The comparison nobody else publishes
He does both. Here is how to tell which one is right for you.
Most cash buyers will not tell you listing might net more. Most agents will not tell you a fast as-is sale sometimes wins. Chris does both, so both cases are made here, with the arithmetic shown.
The example
One house, three ways to sell it
Take a house in Lafayette Parish that would be worth about $250,000 fixed up, and that needs roughly $18,000 of work to get there: a roof at the end of its life, an air handler, and enough interior work to survive an appraisal.
There are three real things you can do with it. Fix it and list it. List it as-is and accept a smaller buyer pool. Or sell it as-is directly. Here is what each one leaves in your hand.
| Line item | Fix it, then list | List it as-is | Direct offer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sale price or offerRepaired house sells slightly under list; as-is listing reaches a smaller pool | $245,000 | $195,000 | $196,000 |
| Repairs before saleRoof, air handler, interior work to reach an appraisal | -$18,000 | $0 | $0 |
| Commission, assumed 5% totalNegotiable, and not set by law or by any association | -$12,250 | -$9,750 | $0 |
| Seller concessions, assumed 1.5%What buyers in this band commonly ask a seller to cover | -$3,675 | -$2,925 | $0 |
| Holding costs while it sellsNote, insurance, parish taxes and utilities at $1,450 a month | -$5,800 | -$7,250 | -$1,050 |
| Net to seller | $205,275 | $175,075 | $194,950 |
Time from decision to money: about five months for the repaired listing, about six for the as-is listing, about three weeks for the direct offer.
What the table actually says
Fixing it and listing it wins, if you can do it
In this example the repaired listing nets about $10,000 more than the direct offer. That is the honest answer and it is the common answer. If you have the $18,000, the credit to borrow it, or an insurance settlement that covers it, and you can wait about five months, list the house.
Now look at the middle column. That is the same house listed without the repairs, which is what happens when the money is not there. It nets about $20,000 less than the direct offer, because you are paying commission and concessions and five months of holding costs on a house that is competing with the same small pool of buyers a direct sale would have reached anyway.
That middle column is the one almost nobody models before they list. It is also the single most common outcome for a seller who cannot fund repairs, and it is the specific case where a direct sale is genuinely the better financial decision rather than the faster one.
The question is not listing against cash. It is whether you can afford to put the house in the condition a listing needs.
Deciding
Which column are you in
List it
Most sellers- You can fund the repairs
- Cash, equity, a contractor plan, or a claim settlement that covers the work.
- The timeline is yours
- Nothing external is setting the date: no foreclosure calendar, no closing on the next house, no succession pressure.
- The house can be shown
- Empty or cooperative, and presentable enough that photographs help rather than hurt.
- You want the highest number
- And you are willing to accept that it arrives in months rather than weeks, and is not guaranteed.
Sell it directly
A real minority- The repairs are out of reach
- And no financing route on the list gets you there. This is the decisive one.
- Somebody else set the date
- A job that already moved, a succession four heirs want closed, a servicer with a calendar.
- It will not pass a lender
- So a listing reaches only cash buyers anyway, and you would be paying commission for that privilege.
- Certainty is worth more than the gap
- A known number on a known date, against a higher number that might arrive.
The awkward questions
Asked and answered plainly
Why would an agent tell me to take a cash offer?
Because sometimes it nets more. The commission on a listing is only worth having if the listing was the right advice, and a seller who was pushed into four months on the market with a house that could not appraise does not come back and does not refer anybody. The comparison on this page is the argument, and it goes both ways.
Is a cash offer always a lowball?
A direct offer is always below what the repaired house would list for, because it has to cover the repairs, the carrying cost and the risk that the buyer is taking on instead of you. That is not a lowball, it is the trade. A lowball is an offer that is below what the condition and the market justify, and the way to tell the difference is to make somebody show you the arithmetic.
What is the biggest number people forget?
Holding costs. Sellers compare a list price to an offer and leave out the four or five months of note, insurance, parish taxes and utilities they will pay while the listing works. On a house with a mortgage that is frequently five figures, and it comes straight off the listing side of the comparison.
How do I know the offer is fair?
Ask for the after-repair value it is based on, the repair budget it assumes, and the comparable sales behind both. If somebody will not show you those three things, that tells you what you need to know. If they will, you can check the comparables yourself against public records and recent sales on your street.
Can I get both numbers before deciding?
That is the point of doing both. You can have a comparative market analysis for the listing side and a direct offer for the as-is side, from the same conversation, and then decide with two real figures in front of you instead of one.
Both numbers, one conversation
Get the listing figure and the offer
A comparative market analysis for the listing side and a direct as-is number for the other, so you are deciding with two real figures instead of one.
Check the arithmetic
Sources worth reading directly
Every claim on this page can be checked against a public source. These are the ones it rests on.
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Verify a license
Louisiana licenses are public record. Search a license number before you sign anything with any agent, including this one.
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REALTOR® standards
The code of ethics a REALTOR® is bound by, and what the 2024 changes to buyer representation require.
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IRS
The federal rules on capital gains, the primary residence exclusion, depreciation recapture and like-kind exchanges.
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HUD fair housing
What the Fair Housing Act protects, and how to file a complaint if you believe you were treated differently in a housing transaction.
Related
Where to go next
The pages most people read after this one.
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Behind on the mortgage
Forbearance, loss mitigation and free counselling, before selling is on the list.
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Selling a rental
Occupied or empty, and what the recorded lease does to the sale.
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Relocating here
What to settle about insurance and flood before you shortlist an area.
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Resources
How to read the local market, and where the numbers actually come from.
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For agents
Agents run this same arithmetic for clients. Here is what a direct purchase looks like from their side.