How my cash offer works, start to finish

You send me an address. Fairly soon after that you want a number, and before you say yes to anything you want to know where the number came from. Most of what is written about cash offers is a pitch or a warning. This is the sequence and the arithmetic.

I am a licensed Florida broker. I buy in Hillsborough and Pinellas for my own account, and I also list. If listing is the better answer, I will say so.

What happens after you send the address

First I look it up. The property appraiser gives me year built, square footage, block or frame and sales history; the Clerk of Court’s records show what is recorded against it and how title is held.

Then I ask a few questions. How old is the roof. Does anything leak. Is it occupied, vacant or tenanted. How full is it. Is anyone else on the deed.

With that I can usually give you a range the same day or the next. To make it firm I want to walk the house, though photographs are sometimes enough: a figure given blind stays conservative, so seeing it usually moves the number up.

You do not clean or fix anything for that visit. I ran a crime scene cleanup company for the better part of two decades: a full house is a logistics problem to me, not a shock.

How I get to the number

No algorithm. Four figures and a subtraction.

What it is worth repaired. Closed sales of comparable houses nearby, not asking prices, adjusted for size, age, lot and location. Same street beats same zip code.

What it costs to get it there. Roof, air handler, panel, plumbing, floors, kitchen, permits to pull and close, and the clean-out — labor, dumpsters and days, not a rounding error.

What it costs to hold it. Taxes, insurance, utilities and dues through the months of work and the months it sits for sale.

What is left is the margin. A cash buyer carries the risk that the roof is worse than it looked, that a permit takes three months, that the market cools. That risk has a price and it comes out of your number.

So a cash offer is below retail, from every cash buyer. What the difference buys is certainty and speed.

What a cash sale does not cost you, and what a listing does

Compare the net, not the headline. What a listing advertises is not what lands in your account.

Commission. If I buy, there is no listing and no commission to me. Brokerage fees are fully negotiable and not set by law, and since 17 August 2024 an offer of compensation cannot be published on the MLS.
Repairs and concessions. A retail buyer inspects, then asks. Roof, wind mitigation, a water heater. That comes off the price or out of your proceeds. I do not ask afterwards, because condition is in the number.
Clean-out and staging. Take what you want and leave the rest.
Carrying cost. Every month listed is another month of taxes, insurance, utilities and the mortgage. Florida property taxes carry a 4 percent discount in November, falling a point a month until it is gone in March.

Who pays which closing cost is a contract term, not a law. Custom in Hillsborough and Pinellas is that the seller pays for the owner’s title policy and the deed’s documentary stamp tax, 70 cents per $100 of price. Ask any cash buyer to put in writing which of those they cover.

The paperwork and the closing

In Florida this is almost always the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar “AS IS” Residential Contract for Sale and Purchase — a standard statewide form, not a document written by the buyer.

Cash means no financing contingency. Paragraph 8(a) is checked: no loan to fall through, no appraisal to come in low.
The escrow deposit goes to the closing agent within 3 days after the Effective Date, if that blank is left empty. That is the buyer’s money at risk.
The inspection period lets the buyer inspect and cancel at their sole discretion, deposit returned — 15 days if the blank is left empty. A long one is a buyer keeping options open at your expense. Shortening it by agreement is what makes a fast closing possible.

Closing is at a title company or a real estate attorney’s office. They search the Hillsborough or Pinellas Clerk’s records through the chain of title — mortgages, judgments, liens, easements, gaps where an owner died and nobody probated the estate — then order payoffs. A separate municipal lien search catches the rest: St. Petersburg runs its own lien search at $55 a parcel, returned in three business days, and the City of Tampa runs its own. Then taxes are prorated, you sign, and the deed is recorded.

A clean title search commonly runs five to fourteen business days, and a Florida title firm puts a typical cash closing at ten to twenty-one days. I do not promise a date, because the title company controls that clock. I will tell you the day I know something has slipped.

What slows a closing down

Title defects and liens. A mortgage paid off in 1998 and never released. A name spelled three ways. An old judgment. Liens are paid from the proceeds, not your pocket, but every payoff has to come in first.
Probate. A personal representative needs Letters of Administration before selling, and formal administration includes a three-month creditor claim period. The Florida Bar puts even a simple estate at five or six months. See an inherited house in Hillsborough County.
Tenants and HOAs. A lease does not vanish because the house sold; the contract requires the seller to disclose it, deliver copies within 5 days and provide a tenant estoppel letter before closing. An association has 10 business days to issue its estoppel certificate.
Open permits. Florida law lets a building department close a permit six years after issuance where it finds no safety hazard, and bars penalizing an arm’s-length purchaser for one a previous owner left open.

Two routes, priced both ways

Sell it as it stands, for cash. No commission, no repairs, no clean-out, no showings, a closing measured in weeks. The price reflects all of that.

Clear it, fix what matters, list it. A higher headline price, then commission, concessions, repairs and two to four more months of carrying it. Sometimes that nets considerably more. Sometimes it nets nearly the same figure, four months later.

I will tell you to list when the house is close to lendable, the title is clean and you can wait. I will say the opposite when it needs a roof or you cannot carry it while it sits. A Florida insurer may refuse a policy on roof age alone once a roof is at least 15 years old, unless an inspection shows five or more years of useful life left, and a buyer who cannot insure a house cannot close on it. Flood history does the same: see a flood-damaged house in Tampa Bay. If the answer is neither, I will say hold it or rent it.

What I need from you

Send me the address, roughly what condition it is in, who is on the deed, anything owed, and when you want to be done. If the timing is six months out, that is fine. Knowing the number now is worth something on its own.

Use the offer form or call me at 813-482-2215. Nearby: selling fast in Tampa, selling as-is in St. Petersburg.

Common questions

Do I have to clean it out?

No. Take the papers, the photographs, anything with a name on it, and leave the rest. Clearing it is priced into the offer. See selling a hoarder house in Florida.

What if there is still a mortgage?

Normal. The title company orders a payoff and the lender is paid from the proceeds. You get what is left. The same goes for liens, code fines and back taxes.

How fast can you actually close?

A clean cash file here commonly closes in ten to twenty-one days. Probate, a defect in the chain or a tenant pushes it out. Anyone guaranteeing a date before the title search is back is guessing.

Do I pay you anything?

Not when I am buying. There is no listing and no commission. The costs customarily the seller’s are a contract term, so ask which ones I cover and get it in writing.

This page is general information, not legal or tax advice. Contract terms, title requirements and probate authority depend on your facts, so have a Florida real estate attorney review anything before you sign.