Cash Offer vs. Listing: The Honest Math

Every “we buy houses” company says they’re different. Here’s our version of different: we’ll show you the math for listing your house, too — the real costs, the real timeline — and for a lot of the homeowners who call us, that math says list it. We’d rather lose a purchase than have you find out later that we let you leave money on the table. So this page is the whole honest comparison, with every number sourced: what a listed sale actually costs and nets, what a cash sale actually costs and nets, and a plain-English rule for choosing between them.

What listing actually costs

The sticker number on a listing is the sale price. The number that matters is what’s left, and the gap is bigger than most sellers expect. The all-in cost of selling the traditional way commonly runs 10–15% of the sale price once you count commissions, closing costs, repairs, staging, and buyer concessions — $40,000–$60,000 on a $400,000 home, per Freddie Mac–sourced figures.^[2] The pieces:

• Agent commissions. Total average commission in 2026 runs about 5.70% of the sale price — roughly $22,800 on a $400,000 sale — and NAR emphasizes commissions are fully negotiable.^[2] Even after the 2024 NAR settlement changed the rules, buyer-side commissions rebounded to an average 2.43% by Q2 2025 — above the 2.38% level of Q1 2024 when the settlement was announced, after bottoming at 2.36% in Q3 2024 — and they average 2.52% on homes under $500K, the band most Florida sellers are in.^[3]
• Seller closing costs. Florida seller closing costs typically total 6.25–9% of the sale price on a traditional sale — about $25,818–$37,179 on a $413,100 home — with commission the largest component.^[4] Inside that: Florida’s documentary stamp tax of $0.70 per $100 of price statewide outside Miami-Dade, owner’s title insurance around 0.5–1%, title search $150–$500, municipal lien search $100–$125, settlement fee $750–$975, and HOA estoppel $100–$500 where applicable.^[4]
• Getting the house to market. Staging commonly runs $600–$2,800+, photography $100–$500, and a pre-sale inspection $300–$400.^[2] Then come whatever repairs the buyer’s inspection negotiates.
• Time. Jacksonville homes averaged 54 days on market as of May 2026, selling at 97.84% of list price — and 57.93% of listings took a price cut first, up from 54.9% a year earlier.^[1] Add a financed buyer’s typical 30–45-day closing and a listed sale runs roughly three months end to end.^[1] Those months aren’t free: Florida’s average home insurance alone is about $8,292 a year — roughly $690 a month — before taxes, utilities, and upkeep.^[5]

What a cash sale actually costs

One honest sentence covers it: a cash buyer’s price is below full market value — that discount is the cost. In exchange, the deduction column mostly empties: no commission, no repairs, no staging, no make-ready, typical seller closing costs covered by us, and a closing in as little as 1–3 weeks^[1] instead of a quarter of a year. The offer number and the net number are, for practical purposes, the same number. We publish exactly how we get to ours — market value, minus real repair costs, minus our margin — on How We Calculate Your Offer.

Worth distinguishing: local direct buyers and the national “iBuyers” are not the same animal. iBuyer service fees have ranged from about 5% up to 14%, with typical iBuyer offers averaging about 86% of market value in early 2022 — and the model never recovered its 2021 peak after Zillow shut down its buying arm in November 2021.^[6] A fee on top of a discount is the fee stack we compete against — we charge no fee at all; our margin is simply in the price, stated up front.

The side-by-side: a worked example

Numbers beat adjectives, so here is a worked example using Jacksonville’s median-priced home — about $305,000 as of May 2026.^[1] The listing column uses the sourced averages above; the cash column is how our purchases are structured. This is an illustration, not an offer — your numbers depend on your house, and we’ll happily run this exact table for your property.

Read that table honestly and you’ll see why we tell many callers to list: for a market-ready house with time to sell, the listed net usually wins on raw dollars. Our offer earns its place when the deduction column is bigger and meaner than average — major repairs, insurability problems, tenants, liens, probate, a foreclosure clock — or when three months of showings and uncertainty carry a real cost the table can’t capture.

Choose listing if…

• The house is in good, financeable condition — roof, plumbing, and electrical will pass a buyer’s insurer — and shows well.
• You can wait out roughly three months^[1] and absorb the carrying costs without strain.
• Maximum gross price matters more to you than certainty of closing.
• You’re comfortable with showings, negotiations, and an inspection-repair round.

Choose a cash sale if…

• The house needs work that would fail a 4-point inspection or scare financed buyers — see our repairs guide.
• There’s a clock running: foreclosure, a decree deadline, a job start, an estate that needs closing.
• The property is tenant-occupied or mid-eviction — see the landlord guide.
• Certainty and privacy are worth more to you than the last dollar — no sign, no showings, no strangers.

Context for the road you’d be joining either way: 34.0% of Jacksonville home purchases were all-cash as of March 2026 (against 28.8% nationally),^[7] and investors bought 18% of Jacksonville homes sold in Q1 2026^[8] — the cash lane here is busy and legitimate, and so is the listed lane. Two good roads; different tolls.

How to actually decide

Get both numbers for your house. Have an agent run a realistic net sheet for a listed sale — price, minus the full cost stack above, minus carrying costs for a realistic timeline. Then get our written offer, which costs nothing and expires quietly if you ignore it. Put the two side by side the way this page does, subtract honestly, and factor in what your time, certainty, and privacy are worth. If the listed net wins by more than those are worth to you, list — genuinely. Our compare page and The Money Stacks break the same decision down from other angles.

A note from Chris: I’m Chris Moore, and I’m not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. It’s general information my team researched from the official sources cited on this page, and laws and timelines change. For help with a specific legal matter you should talk to a licensed attorney. Need a good one? Reach out to me here and I’ll gladly share my references.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a cash offer always lower than what I’d get listing?

The contract price is lower — that’s the honest cost of speed, certainty, and as-is. The net gap is smaller than it looks once commissions (avg. ~5.70%^[2]), Florida closing costs (typically 6.25–9%^[4]), repairs, and roughly three months of carrying costs come out of a listed price. For rough-condition or deadline situations, the cash net can win outright.

How long does a listed sale take in Jacksonville right now?

As of May 2026, Jacksonville homes averaged 54 days on market and sold at 97.84% of list price, with 57.93% of listings taking a price cut first; adding a financed buyer’s 30–45-day closing makes a typical listed sale roughly three months end to end.^[1] A cash sale can close in 1–3 weeks.^[1]

Are you an iBuyer? Do you charge fees?

No and no. iBuyers charged service fees ranging from about 5% to 14% on top of below-market offers, and the model collapsed after 2021.^[6] We charge no fee: our margin is in the price, stated plainly, and our offer formula is public.

Will you really tell me to list instead?

Yes, and we regularly do. If your house is market-ready and your timeline is flexible, the listed net usually wins and we’ll say so in writing. We’d rather be the company you trust next time than the one that talked you out of money.

What should I have in hand before deciding?

Two documents: a realistic net sheet for a listed sale from an agent (price minus the full cost stack and carrying costs), and a written cash offer. With both on the table, the decision is arithmetic plus what your time and certainty are worth — and either answer can be right.