Cash for houses. Get a real cash offer today.
See the number online, see how it was calculated, and connect with a vetted local buyer when you're ready. "Cash" does not mean a briefcase. It means the buyer is not borrowing from a bank, which changes how the sale works, how fast it closes, and what the price looks like.
Below is what cash actually is in a real estate context, what it buys you at closing, and why the price is usually below what the same house would fetch on the MLS with a financed buyer.
What cash actually means.
In a home sale, a cash buyer is someone who is not using a mortgage. They have the money already, or they have access to it through private capital. The money does not have to be in a checking account. It can be in:
- A bank account (the most common case)
- A brokerage account (stocks they will sell to fund the deal)
- A self-directed IRA or other retirement account set up to buy real estate
- A line of credit from a private lender or a hard-money fund
- A 1031 exchange intermediary account (money from the sale of another property, parked with a qualified intermediary for tax purposes)
What matters is that no bank will be deciding whether to approve the deal based on your house's appraisal, the buyer's credit score, or any of the other things that can sink a financed purchase.
What proof of funds actually looks like.
A real cash buyer can show you proof that the money exists. Proof of funds (POF for short) is the document that does that. It should be:
- A bank statement, brokerage statement, or bank letter. Not a screenshot. Not a typed-up number.
- Dated within the last 30 days. An older POF is not reliable. Money moves.
- In the name of the actual buyer. If the contract is with "123 Main LLC," the POF should be in that LLC's name, not in a random individual's account.
- For at least the purchase amount. If they are offering $250,000, the POF should show at least $250,000 in available funds. Not net worth. Not assets. Available funds.
A private-lender letter of commitment (where a hard-money lender has agreed to fund the deal) is also acceptable, but it is a half-step removed from cash. The lender still has to approve the specific property and sometimes runs a quick inspection, which adds a few days and a small amount of fall-through risk.
What cash buys you at closing.
The reason people take cash offers is not the word "cash." It is the things cash removes from the transaction.
Speed
A cash close takes seven to fourteen days in most cases. A financed close takes 30 to 60. The difference is the mortgage underwriting process (the bank reviewing the buyer's finances, ordering an appraisal, re-verifying employment, running a final credit check).
Certainty
Roughly 15 to 20 percent of financed home sales fall through before closing, most often because the buyer's loan gets denied or their appraisal comes in low. On a cash deal, neither of those can happen. The deal either closes or it does not, and the reasons for not closing are narrower (title issues, buyer's remorse within the contract's contingency window, fraud).
No appraisal risk
In a financed deal, the bank sends an appraiser to confirm the house is worth what the buyer is paying. If the appraiser says the house is worth less than the contract price, the bank will only lend against the lower number. The buyer either has to bring more cash, walk away, or negotiate a price cut. Cash deals skip this entirely. The cash buyer has their own opinion about what the house is worth, and that is the price.
No financing contingency
The financing contingency is the clause in a standard contract that lets the buyer back out (with their earnest money returned) if they cannot get a loan. Cash deals do not have one, because there is no loan to fall through.
No lender-required repairs
FHA and VA loans have property-condition requirements. If the roof is in bad shape, the peeling paint looks like lead, or the furnace is ancient, the lender will require repairs before closing. The seller usually has to pay for them. Cash deals have no lender, so no lender-required repairs.
As-is in practice
Most cash offers are written as-is (the seller is not doing repairs, and the buyer accepts the property in its current condition). A serious cash buyer has already priced condition into the offer. They may still inspect, but they inspect to confirm what they already expected, not to find surprises that trigger a price cut. (A buyer who uses the inspection to re-trade is a specific red flag; see the vetting page linked below.)
What cash costs you in price.
The math that explains the cash discount is not a secret. It is two separate things stacked together.
The base cash discount on a clean house
Research on matched home sales found that all-cash transactions in normal markets sold for an average 4.9% less than comparable financed sales, with the gap widening in lower-priced segments and after the 2008 financial crisis[1]. That is the baseline. A clean, no-work-needed house sold for cash trades at roughly a low single-digit discount to what it would fetch on the MLS.
Why? Because the seller is getting certainty and speed in exchange. The buyer is pricing those things in.
The investor discount on a house that needs work
If the house needs work, a second discount stacks on top of the first. The cash buyer is also an investor who plans to fix the house and either resell it or rent it. They have to price in:
- The cost of the work. Materials, labor, permits, a contingency for the things they find after they own it.
- Carrying costs during the renovation. Property taxes, insurance, utilities, interest on their capital for the six to twelve months they own it. Mortgage rates have sat in the 6 to 7 percent range through most of 2024 to 2026 [2], which means the cost of holding a property has been high for investors, and that pushes the discount wider.
- Selling costs on the back end. If they are flipping, they pay agent commissions and closing costs when they sell. That comes out of the spread too.
- Their margin. The profit that makes the deal worth doing. If the margin is not there, they do not buy.
Add those together and the number a cash investor can pay for a house that needs work lands in a 65 to 85 percent range of after-repair value (what the fixed-up house will sell for on the MLS), after subtracting repair costs. The "70-percent rule" sits in the middle of that range and is documented in academic work on investor home purchases[3].
ATTOM tracks flip volume and gross ROI by metro every quarter[4]. The gross ROI on a completed flip across most US markets has historically run in the 40 to 60 percent range, which is consistent with a 70-to-75-percent-of-ARV purchase plus meaningful renovation work.
What that looks like in dollars
Pretend a house in a typical US suburb will sell for $300,000 on the MLS after $40,000 of renovation. After-repair value is $300,000. Using a 70-percent rule: 70 percent of $300,000 is $210,000, minus $40,000 of repairs is $170,000. That is the offer a typical flipper would make.
For a house that needs very little work and is in a nice neighborhood, the same exercise produces a much narrower discount. If the house is in clean shape and would list for $300,000 tomorrow with no work, a cash offer might come in at $275,000 to $290,000. The gap is real but small, and it reflects the certainty and speed, not investor renovation math.
So the cash discount is not one number. It is a spread that depends on condition, how much work the buyer has to do, and what the market is doing to mortgage rates. See what a cash buyer will pay for your house, with the math shown.
Why the discount is not the whole story.
The cash price is lower than the MLS price. That is a fact. The question is whether what you get in exchange is worth it for your specific situation.
There is a classic piece of research showing that sellers with a time pressure (a divorce, a job move, a financial hardship) accept meaningfully lower prices than sellers without one[5]. That is not a flaw in the seller's reasoning. It is a real tradeoff. Time has a dollar value. Certainty has a dollar value. Being done with the house has a dollar value. If those values add up to more than the discount, cash is the right call. If they do not, listing is.
A few things the MLS path costs that cash does not:
- Weeks to months of showings. Cleaning every day, leaving the house when strangers walk through, smelling the stranger's cologne after the showing.
- Agent commissions. Typically 5 to 6 percent of the sale price, split between the seller's and buyer's agents. On a $300,000 house that is $15,000 to $18,000, which substantially offsets the cash discount on a clean house.
- Seller closing costs. Title insurance, transfer taxes, attorney fees, prorated property taxes, possibly a home warranty. Adds up to 2 to 3 percent of the sale price in most US counties.
- Repairs the buyer will demand after inspection. Almost every financed deal includes an inspection negotiation. The buyer asks for $5,000 or $10,000 in credits. The seller usually gives some.
- Carrying costs while the house is listed. Mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities, HOA. Every month the house sits on the market is another month of those.
Once you line up the cash discount against the commission savings, the closing cost savings, the no-repairs savings, and the carrying cost savings, the gap between "cash price" and "net proceeds from an MLS sale" often gets smaller than it looked at first. It does not always close, and on a clean house in a hot market it usually stays meaningful. But the MLS number is the gross, not the net.
What does not change in a cash sale.
Some things happen the same way regardless of how the buyer is paying.
Disclosures. Sellers still have to fill out a seller's disclosure form under their state's residential real-property disclosure statute[6]. You have to disclose known material defects. "As-is" means the buyer is not expecting repairs. It does not mean you can hide what you know.
Title work. A title company still pulls the title, checks for liens and clouds, and issues a title insurance policy. This takes a few days whether the buyer is paying cash or not.
Closing costs. You still owe transfer taxes, prorated property taxes, attorney fees, and whatever else your contract assigns to you. Cash does not make those go away; it just skips the lender's costs.
Taxes. If you owe capital gains (because the house is not your primary residence, or because your gain exceeds the Section 121 exclusion amount), you owe them on a cash sale just like an MLS sale. The IRS does not care how the buyer funded it.
The honest summary.
Cash means no lender. That removes the appraisal, the financing contingency, most of the fall-through risk, and most of the calendar. In exchange, the price is below what the house would fetch on the MLS. The gap is usually small on a clean house and meaningful on a house that needs work. Research documents the gap as roughly 5% in baseline all-cash transactions, widening to 20 to 30 percent or more for distressed investor purchases. The range is the range; pretending otherwise is dishonest.
Whether the cash number is the right number for you depends on your situation, not on anyone's sales pitch. A fair range with the math behind it is a better place to start than a number pulled out of thin air.
See your cash offer.
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