Moving Out of the Bay Area? Sell Your House for Cash

A lot of Bay Area homeowners are leaving, for a lower cost of living, to be near family, for a job, or for retirement somewhere quieter. When you're relocating, the house you're leaving becomes a logistics problem: you can't easily manage showings and repairs from another state, and you may be carrying two housing payments until it sells.

We buy Bay Area homes for cash from people moving away, and we handle the sale remotely. You don't have to fly back for inspections, showings, or closing. Documents are signed electronically, and we coordinate everything with escrow and title.

Why a cash sale fits a relocation

• Speed. Close in 3 to 7 days, so you're not paying for an empty house for months.
• As-is. No coordinating contractors from afar. Leave behind what you don't want; we handle the cleanout.
• Certainty. No buyer financing that can fall through after you've already moved.

How a relocation sale works with us

1. Call or fill out the form. Tell us the address, your move date, and whether you're still living there. A real person on our team answers. 2. We see the house. If you're still local, we walk it with you. If you've already moved, a family member, neighbor, or your agent can let us in, or we use a lockbox. We video the walk-through for you either way. 3. You get a written cash offer within 24 hours. We show you how we got to the number. 4. You pick the closing date. Three to seven days if the move is tomorrow. Thirty, sixty, or ninety days if you'd rather stay until the school year ends or the new place is ready. 5. You sign from wherever you are. Escrow sends documents electronically or through a mobile notary in your new city, and the proceeds are wired to your bank on closing day.

Listing vs. selling for cash when you're moving

Listing is often the right call. If the house is in good shape, you have two or three months before you go, and you can stay in it while it's on the market, a traditional sale will usually put more money in your pocket. We'll tell you that.

A move changes the math in a few ways, though:

• Two housing payments. Once you start paying rent or a mortgage in the new place, every month the old house sits on the market is money out the door: mortgage, property tax, insurance, utilities, and the gardener.
• Repairs and prep from a distance. Buyers in the Bay Area expect a house to be fixed, painted, and staged. Managing contractors from another state is slow and expensive, and inspection repair requests land after you've already left.
• An empty house. A vacant home shows worse, costs more to insure, and needs someone checking on it. Our page on selling a vacant house covers that side of it.
• Deals that fall apart. If a buyer's loan falls through after you've moved, you start over from three states away.

If speed and certainty matter more than squeezing out the last dollar, a cash sale usually wins. If you just need to sell my house fast in the Bay Area and get on with the move, that's exactly what we do.

Taxes to think about before you go

This is not tax advice, and a CPA is worth the call, but two rules come up with almost every relocation we handle:

• The home sale exclusion. If the house was your main home for at least two of the last five years, federal law lets you exclude up to $250,000 of gain from tax, or $500,000 for a married couple filing jointly. If you've already moved out, the clock is still running, so selling sooner can keep you inside that window.
• Prop 19 only helps if you stay in California. Homeowners 55 and older can carry their current property tax base to a replacement home anywhere in California. If you're leaving the state, it doesn't apply, which is one less reason to hold on to the house.

What you can leave behind

Furniture, the garage full of boxes, the old fridge, the paint cans. Take what you want and leave the rest. We handle the cleanout after closing, and you don't need to fix, clean, or stage anything first.

If you're weighing where you're headed, our guide to the cheapest places to live in the Bay Area covers the relative cost picture. If you have already moved, our out-of-state owner page covers fully remote closings. And if your timeline has any flexibility and the home shows well, listing may net more, which we'll tell you honestly. Call or text 415-800-1415, or fill out the short form below. A real local person answers, usually within the hour during the day, and you'll have a cash offer within 24 hours.

Other situations we help with

• Inherited Property
• Probate Sale
• Avoiding Foreclosure
• Any Condition
• Tired Landlord
• Divorce Sale

See every situation we buy in →