Get a cash offer for a house in foreclosure.
Before the auction, before the sheriff's sale, before a judgment. Enter your address and see a real cash number. We close fast enough to pay off the lender.
You got the notice. The clock is running.
In roughly half of US states (Illinois, New York, Florida, Ohio, and others), foreclosure is judicial — a lawsuit, a court calendar, and a hard end date called the sheriff's sale or judicial auction. The other half (California, Texas, Georgia, Arizona, and others) is non-judicial — a trustee's sale on a statutory timeline, no courtroom required. Either way, the date is real and not flexible once it's set. Between the first notice and that sale, there is usually somewhere between 4 months and 15 months depending on the state. Most homeowners who call us are 3 to 8 months in when they reach out.
What most sellers are actually worried about in that window: losing the equity they do have, getting a deficiency judgment that follows them around after the sale, and making a decision under pressure that they wouldn't make otherwise. Selling for cash before the sale — at a real, fair price — solves all three. Selling for cash at a bad price because someone scared you into it does not.
Your stage sets your buyer pool and your offer range.
What a cash buyer actually pays here.
Start with the after-repair value (ARV) — what the house sells for once it's fixed up. A flipper or buy-and-hold buyer works backward from that number. They subtract the cost of repairs, their holding costs for the months they'll own it, their selling costs on the other end, and the margin they need to do the deal at all. The result is roughly 65–75% of ARV in most markets; foreclosure situations tighten that by another 2–4 points because the buyer needs to close faster and may be paying off a lender directly.
On a $300,000 house in Houston, TX that's 3 months into a foreclosure and needs $20k of work, that math usually looks like: $300,000 × 0.70 = $210,000, minus $20,000 of confirmed repairs, equals a cash offer around $190,000. Your offer page on this site shows every one of those lines.
The speed premium is real but smaller than most sellers expect. The bigger line items are the repair reserve and the buyer's required margin. We list both on the offer page and cite the source for each.[1]
Cash vs. listing — here's how long each takes.
Agency over timeline. Close fast enough to pay off the lender before the sale, or slow it down if you need time to sort other things (probate, a move, finding a rental). Both are fine. On a foreclosure clock under 90 days, a listing usually doesn't close in time — you'd want cash or a hybrid strategy.
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 foreclosure.
If you have 6+ months of runway before the sheriff's sale and the house is in decent shape, listing will almost certainly net you more money than cash will. The speed and as-is premium you're trading away on a cash sale is real: on a $300k house, that gap is often $30k–$50k after agent commissions.
If you have significant equity (say 30%+) and no competing life pressure — not relocating, not in probate, not trying to move a tenant — the time spent on a proper listing is probably worth it.
And if the foreclosure was triggered by a fixable cash-flow problem (a short-term income gap, not a structural one), a loan modification or forbearance conversation with the servicer is a better first call than any buyer, cash or otherwise. A HUD-approved housing counselor can help, free of charge.
Cash offer · List with agent · Short sale.
The questions homeowners ask us first.
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