Sometimes an offer will come in on a listing of mine that’s significantly lower than the asking price. The buyer’s agent will make sure to note, “It’s ALL CASH!” If people could speak in all caps, that’s how they’d say the “all cash” part.
But the funny thing is, in all but a very few instances, “all cash” doesn’t matter AT ALL to the seller.
These are the few instances:
- Time is of the essence, the house needs to have been sold yesterday, and an all-cash buyer can own the house within a week.
- The house is overpriced and a bank would never appraise it for the price the seller is asking and the buyer is offering.
- One owner wants to stick it to the other owner — “Here, I sold the house for a dollar, here’s your fifty cents, now get out of my life!”
In nine years in real estate, I’ve seen #1 once, but I’ve never seen #’s 2 and 3.
A cash offer does not net anything additional to the seller, so why should they care how the buyer is buying it? Why should the seller let the house go for a song simply because the buyer will have fewer associated costs in purchasing the house?
What’s more, it’s all cash in the end. If the seller is able to receive some proceeds from the sale of their home, it gets deposited in their bank account or they pick up a check for the amount, or they roll it in to the new house they’re buying. It all spends the same.
So forgive me if I don’t get excited the next time I hear that a buyer is paying “ALL CASH”, because it doesn’t matter AT ALL.
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