Sell it for cash, right now.
Pick your day, skip the repairs, never stage a thing. Here's what that actually costs you, and how to tell which cash offers are real.
You call a cash buyer or an investor, you pick the day you want to be out, and you're done. No repairs. No staging. No stranger walking through your kitchen on a Saturday morning while you sit in your car in your own driveway.
People are a little embarrassed to ask about this one, like it's the option you take when you've failed at the real one. It isn't. Sometimes it's just the right answer.
When I'd actually tell you to do this
When getting it done is worth more to you than getting every dollar. Usually that's one of these:
- You inherited a house three hours away and you're already tired
- Something's moving you on a date you didn't choose
- The place needs work you can't pay for, won't get back, or don't want to babysit
- You're carrying two payments and the second one is eating you
- A sale already blew up on you and you've had enough
You'll get less. Sometimes a lot less. You're paying somebody to take the risk, the repairs and the timeline off your hands, and that isn't free. I'd rather say that up front than have you find it out at the closing table.
The part nobody tells you
Finding a cash buyer isn't the hard part. Cash buyers will find you — they'll find you the week your listing expires, and some of them will find you before that.
The hard part is knowing which ones actually close.
A cash offer is only worth what it funds at. Some of them are written to be renegotiated after the inspection, once you've mentally moved out and started picturing the next place. That's when the number quietly drops and you take it, because what else are you going to do at that point.
Ask them for proof of funds. Watch what happens.
So I take it to more than one buyer. I tell you which ones I'd trust with a closing date. And I tell you what the same house would probably bring on the open market, so the number you're weighing it against is a real one instead of a hopeful one.
If waiting six weeks would put meaningfully more money in your pocket, I'll say so, and I'll say it before you've signed anything. That's a worse outcome for me. It's still the right answer.
If you've already got an offer in hand
Bring it to me before you sign. I'll tell you honestly whether it's good — including if it is, in which case take it and you don't owe me anything. I'd genuinely rather you got a fair number from somebody else than a bad one from me.
If this isn't it
Where I stop. Some of this runs into tax, legal or lending territory. I'll walk you through the options and what each one generally means, and then we bring in your CPA or your attorney before you sign anything. I'm not either of those and I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
Want me to run your actual numbers?
Send me the address and roughly what's going on. I'll tell you what I'd do if it were my house — and if that's nothing, I'll tell you that and we're still good.
Real Broker AZ, LLC · ADRE SA710418000