Complete Guide to Selling a House for Cash
Guaranteed Offer, Selling a Home
Oct 8, 2025
Homeowners often pursue cash sales for various reasons, including tight timelines due to relocation, avoiding showings with young children, or selling properties that require repairs. Some simply value the certainty and speed that cash transactions provide.
You have two main paths: finding and negotiating with investors yourself, or working with a professional who brings multiple competing offers to you. This guide walks you through both options so you can choose the path that protects your interests and maximizes your outcome.
A cash sale means the buyer purchases your home without mortgage financing, paying the full price from their own funds. This eliminates the mortgage approval process, appraisal requirements, and financing contingencies. Typically, these sales happen off-market, without ever listing your home on the traditional market.
Today, around a third of U.S. homes sell for all-cash. Cash buyers include individual investors building rental portfolios, fix-and-flip companies, institutional investors, and iBuyer companies.
The tradeoff with a cash offer is that you may get less for your home than if you listed on the traditional market. Cash offers typically range from 70-95% of the market value. Each cash buyer type has a different motivation and profit model, so offers can vary significantly.
Want to see how much you can get for your home? Get the industry’s top competitive cash offer today.
Ryan Byerly, Director of Sales at Mark Spain Real Estate in Raleigh, explains what drives sellers to choose cash offers: "The pre-market offers are usually requested by sellers who prioritize time or convenience. I need to sell ASAP. I'm facing foreclosure. Those are the times, people. And, convenience is, I have a health issue. I can't have people in my house. Or I have 6 kids, 3 dogs, and 2 cats, and it’s not practical to show the house."
Cash sales work best if you:
Find out if selling as-is makes sense for your home with a free consultation.
If you pursue cash buyers independently, here's the typical process:
Identify active cash buying companies through online searches for "we buy houses", local real estate investment meetings, or neighborhood signs. Research each buyer's reputation, track record, and legitimacy through online reviews, business licenses, and references.
Gather photos, property details (square footage, bed/bath count, lot size), and disclosure of known issues. Most investors conduct walkthroughs or request video tours. The challenge is, you'll repeat this process with each investor you contact.
Contact multiple investors for offers. This could take several weeks of coordinating walkthroughs and waiting for responses. Some companies may be willing to negotiate, while most will present one one take-it-or-leave-it offer.
Analyze net proceeds, not just headline prices. Review the purchase contract for closing costs, hidden fees, contingencies that allow renegotiation, and closing timelines. Watch for red flags like exclusive rights requests, pressure to sign quickly, or unusual fees.
Without professional guidance, you'll navigate complex real estate contracts alone, including understanding legal language, recognizing unfavorable terms, and knowing what's negotiable.
Coordinate with a title company for closing logistics, title search, document preparation, and fund transfer.
The DIY path presents significant challenges:
With Mark Spain Real Estate’s Guaranteed Offer program, we bring the offers to you. We tap our network of vetted cash buyers, who all compete to make the strongest offer for your property. This gets you better offers—sellers typically get 75% to 100% of market value—plus you’ll have professional representation throughout the process.
How it works:
"The thing that’s great about our product as opposed to going to an investor directly is having representation," Byerly emphasizes. "We represent the seller in every one of our transactions. There's somebody protecting them. They're 3x more likely to close an investor transaction if they've got representation. Otherwise, an investor can take advantage."
Our Guaranteed Offer program has been trusted by over 72,000 sellers and has earned more than 13,500 five-star reviews.
Ready to join them? Get your Guaranteed Offer today.
Your agent will walk you through the pros and cons of each cash offer, laying out the net proceeds, pros, and cons. After reviewing cash offers, they’ll present what you might net from a traditional listing, including realistic timelines and any work required. This complete picture enables informed decisions rather than forced choices.
"When all of our offers are in, the client can decide: Is time and convenience my top priority, or would I prefer a higher sale price?" Byerly notes.
If none of the cash offers work, your agent can immediately pivot to a traditional listing. Since we’ve already assessed your home and taken photos, you’ll have a head start.
Before choosing between DIY and professional representation, consider:
Selling your house for cash delivers speed, convenience, and certainty. But your approach determines whether you get a fair price or leave money on the table.
The DIY route requires significant time, exposes you to lowball offers, and misses the competitive bidding that drives up prices. Professional representation through Mark Spain Real Estate's Guaranteed Offer flips this equation: minimal time investment, stronger offers in the face of competition, and expert guidance that protects your interests.
Within days of your property assessment, you review multiple competing cash offers alongside traditional listing options, giving you complete transparency to choose what serves your goals. Whether you prioritize closing in 21 days or netting the highest amount, you make informed decisions with expert support.
Ready to see what your home could bring in competing cash offers? Get started with Guaranteed Offer today.
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