A cash offer is always lower than your list price. The honest question is whether it's lower than your net — so here's the line-by-line math most comparisons skip.
Published · MarKey Home Buyers
If you've gotten a cash offer and compared it to what Zillow says your house is worth, the cash offer probably looked bad. That's the wrong comparison. Nobody walks away from a closing table with the list price — they walk away with what's left after commissions, closing costs, repairs, concessions, and months of carrying the house. Here's how the two paths actually compare for a Georgia seller, with every assumption on the table.
Agent commissions. The 2024 NAR settlement changed how commissions are negotiated, and every rate is negotiable — but many sellers still end up paying both the listing agent and the buyer's agent. For this example we'll assume a 5.5% total commission; on a $300,000 sale, that's $16,500. Ask your agent for your actual number.
Seller closing costs. Georgia closings run through an attorney, and sellers typically cover their side of attorney and title fees, plus the state transfer tax ($1 for the first $1,000 of price and 10 cents for each additional $100, or about $1 per $1,000). For this example we'll budget roughly 1% all-in — about $3,000 on that same $300,000 sale.
Getting the house market-ready. This is the wild card. A house in good shape might need paint, landscaping, and a deep clean. A dated or damaged house can need five figures of work before an agent will even photograph it — and financed buyers' inspections often claw back more in repair credits after you're under contract.
Time. A listed house has to find a buyer first, which can take weeks or months depending on the county, price point and condition, and a financed buyer then needs time for the appraisal and loan to close. For this example we'll assume three to four months from listing to closing — during which the mortgage, property taxes, insurance, and utilities all keep running. If your payment is $1,800 a month, that's $5,400–$7,200 in carrying costs, more if the sale falls through once and restarts the clock.
Say your house would list at $300,000 in decent-but-dated condition. An illustrative listing path: accept an offer around 98% of list ($294,000), pay about $16,500 in commissions, $3,000 in closing costs, $8,000 in pre-listing work and inspection credits, and $6,000 in carrying costs over three-plus months. Net: roughly $260,000, about four months from today — if the appraisal comes in and the buyer's financing holds.
The same house might draw a cash offer in the $250,000–$265,000 range depending on condition. No commission, no repairs, no cleanout, buyer covers typical closing costs, and the sale closes through a Georgia closing attorney in as little as two weeks. The gap between the two paths is real money — but it's usually far smaller than the $50,000 it looked like at first glance, and sometimes it disappears entirely.
We'll say it plainly: if your house is in good condition, you're not in a hurry, and you can comfortably float the carrying costs, listing with a good agent will usually net you more. That's the honest answer, and any cash buyer who tells you otherwise is selling, not advising.
The math flips when the house needs real work, when you're carrying two payments, when a foreclosure date or estate deadline is on the calendar, or when the house holds equity you could lose by waiting. Repairs and months of holding costs come out of your pocket before a listed sale ever closes — a cash sale trades some gross price for zero of those costs and near-certainty of closing. For estate properties, there's a reason executors so often choose this route; we cover it in Selling an Estate House As-Is.
Don't decide on theory — run your own numbers. Get a real cash offer in writing (ours are free and firm), then ask an agent for a net sheet on the listing side: likely sale price minus commission, closing costs, recommended repairs, and your monthly carrying cost times four. Put the two bottom lines next to each other and the right answer is usually obvious.
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Tell us about your house and we'll give you a firm cash number to put next to your agent's net sheet. If listing nets you more, we'll tell you that too.
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