Get a cash offer for a condemned house.
Red-tagged, placarded, or under demo order. Enter the address and see a real cash number. We work with the city; we buy the house anyway.
The city says nobody can live there. You can still sell it.
Condemnation happens when a municipal building or health department determines a structure is unsafe for occupancy. The mechanism is the same in every state: the city or county building department (or a health department in some jurisdictions) issues a placard or unsafe-building order under the locally-adopted property maintenance code (IPMC, ICC, or a state-specific equivalent). The owner has a window to cure the violations or face escalation to demolition.
A condemnation doesn't automatically mean demolition. It means you can't occupy the house until the violations are cured. The underlying violations range widely: severe water or fire damage, collapsed structural elements, gas-line problems, or long-vacant decay. Some are fixable; some aren't economical to fix.
You can sell a condemned house. The buyer takes on the violation record and the remediation plan. Most cities will work with a new owner who has a credible rehab or demo plan. A few require the sale to close inside a demolition timeline, which tightens everything.
Your stage sets your buyer pool and your offer range.
What a cash buyer actually pays here.
A condemned-house offer factors in three lines most offers don't: cure-cost for the violations (highly variable, $20k to $200k+), city-negotiation time (permits, re-inspection cycles, 3–6 months typical), and the risk that the city moves to demolition during the buyer's rehab. The buyer's margin widens to account for all three.
Example: $280,000 projected ARV on a fully restored single-family in Cleveland, OH, $95,000 in confirmed rebuild cost (significant structural plus systems), $15,000 in permit and carrying costs during the cure period. The math lands at $280,000 × 0.60 = $168,000, minus $110,000 combined, for a cash offer around $58,000.
If the house is past saving and the only realistic outcome is demolition plus new-build, the offer is land value (comparable vacant-lot sales in the neighborhood) minus demolition cost ($12,000–$35,000 for a typical single-family teardown). You see both numbers on the offer page.[1]
Cash vs. listing — here's how long each takes.
If a demolition order is active, we close inside the appeal window if the city allows. If there's no demo order, the timeline is ours — 21–45 days. We have experience working with city building departments and county inspectors across the country; often we can extend a cure deadline by showing the city a credible rehab plan.
With work before listing, photos, time on market, and inspection risk. On a tight timeline, a listing usually doesn't close in time — you'd want cash or a hybrid strategy.
When cash is NOT the right move on a condemned house.
If the condemnation is narrow (one violation, fixable for under $15k) and you have the capital and patience to cure it, curing and then listing almost always nets more. The condemnation lifts once the violation is cured and re-inspected; the house sells at near-retail.
If the house has insurance coverage for the cause of the condemnation (fire, burst pipe, covered water event), filing a claim and rebuilding usually beats cash. The insurance payout plus your own rehab spend sells the house at post-rebuild retail.
And if the city has a forgivable-loan rehab program (many municipalities run them, targeting vacant-property cure), that capital may close the gap between condemned and retail without requiring you to sell.
Cash offer · List with agent · Cure the violations.
The questions homeowners ask us first.
See your cash offer.
About a minute. No signup. The math is on the next screen.