Cash Offer vs Listing: The Real Math

“Cash offers are below market value” is true — and it’s also only half the equation. The listing price isn’t what you keep either. The honest comparison is net proceeds against net proceeds, and it has more line items than most sellers expect.

What the listing route actually subtracts

Agent commission (roughly 5–6% in the US and Canada, 1–3% plus extras in the UK, similar bands in Australia). Repairs and presentation the agent asks for before photos. Anything the buyer’s inspection or survey turns up — renegotiated off the price late, when you have the least leverage. Every month of mortgage interest, tax, insurance and utilities while you wait: months of holding costs on a slow sale add up fast. Price reductions if the market yawns. And the one nobody budgets for: sales that collapse — financing refused, survey spooked, chain broken — which cost you months and put you back at the start with the same bills running.

What the cash route subtracts

One thing: the discount from retail. No commission, no repairs, no staging, minimal holding costs because weeks aren’t months, and effectively no fall-through risk once proof of funds is verified.

How to run your own numbers

Take a realistic (not hopeful) sale price for your house as-is on the open market. Subtract commission, the repair list, three to six months of holding costs, and a contingency for renegotiation. That’s your realistic listing net. Put the cash offer beside it. On a well-kept house in a hot market, listing usually still wins on money — take that route if time permits. On a house that needs work, in probate, or against a deadline, the gap shrinks dramatically and sometimes inverts. The point isn’t that one answer is right; it’s that you should compare the real numbers, not the headline ones.

Get both numbers, then decide. The offer side takes two minutes and costs nothing: request yours here.