What a cash-only listing is
A cash-only listing is a property whose seller will not accept an offer that depends on a lender. The listing says cash only, cash or hard money, or no financing, and the listing agent will not present an offer with a loan contingency. The seller is not being difficult; the seller has a property or a situation that a conventional loan cannot handle, and has decided not to spend forty-five days finding that out.
The reasons are practical. A conventional lender needs the property to appraise, to be habitable, to be permitted and to be insurable, and needs the borrower to clear underwriting on a bank’s calendar. A cash-only seller has a property that fails one of those tests, or a deadline that a bank cannot meet, or both. The listing filters out the buyers whose deals would collapse in week five, and what is left is cash buyers and buyers with hard money.
That is the opening. A cash-only listing sells for less than the same property listed to the whole market, because most buyers are excluded. An investor who can perform like a cash buyer, close in days and take the property as it is, buys at the cash-only price and captures the difference.
The common cases
- Probate and estate sales. The heirs want a clean, fast sale, the home has decades of deferred maintenance, and the court or the executor has a timeline. Financed offers are a risk they will not take.
- REO and bank-owned property. The bank that foreclosed wants the asset off its books, will not make repairs, will not wait for a lender’s conditions and will accept a lower cash price for certainty.
- Unpermitted improvements. An addition, a garage conversion or an ADU built without permits blocks conventional financing, because the appraiser cannot count it and the lender cannot insure it. The fix and flip program funds the work that legalises it.
- Unfinanceable properties. Missing kitchens, bad roofs, foundation issues, fire damage, mid-renovation shells, code violations, properties without a certificate of occupancy. A bank will not lend until the problem is fixed; the problem cannot be fixed until someone buys the property.
- Sellers on a deadline. A relocation, a divorce, a tax situation, a 1031 clock on the seller’s side. The seller wants certainty and speed more than the last dollar.
- Auction and wholesale purchases. Properties bought at a foreclosure auction, through Auction.com or Hubzu, or through a wholesaler’s assignment, where the contract itself requires cash.
How to buy a cash-only listing with hard money
Approval before the offer
The mistake most investors make is writing the offer first and looking for the loan second. A cash-only seller judges the offer on certainty, and certainty comes from the financing already being in place. Send the property, the price and the plan to Loan Goat before the offer is written. The bridge programs are underwritten on the property, the equity and the exit, so the answer comes back in days and it is about the deal, not about six months of bank statements. With the approval in hand, the offer is written with no financing contingency, no appraisal contingency and a close measured in days, which is exactly what the listing was asking for.
Two published facts do the work. The hard money residential bridge closes in as quickly as 3 days, and on some cases appraisal is not needed, because the loan is sized conservatively against the property. Loan Goat’s standard process, application, documentation, Letter of Intent and closing, runs 5-7 days across the programs.
After acceptance
Once the offer is accepted the file moves in parallel: the application and the schedule of real estate owned, proof of funds for the down payment and closing costs, title and escrow opened, and the valuation where one is required. On a hard money bridge the property carries the underwriting, so above the 650 floor a borrower with a credit event, a default or a matured loan is weighed rather than excluded. The Letter of Intent sets the loan amount, the term, the rate, the points and the fees, and the loan funds on the closing date the seller wanted.
Is hard money cash?
No, and the distinction matters in one place: a contract that requires proof of cash in the buyer’s account cannot be satisfied by a loan. What hard money does is remove every reason a seller prefers cash. There is no lender appraisal contingency in practice, no financing contingency, no forty-five-day timeline and no bank underwriting the borrower’s life. Most listing agents accept a hard money buyer with a lender’s approval letter as the practical equivalent, and many listings say so in the remarks. Where the seller insists on funds in account, the lender’s approval letter and a conversation with the agent usually settle it.
The loan that fits
Two Loan Goat programs carry most cash-only purchases. The bridge loan, for a property that is habitable and will be held or resold without heavy work: terms of one or two years, LTV up to 75%, loans from $150,000 to $25,000,000, rates from 9.00% to 13.00%, a 650 minimum credit score, no borrower experience required and no prepayment penalties, on SFR, condo or townhome and 2-4 unit property, with a close in as quickly as 3 days on a clean file. Where the property needs renovation before it can be sold or refinanced, the fix and flip loan publishes up to 85% of the purchase and 100% of the rehab, with the rehab funded through a holdback. Points, fees and the rate on a specific file are quoted on the Letter of Intent, and every published figure is subject to change and not a commitment to lend.
The exit
A cash-only purchase is a bridge to one of three destinations, and the destination is agreed before funding. A sale after renovation, the classic flip, repays the loan from escrow. A refinance into the rental DSCR loan once the property is rented and stabilized turns the purchase into a long-term hold; the DSCR card publishes first time investor OK and recently listed properties OK. A refinance into a conventional loan once the property is permitted, repaired and appraisable takes the bridge out at a bank’s price. Because the bridge and the hard money residential bridge publish no prepayment penalties, the exit can happen the week the property is ready.
Where cash-only purchases fit
- Bridge loans for the purchase itself.
- Fix and flip loans when the property needs work before the exit.
- Multi-family hard money loans when the cash-only listing is an apartment building.
- Foreclosure auction and Auction.com and Hubzu for the two purchase channels that are always cash.
A cash-only listing is a discount with a condition attached, and hard money is how an investor meets the condition. Get approved first, write the offer clean, close on the seller’s calendar.
