Guides
Worth reading before you sell.
Plain guides on the parts of selling a house that nobody explains properly.
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Selling an inherited house in California: what actually has to happen first
Probate, trusts, Proposition 19 and the property tax bill nobody warns you about. A plain walkthrough of what stands between you and selling a house you have just inherited.
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Which repairs are worth doing before you sell, and which are money you never see again
Kitchens do not pay for themselves. Paint does. A look at what actually moves the number on a Bay Area or Central Valley sale, plus the East Bay compliance items that catch people out at escrow.
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Selling a rental with tenants still in it — what California lets you do
Selling is not a reason to evict. What AB 1482 requires, how local ordinances in Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond go further, and why an occupied sale is often the easier path.
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What it actually costs to sell a house in California
Commission after the 2024 rule changes, city transfer taxes that reach 2.5% in parts of the East Bay, escrow, holding costs and the capital gains exclusion. A line-by-line net sheet.
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What a cash offer actually means (and what it does not)
Cash buyers get talked about in absolutes — always a ripoff, or always the easy way out. Neither is true. Here is the honest arithmetic.
Free worksheet
The California Net SheetWhat your house actually nets you
A five-page worksheet: every line that comes out of a California sale price, the local transfer taxes that never make the six-per-cent version, a worked example, and a blank column to fill in for your own house.
- The seven lines that come out of your sale price
- The city transfer taxes that reach 2.5% in parts of the East Bay
- A worked $700,000 example, netted out to the dollar
- A blank net sheet comparing listing against a cash sale
By topic
Or start from the situation
Each topic gathers the guides, the pages and the questions people ask about one way of ending up needing to sell.
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Selling a house as-is in California
Selling as-is means the buyer takes the house in its current condition. It does not mean selling blind, and it does not mean you stop having obligations.
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Cash offer or list with an agent? The honest comparison
Both routes are legitimate. Which one leaves you better off depends on the house, the timeline, and costs most people forget to count.
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Selling an inherited house in California
Inheriting a house is the most common reason people call us, and it is the situation where the most bad information circulates.
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Behind on your mortgage in California: what your options actually are
People who fall behind usually think they have less time than they do, and then act as though they have more. Both mistakes are expensive.
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Selling a rental with tenants still in it
Landlords who want out usually assume the first job is to get the house empty. It is the single most common misunderstanding we run into.
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Selling a house in the Bay Area and Northern Central Valley
We buy across six counties, and the practical realities of a sale change more between them than most people expect.
Why this exists
Written to be useful, not to rank
Most of what is written about selling a house to a cash buyer is written by cash buyers, and it shows. It is either a sales pitch dressed up as advice, or a warning dressed up as a public service by someone who wants you to list with them instead. Both leave out the arithmetic, because the arithmetic does not always favour whoever is doing the writing.
These guides are our attempt at the version we wish existed when we bought our first house. They cover what the numbers actually look like on both paths, what California law requires of you when a house comes through probate or has tenants in it, how long a foreclosure really takes before the auction, and which repairs are worth doing before a sale and which are money you will never see again.
Where listing with an agent is the better move, we say so. Several of these posts will talk you out of selling to us, which is the point — an offer is only worth anything if you can tell whether it is a good one, and you cannot do that without understanding the alternative. If something here is unclear or you want it applied to your specific house, ask us. We answer questions from people who have no intention of selling to us all the time.
Find out what your house is worth to us.
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