Topic
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.
All topics · 3 pages in this topic
The housing stock is the first thing that differs, and it drives everything else. The north county shoreline — Richmond, parts of Vallejo — carries wartime and pre-war cottages with small footprints, original wiring and, frequently, a title question attached to a house held by one family for decades. Central Contra Costa is post-war tract housing reaching its second generation of ownership: original kitchens, single-pane aluminium windows, roofs at the end of their lives. The Central Valley counties are dominated by 1990s and 2000s subdivisions, many of which changed hands during the foreclosure years and have been rented ever since, which is why tenant-occupied sales are so much more common out there.
Local costs vary more sharply than most sellers realise. Several East Bay cities levy their own real property transfer tax on top of the county rate, and in the highest of them the combined charge reaches around 2.5 per cent of the sale price — on a median house that is a five-figure line item that simply does not exist a few miles away. Oakland, Berkeley and Richmond also each run their own rent-control and just-cause ordinances, which is why the same tenanted property is a materially different sale depending on which side of a city boundary it sits.
Then there are the compliance items that surface at escrow rather than at listing. Several cities require a pre-sale inspection, a sewer lateral certification, or proof of water-conserving fixtures before a sale can record, and these are the sort of thing that appears three weeks in and delays a closing nobody thought was at risk. They are all manageable. They are just much easier to manage when you know about them at the start.
What does not vary is the arithmetic underneath. A house in sound condition on a good street generally does better on the open market anywhere in these six counties, and we will say so. Where we are genuinely useful is the property that will not pass an appraisal, the one nobody can get access to, the one three siblings own from three states, and the one with a date on the calendar it has to beat.
Where we buy
Every county we cover
Each county page carries the housing stock, the era it was built in and the problems that actually come up there.
-
Contra Costa County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
Our home county. Post-war tract housing through central county, older stock along the north shoreline, and a lot of long-held family homes changing hands as owners downsize.
18 cities
-
Alameda County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
Dense, varied and old in places — pre-war bungalows and Victorians in the flats, mid-century tract in the south and east. Deferred maintenance and tenant-occupied properties are common here.
14 cities
-
Solano County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
More space and older housing stock than the inner Bay, with a lot of properties that have been rented out for years and show it.
7 cities
-
Santa Clara County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
High values mean the cost of repairs is high too — a house needing work here can be genuinely difficult to list without spending heavily first.
11 cities
-
San Joaquin County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
Central Valley pricing with Bay Area commuters. A lot of inherited property and long-distance owners who would rather not manage a house from three hours away.
7 cities
-
Stanislaus County
East Bay & Northern California · home market
Agricultural county with older housing in the town centres and newer tract on the edges. Vacant and tenant-occupied properties are a large share of what we see.
9 cities
-
Clark County
Nevada
Las Vegas and its suburbs — a market built almost entirely after 1970, and a remarkable share of it in the one twenty-year run either side of 2000. Stucco over frame, tile roofs, slab on grade, and a very large number of houses that changed hands during the crash and have been rentals ever since.
4 cities
-
Washoe County
Nevada
Reno, Sparks and the north valleys. A genuine four-season market with real roof loads and real freeze risk, which makes it behave more like Sacramento than Las Vegas — and a housing stock running from pre-war brick near the river to subdivisions still being finished on the edges.
2 cities
-
Los Angeles County
Southern California
The oldest and most varied housing stock of anywhere we work — pre-war bungalows, post-war tract at enormous scale across the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys, and high-desert subdivisions an hour north. Unpermitted additions, converted garages and title questions going back generations are routine rather than remarkable.
5 cities
-
San Bernardino County
Southern California
The Inland Empire’s northern half — post-war San Bernardino and Rialto, the 1990s and 2000s build-out through Fontana and Ontario, and the high desert beyond the Cajon Pass. Volume tract housing, hard used, and priced low enough that renovation arithmetic still works.
5 cities
-
Riverside County
Southern California
The Inland Empire’s southern half, from the historic grid in Riverside itself out through Moreno Valley and the fast-grown southwest. Newer than Los Angeles, hit harder by the crash than almost anywhere in the state, and still the part of Southern California where the numbers on a renovation most often work.
5 cities
-
Orange County
Southern California
Denser, older and dearer than the Inland Empire, with post-war tract at enormous scale through the central county. Less distressed stock overall, but the houses that do need work tend to need a great deal of it, and lot value carries the arithmetic.
3 cities
-
San Diego County
Southern California
Coastal and inland San Diego, where the workable stock sits inland — El Cajon, Escondido and the older parts of the north county. Post-war tract, hillside lots, and a great many houses added onto in the 1970s and 80s without permits.
4 cities
Start here
Where to go next
The pages on the site that answer this directly.
-
Every city and county we buy in
Sixty-plus local pages, each written for the housing stock actually there.
-
Get an estimate
Local comparable sales are what the estimate is built from.
-
How it works
The process is the same in every county we cover.
Questions
What people ask about this
What kinds of properties do you buy?
Single-family homes, condos, townhouses, duplexes and small multi-family — occupied, vacant, tenant-occupied, or mid-renovation. We also buy land: vacant residential lots, infill parcels and property on acreage, including the ones a conventional lender will not touch. We are based in the East Bay and buy across six Northern California counties, and we also buy in Nevada and Southern California. The full buy box, including what we pass on, is on the investors page.
How much will you pay for my house?
It depends on the condition, the location, and what comparable homes nearby have recently sold for. We are not the highest number you will ever hear — a fully renovated house listed for 60 days will usually fetch more on the open market. What we offer is certainty: a cash price with no fees, no repairs, no financing risk, and a closing date you choose. We walk you through exactly how we arrived at the number so you can compare it honestly against listing.
Are there any fees or commissions?
No. There is no agent commission, no listing fee, and we cover standard closing costs. The number we agree on is the number you receive at closing.
More in the full FAQ.
Other topics
Not quite your situation?
Find out what your house is worth to us.
A cash number on your property within 24 hours. No fee, no obligation, and no one turning up unannounced.