Sell My House As-Is in the Bay Area

If you want to sell your house as is in the Bay Area, the condition is almost never the obstacle it feels like. One of the most common things we hear when a seller calls us is some version of "I'm embarrassed to even show you the house." Don't be. We've bought homes in shape that would horrify most realtors. Fire damage. Hoarder situations where you can barely walk through. Foundation problems. Roofs you can see daylight through. Kitchens that haven't been touched since 1973. None of it changes whether we make an offer.

The short version. Selling as is means you make no repairs, no cleanup, and no improvements before closing. We walk the property once, exactly as it sits, price the work ourselves, and hand you a written cash offer, usually within 24 hours. Nothing gets renegotiated afterward, and closing takes 3 to 7 days.

What condition is too rough to sell as is?

Here's a partial list of what we've bought into in the last year:

Houses with significant fire or water damage. Houses with mold. Houses with code violations from the city. Houses with structural settlement and foundation cracks. Houses that haven't had electrical updated since the 60s. Houses with pets and the smell that goes with that. Houses full of belongings. Full attics, full basements, full garages. Houses that have been vacant for years and have squatter or vandalism issues. Houses on dangerous lots, near landslide-prone hillsides, or in flood zones.

If the house is technically standing, we'll usually buy it.

What we don't ask you to do, ever, is clean it up first or fix it. Take what you want to keep. Leave the rest. We handle every bit of cleanout, donation, hauling, and post-sale work. The price reflects the work we'll need to do, but the deal still goes through and you don't lift a finger.

How do you work out an offer on a house that needs work?

We start from what the house would sell for fully repaired and listed on the open market. From there we subtract what the work actually costs and a margin for the risk we're taking and the months we'll carry it. That puts most of our offers somewhere below a fixed-up retail price, and further below when the repair list is long.

The part that matters to you is the order of operations. We do that arithmetic before you see a number, not after. There is no inspection contingency sitting behind our offer, so there's no second conversation where the price quietly drops. The number you accept is the number the title company wires you.

On an older Bay Area home the repair list often runs well into six figures, which is exactly why the arithmetic tends to land closer to a fixed-up listing than sellers expect once commission, repairs, and months of holding costs come out of that listing. 3 things homeowners don't know about selling as-is covers why open-market listings usually do get renegotiated, and what a lender will force even when you refuse to fix anything.

What do you actually net compared with fixing it up first?

There's no single right answer, and it depends on the house. What follows is the structure of the decision rather than a quote for your property.

The third column is the right one for some houses. If yours sits on a desirable lot, or it's dated but structurally sound, a listing can beat what we'd pay, and we'll tell you so. See our full comparison of a cash offer versus a traditional sale.

Do you buy houses that still have people or belongings in them?

Yes, and most of the ones we buy do. Some are packed to the ceiling after forty years in the same family. Some have a tenant who isn't going anywhere. Some have a relative living there who nobody wants to evict.

None of that stops a sale. We buy occupied properties and we buy homes with tenants in place, and we respect existing tenancies rather than asking you to clear anyone out first. If you're a landlord who has had enough, selling a rental with tenants still in it walks through how that works. If you're handling the house from another state, we do those remotely and you never have to fly out.

The belongings are our problem after closing. Take the photo albums and the things that matter. Everything else can stay exactly where it is.

How long does an as-is sale take?

Three to seven days from accepted offer to money in your account, assuming clear title. The walkthrough happens within a day or two of your call, and the written offer usually follows within 24 hours of that. If you need longer, you pick the closing date instead. Estates, tenants, and out-of-state sellers routinely need more room and that's fine.

What happens after I call?

You tell us about the house, and we set a time to walk it. We look at it in whatever state it's in, including the parts you'd rather not show anyone. You get a written cash offer with no obligation. If you take it, we open escrow with a licensed title company, we cover the closing costs, and you choose the date. If you don't take it, that's the end of it and nobody calls you every week.

Call or text 415-800-1415, or fill out the short form below. Whatever shape the house is in today, we've probably seen something like it.

Other situations we help with

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

See every situation we buy in →