walks line-by-line through the purchase agreement and assignment contract so you know exactly what each clause does before you put a distressed Indianapolis or Evansville property under contract.

 

MAO Formula

MAO is your ceiling. The highest price you can offer the seller and still leave room for your buyer's profit and your assignment fee.

The Indianapolis math. ARV: $245,000. Repair costs at $40 per square foot on 1,400 square feet: $56,000. Buyer's profit target (most Indianapolis flippers want 15–20% of ARV): $40,000. Your assignment fee: $12,000. MAO = $245,000 − $56,000 − $40,000 − $12,000 = $137,000.

That's the highest number you can offer the seller. Negotiate lower if the seller is motivated enough. Walk away if the seller won't move below $137,000. The math is the math.

A Realistic Indianapolis ARV/MAO Example

Numbers to internalize before you make your first Indiana offer. The Indianapolis $245,000 median means small ARV errors don't kill you the way they do in California or Boston. But they still hurt. Conservative comps. Conservative repair estimates. Conservative buyer profit assumptions. Indiana rewards the operator who's careful with the math.

Negotiating Indiana Wholesale Deals

Indianapolis sellers aren't just selling a house. They're solving a problem. Divorce. Probate. Job relocation. Behind on payments. Tired landlord. Inherited a property they don't want. Your offer is the answer to that problem — speed, certainty, no repairs, no showings, no contingencies you can't honor.

What works on Indianapolis and Fort Wayne sellers:

• Listen before you pitch: Let the seller tell their story. Probate often involves multiple family members. Divorce comes with a timeline. Foreclosure has a clock. The story tells you what to emphasize in your offer.
• Lead with the benefit, not the number: "I can close in 14 days through an Indianapolis title company and you walk away with cash" lands differently than "$125,000."
• Offer "as-is": Most distressed Indiana sellers don't want to make repairs. Removing that obligation often justifies a lower price all by itself.
• Speed is your real value: Indiana title-company closings can happen in 14 days. Most retail Indianapolis buyers can't move that fast. That speed is what you're trading for the discount.

Indiana Wholesale Contracts: Protect Yourself

Don't use generic contracts you found on the internet. Indiana has specific language requirements — HB 1068 disclosure, "and/or assigns" clause, title company designation — that most national templates skip entirely.

Get your contracts reviewed by an Indiana real estate attorney before you use them. One review covers every Indiana deal you'll write that year. Cheaper than losing one assignment fee to a contract dispute.

7. Assign Contracts To Cash Buyers

Assignment is pretty easy to understand. The purchase agreement you write up includes language like "and/or assigns" which allows the buyer to assign the contract to another party. The Assignment Contract that the buyer signs includes the amount of the assignment fee that the buyer agrees to pay to you. The title company then processes both the purchase agreement and the Assignment Contract and closes both of them on a single settlement statement. You get your fee for having assigned the contract.

Assigning contracts to cash buyers is the easy part. Getting them to read the emails that you send is harder. The reason that most wholesalers have problems assigning contracts is buyer outreach. They send vague emails. They write up a contract and then send an email with a "great deal" but forget to include the property address. The worst scenario is when the wholesaler has a huge list of buyers gathered from different sources, and instead of sending the deal to the 3-5 buyers in that particular zip code that actually buy properties in that area, they send the email to 50-60 different people on their list. When that happens, the flipper in Indianapolis that buys properties in 46201 doesn't care about a deal in Fort Wayne. They don't want to read about it — and the worst thing is that by sending it to them, you teach them to not even read the emails from that wholesaler.

The Platinum Platter Email

The platinum platter email is what separates wholesalers who close deals from wholesalers who tie up contracts and watch them die. Eight elements. Send them all in one email. Every time.

1. The big three numbers in the first line: ARV, repair estimate, your purchase price. Your buyer can decide in 10 seconds whether to keep reading.
2. Subject property address: Full Indianapolis or Fort Wayne address, not "great Marion County deal."
3. Property photos: Exterior, kitchen, baths, anything distressed. Pull what's on the MLS plus anything the listing agent sent you.
4. Showing instructions: When the buyer can walk the property. Lockbox code or listing-agent contact.
5. Three to five Indianapolis-area sold comps: Within a half-mile, renovated, closed in the last 90 days. These are what justify your ARV.
6. Contract deadlines: Your inspection contingency expires when. Your closing date. The window your buyer has to commit.
7. HB 1068-compliant marketing framing: You're marketing your assignable purchase contract, not the property itself. Language matters in Indiana.
8. Non-refundable deposit ask: Lock the buyer with skin in the game. $1,000 to $2,500 typical. Goes to your title company or directly to you.

That's it. One email. All eight elements. Sent to your three to five quality Indiana buyers the same day the contract gets signed. The flipper who buys your deal will respond in hours. The ones who don't buy your deal will still appreciate the format because every other wholesaler is sending them garbage.

Indiana Virtual Assignment

Assignments for Indianapolis title companies can be completed virtually. Chloe ran her entire Indianapolis deal from Reno, Nevada. Using PropStream for deal finding, e-signatures for contracts, Craigslist for buyer outreach, and an Indiana title company for closing, she completed the entire deal from start to finish without ever stepping foot in the state of Indiana.

Here are the tools for virtual wholesaling of houses in Indiana. A virtual closing in Indiana can be completed with the use of DocuSign for signing of the contracts. Walkthroughs of the properties can be completed with the use of tools like Zoom or Loom. A virtual tour of the property can be completed by having a local contact film the property. Once all of the above steps have been completed, an Indianapolis title company will complete the rest of the closing process. They do not care where you are. All they care about is that the documents are complete and that funds have been wired to complete the closing of the transaction.

8. Close Deals And Collect Assignment Fee

What happens at closing in a title company state like Indiana? For starters, the title company will do a title search to confirm that the seller is able to sell the property and that there are no outstanding liens, judgments or claims against the property. After that, they will prepare a Closing Disclosure that outlines all of the transaction details including the seller's payoff, the buyer's purchase price, the assignor's assignment fee, prorations, title insurance, recording fees, etc. Next, the title company will coordinate the signing of the documents with all 3 parties (seller, assignor, assignee) and accept the funds from the buyer. Then, they will disburse the seller's net proceeds and the assignor's assignment fee and record the deed with the proper Indiana county where the property is located (Marion County for an Indianapolis deal, Allen County for Fort Wayne, and so on).

Your assignment fee will be listed on the settlement statement of your closing, i.e. "Assignment fee — [Your Name] / [Your LLC] — $12,000." Documented. Recorded. Verifiable. This proof of your wholesale transactions is what will be requested by banks and other lenders as you are starting to build your track record of closed deals.

The funds are wired to your account the same day that the deal closes, often within an hour of the recording of the deed. The title company will provide you with a wire confirmation for the payment that has been made. That's it. The deal is done.

What To Do While The Deal Is In Closing

Make sure your buyer completes all their due diligence in time for closing (e.g. deposit of their earnest money, completing an inspection if desired, confirmation of wiring of their funds for closing). Also, keep the title company updated on any questions or issues that arise. You should be able to respond to any issues in a matter of hours to keep the closing moving. Closings in Indiana can move very quickly. Therefore, it is better for all parties to be on the same page and to respond to any issues as soon as possible.

Use your time wisely and start gathering information and MLS lists for your next deal while the first deal is making its way through the title company. Your discovery calls. Your MLS pulls. Your buyer outreach. The more consistent you are at wholesaling, the more deals you can complete on a monthly basis. The wholesalers who consistently close one Indiana deal per month don't wait for the current deal to finish before starting the next one. They overlap.

9. Double Close When Necessary

Double closing is the backup plan. Not the primary strategy. Use it when assignment doesn't work.

The structure: instead of assigning your contract to your buyer, you actually buy the property from the seller (the A-to-B transaction), then immediately resell it to your buyer (the B-to-C transaction). Both closings happen on the same day, often within hours of each other. You briefly hold title. Then your buyer takes ownership.

When to double close in Indiana:

• The seller objects to assignment: Some Indianapolis sellers don't want their contract assigned. Maybe they're suspicious of investors. Maybe their attorney advised against it. Double closing keeps them out of the conversation about your assignment fee.
• The spread is large enough to spook the deal: If you're making $40,000 on a $150,000 contract, the seller seeing that number on the settlement statement might back out. Double closing hides the spread — the seller sees their sale to you, your buyer sees their purchase from you, neither sees what's between.
• Your buyer's lender requires them on title at acquisition: Some hard-money lenders want their borrower on title from day one. Assignment doesn't give them that. A double close does.

The cost: two sets of closing costs. Transactional funding for the hours you hold title. Indiana title companies handle double closings routinely — confirm yours does before you structure the deal.

Double closing is slower, more expensive, and more complex than assignment. Use it when the deal economics justify it. Otherwise default to assignment.

Is Wholesaling Real Estate Legal In Indiana?

You're selling a contractual interest in a purchase agreement. (Not the property itself.) In the eyes of the law, as a wholesaler, you are a principal buyer. You are not acting as a representative of another party in the real estate transaction. You are purchasing a property for your own account and then immediately selling your equitable interest in that property. Settled Indiana law — no real estate license required.

The compliance bar is HB 1068. So long as you properly disclose in every seller solicitation and every contract that you intend to wholesale, then wholesaling real estate in Indiana is perfectly legal. If you fail to properly disclose in one area or the other, then the seller has a two-day right to rescind the contract that you have entered into with them to purchase the property. All of the details regarding the HB 1068 legal compliance for wholesaling real estate in Indiana — including the full HB 1068 statute, wholesaling disclosure form, double closings, IDFI requirements and more — can be found in our dedicated guide.

How Much Do Real Estate Wholesalers Make In Indiana?

Indiana wholesale assignment fees typically range from $8,000 to $20,000, with Indianapolis and Fort Wayne on the upper end of that range. Smaller metros such as Evansville, Gary, and South Bend produce smaller wholesale fees but with less competition as well.

First deals are often small. I don't say that to disappoint anyone, but it's the honest truth that most YouTube videos won't reveal to you.

Chloe's first deal closed for $3,000, and to be honest, it was way smaller than what she had hoped for. However, the experience of closing that first deal — the discovery calls, the negotiation, the contract execution, the title company process — taught her so much more than the actual fee that she received from the deal. Her next deal in Indianapolis would have been worth triple the amount if she had started marketing it earlier. The system she learned from that first deal compounds in value as she continued to put the system to use.

The math that scales Indiana wholesaling. 15 written offers per month equals one closed deal. That's the volume ratio across the thousands of wholesale deals we've coached. So, for instance, if you wanted to get one deal a month in Indianapolis at typical wholesale fees in Indiana, then you'd have to submit a written offer every other business day. We know this can be done as an active wholesaler in the Pro Wholesaler VIP Program while taking on a full-time job, and Chloe is the perfect example as she did her first deal while running at 15 hours per week of real estate, working as a full-time working professional with a full-time day job in place.

Your peers at Pro Wholesaler VIP are currently wholesaling between 1 and 3 deals per month in markets like Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. The inventory in this state is the deepest in the country. The ceiling to your Indiana wholesale income is only your ability to manage more volume.

Do You Need A License To Wholesale In Indiana?

No, wholesalers in Indiana do not need a real estate license. They fall under the principal-buyer exemption in IC 25-34.1-3-2(b)(8). In this capacity, the wholesaler is neither brokering nor representing anyone — they are purchasing property for their own account as their own principal buyer.

A license is not required but may be desirable. Fees for an Indiana real estate license are relatively low and require relatively low study time. An Indiana-licensed real estate agent has the option to receive buyer-side commissions on wholesaled properties where they are representing themselves as a buyer's agent, as well as having access to full Indianapolis MLS (including confidential remarks and agent contact information), which is a key component to executing a Day Zero strategy as outlined in Step 5.

However, as a licensed agent, you will fall under certain disclosure requirements and be subject to the rules of the broker that you work under. Some wholesale real estate agents have said that the benefits of having a license far outweigh the negatives. However, for others, the extra layers of regulation and reporting have been too much to handle.

For more information about obtaining a real estate license in Indiana, including the application and pre-licensing course information, go to the Indiana Real Estate Commission website.

Can A Realtor Wholesale Property In Indiana?

Realtors can wholesale property in Indiana with proper disclosure of license status to sellers and buyers.

Just like an unlicensed wholesaler, a licensed real estate agent can wholesale properties. They write up the same contracts and utilize the same strategies that other real estate wholesalers in the market are using. The HB 1068 disclosure requirements apply to them just the same. But they have the added benefit of having a real estate license in the state of Indiana. This allows them full access to all listings on the local Multiple Listing Service (MLS), they can have their own broker to refer other listings and potential buyers to, and they can earn commissions on the buyer's side of properties.

The only "gotcha" is that you must disclose to sellers that you are a licensed real estate agent. The disclosure is simple. Make it. Document it. Move on. Failure to disclose your status to a seller could result in severe penalties, including suspension of your license, civil penalties, and possible lawsuits against you from sellers who believe you misled them.

Many licensed real estate agents in Indiana, such as in Indianapolis or Fort Wayne, can utilize wholesaling property as a means to supplement their typical real estate income. By functioning as two people in one, such as a listing agent and a cash buyer, the wholesaler can present the seller with two possible means of selling a property: listing the property with the local MLS, or selling the property on a cash basis. Once sellers understand that they can sell their property fast with a cash purchase, many agree to the cash sale with the wholesaler. The agent can make a commission on the typical resale method, and also make an assignment fee when selling the property on cash. This can make for a nice profit for the agent in many real estate transactions.

Get The Same Contracts We Use On Every Indiana Wholesale Deal

In Indiana, your paperwork has to do three things at once: include the "and/or assigns" language that makes the contract legally transferable, carry HB 1068's required disclosure inside the contract body, and arrive at your title company's closing agent clean enough to process without delay. Download our attorney-drafted Wholesale Real Estate Contracts — the Purchase & Sale Agreement and the Assignment Contract — so your first Indianapolis or Fort Wayne deal walks into closing with documents that are already assignable, already disclosure-compliant, and already structured for an Indiana title company to handle.

Is Wholesaling In Indiana Easy?

Wholesaling in Indiana is NOT easy. Anyone telling you "it is" wants to sell you something.

Wholesaling in Indiana is difficult — but harder than the easiest wholesale states without disclosure and compliance laws to follow, and easier than the hardest U.S. states where unlicensed wholesaling has been effectively banned. The state of Indiana has real opportunity, real compliance requirements that must be adhered to, and a real learning curve.

Chloe will tell you that her first deal in Indianapolis did not happen easily. She will tell you about the negotiations that took place during the inspection contingency when her buyer's numbers did not match the numbers in the contract. She will tell you about a time or two when she almost walked away from the deal. But in the end the deal closed, and the next one was easier.

The biggest challenge in wholesaling real estate is consistency. And that is the biggest part of the business. Pulling MLS listings every morning. Making discovery calls every day. Following up with buyers. Running ARV comps. Submitting offers. The math to make wholesaling real estate work is 15 offers per month — that is the minimum number of offers a wholesaler must submit in order to consistently close deals. But the reality is most people do not submit 15 offers per month. That's why most people do not close deals.

What makes it manageable: a system. The 9 steps outlined in this guide. A mentor who has closed deals in the state of Indiana. A buyer's list that is already pre-made for you when you get to the deal. In-depth knowledge of the Indianapolis market lets you recognize a good wholesale deal in a matter of seconds. If you have all of these, then the state of Indiana could be one of the best wholesale markets for you to get involved in. Until then, it is as hard to start as any other new venture. The Pro Wholesaler VIP Program is in place to help you get past your first deal and have your system click into place.

Indiana Wholesaling Expenses

The costs to start wholesaling in Indiana are low, making it an even better real estate investment strategy than most others in this state.

A typical earnest money deposit for a wholesale contract in Indiana is $500 to $1,000. This is lower than in California, for example, because the lower-priced homes in Indiana typically have lower earnest money deposits. The earnest money deposit is refundable during the 10-day inspection contingency period — longer than the 7-day window common in higher-priced states.

MLS access for non-licensed real estate professionals in Indiana: for an assistant-type of role (supporting investors) it is about $75 a quarter through an Indiana broker that allows investor assistants to access MLS. Some brokerages are more, some are less.

Pure MLS-based outreach (Day Zero, Old Listings, Keyword Search) costs almost nothing — just your time. Driving for dollars costs you gas. Direct mail marketing, on the other hand, can cost from $0.50 to $1.50 per piece, depending on the marketing mail that you are sending. To give you an example, pull a list of 500 Indianapolis probate filings, and your total cost for that marketing campaign would be $250 to $750 for the direct mail.

Software: PropStream or DealMachine for off-market leads. Both software programs are around $99 per month. Most Indiana wholesalers run one or the other, not both.

Double closings also cost more — transactional funding fees, two sets of closing costs, additional title company work. $2,000 to $5,000 per deal. If a wholesaler plans on doing double closings on a regular basis, then they should find a title company that regularly does double closings. A wholesaler can then get a straight quote from that title company on what it will cost for a double closing on a deal.

The fee for your first deal will likely be $3,000 to $12,000, depending on the property. The total estimated cost to close your first wholesale deal in Indiana (using an assignment contract as opposed to a double close) would be approximately $500 to $2,000 for your earnest money deposit and the initial outlay of money for marketing. After that, your Indiana wholesaling efforts should become self-funding as the assignment fee from the first property should more than cover your costs and provide you with a return on your investment.

Wholesaling In Indiana FAQs

The questions Indiana wholesalers actually ask before their first deal.

Final Thoughts On Wholesaling In Indiana

Indiana is currently one of the best wholesale markets in the country right now. That's not marketing fluff. The ATTOM Q1 2026 foreclosure data supports this along with the Indianapolis and Fort Wayne deal economics and how the Indiana title-company closing infrastructure is set up to handle these wholesale deals.

Indiana is a great place to wholesale right now because the opportunity is real and the compliance bar is high. So long as HB 1068 is around, wholesaling will continue to be a viable way to make money in Indiana, as long as wholesalers treat the disclosure required by the bill as a feature of their business and build it into every mailer, postcard, text, and contract that they send out. Wholesalers who try to work around HB 1068 will lose contracts at the rescission stage and burn through the Indianapolis listing-agent network in a matter of months.

Indianapolis is a great market to start wholesaling in. Fort Wayne is a close second. These markets have affordable price points, high foreclosure inventory, fast title companies, and a very accessible and active network of local investors. Everything that needs to be working in a wholesale market is working in Indiana right now.

Your next move is to start looking for a deal to wholesale. The motivated Indianapolis seller is already sitting in the MLS this morning. Pull the listings. Call the listing agent. Run the math. Submit the offer. The first deal won't be perfect. Chloe's wasn't. Mine wasn't. Nobody's first deal is. But it'll be done. And the second one will be easier than the first.

About the Author

Alex Martinez

Founder & CEO, Real Estate Skills

Alex Martinez is a full-time real estate investor, educator, and the Founder & CEO of Real Estate Skills. Over his career, he has personally acquired more than 33 residential investment properties, generated over $12 million in revenue, and co-led firms responsible for more than $15 million in total real estate sales. Since 2020, he has built Real Estate Skills into one of the leading educational platforms for new and experienced investors alike — including students closing wholesale deals across Indiana from inside and outside the state. He also serves as a mentor at the Lavin Entrepreneurship Center at San Diego State University, where he coaches undergraduate students in real-world business strategy.

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*Disclosure: Real Estate Skills is not a law firm, and the information contained here does not constitute legal advice. You should consult with an Indiana real estate attorney before making any legal conclusions about HB 1068 compliance, IC 25-34.1-3-2(b)(8) principal-buyer status, or wholesale contract language. The information presented here is educational in nature. All investments involve risks, and the past performance of an investment, industry, sector, and/or market does not guarantee future returns or results. Investors are responsible for any investment decision they make. Such decisions should be based on an evaluation of their financial situation, investment objectives, risk tolerance, and liquidity needs.