Cash Offer Calculator
The comparison that matters is not offer against list price. It is what you keep, either way.
The cash offer
Listing instead
Repairs to list is the work a retail buyer will expect that a cash buyer taking the property as-is will not.
Assumptions
Cash offer nets
$281,161
83.82% of list, in 14 days
Listing nets
$285,764
After 66 more days of waiting
Close enough that speed decides. $4,603 apart on $285,764 — inside 2%, which is well within the error on a days-on-market guess.
| Cash offer | $285,000 |
|---|---|
| Less closing & carry | − $3,839 |
| Cash net proceeds | $281,161 |
| Expected sale price | $329,800 |
| Commission | − $18,139 |
| Closing & concessions | − $8,245 |
| Repairs to list | − $12,000 |
| Carrying while it sells | − $5,652 |
| Listed net proceeds | $285,764 |
| A fair cash offer here | $289,64985.19% of list — the offer that matches listing |
Estimates only. Days on market, the eventual sale price and what repairs a buyer will demand are all forecasts. Nothing here is a valuation, and it is not legal or tax advice about how to sell a property.
$285,000 against $340,000 is the wrong comparison
A cash offer arrives and it is obviously lower than what the house would list for. On the default scenario it is $55,000 lower, which reads as an easy decision. It is not, because the two numbers are not comparable — one is a price and the other is an asking price with several months and five separate costs standing between it and your bank account.
Net the two paths out and the picture changes completely. The cash offer nets $281,161. Listing nets $285,764. The $55,000 headline gap is really about $4,600 — a little over one and a half percent.
Where the rest of it goes:
- The property does not sell at list. A 3 percent reduction is $10,200 before anything else happens.
- Commission is $18,139 — comfortably the largest single line in the transaction.
- Closing and concessions add another $8,245.
- Repairs to list — the work a retail buyer expects that a cash buyer taking it as-is does not — $12,000.
- Carrying it for 80 days while it sells and closes, $5,652.
So the real question is not whether $285,000 beats $340,000. It is whether $4,600 is worth waiting 66 extra days for — about $70 a day. That is a genuine judgement rather than an obvious one, and it turns on things arithmetic cannot settle: whether you need certainty, whether you can carry the property comfortably, whether a financed buyer might fall through at day 50 and restart the whole clock.
The number worth carrying away is the break-even offer: $289,649, or about 85 percent of list. That is what a cash offer has to reach to genuinely match listing on this property with these costs. An offer above it is a good deal on the arithmetic alone. One below it is asking you to pay for speed — which may still be worth it, but at least you know the price.
Two things this deliberately leaves out. It does not price the certainty premium: a cash sale rarely collapses, a financed one can, and that asymmetry favours cash by more than zero. And it ignores tax entirely — capital gains, depreciation recapture on a rental, or a primary-residence exclusion can each outweigh the difference computed here. Take these figures to an accountant before anything substantial.
If you are on the buying side of this, the maximum allowable offer calculator works the same trade from the other direction.
Methodology
- Cash net = offer − seller closing costs − carrying until it closes.
- Expected sale price = list × (1 − reduction). Listed net = that, less commission, seller closing, concessions, repairs, and carrying across days on market plus the closing period.
- Carrying is prorated from the monthly figure at 30.43 days per month.
- Break-even offer = (listed net + cash carrying) ÷ (1 − cash closing percent) — the offer whose net equals the listed net.
Excluded: income tax of any kind, the risk that a financed buyer falls through, moving and storage, the cost of living somewhere else while it sells, and any iBuyer service fee charged on top of the offer price. If the offer carries a service fee, subtract it from the offer before entering it.
Frequently asked questions
- Are cash offers on houses worth it?
- Sometimes, and the honest way to find out is to compare net proceeds rather than prices. A cash offer is lower, but listing costs commission, seller closing, concessions, whatever repairs a retail buyer demands, and months of carrying the property. Once those are counted the gap is far smaller than the headline difference, and on some properties it closes entirely.
- How much below market do cash buyers offer?
- It varies by buyer and by property condition, but the useful benchmark is not a percentage — it is the break-even this tool computes. That is the offer at which taking cash today nets exactly what listing would net months from now. Compare the offer in front of you against that figure rather than against a rule of thumb.
- What costs does listing have that a cash sale does not?
- Agent commission is the big one. Then seller-side closing, buyer concessions, and repairs a retail buyer will require that a cash buyer taking the property as-is will not. On top of all of it, you carry the property — mortgage, taxes, insurance, utilities — for the whole time it is on the market and under contract.
- How do I value the speed of a cash sale?
- This page reports it directly: the extra proceeds from listing, divided by the extra days it takes. If listing nets $4,600 more but takes 66 additional days, you are being paid about $70 a day to wait. Whether that is worth it depends on what else that time and certainty are worth to you, which is not a question arithmetic can settle.
- Is a cash offer more certain than a financed one?
- Generally yes, and the certainty is part of what you are buying. A financed sale can fall through on appraisal, on underwriting, or on the buyer's own sale. A cash sale usually cannot. This tool does not price that risk, which means it slightly understates the case for cash — a listed sale that collapses at day 50 restarts the clock and the carrying costs.
- Does this account for taxes?
- No. Capital gains treatment, depreciation recapture on a rental, and any primary-residence exclusion all depend on your own position and can be worth more than the difference this page computes. Take the net proceeds figures to an accountant before deciding on anything substantial.
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