Is this cash offer fair, or am I getting lowballed? This question is completely understandable when getting cash offers from house buying companies. When I get these calls at Danny Buys Houses, it is usually because the seller contacted someone to get a cash offer for their home. They got the cash offer, but they did not get any explanation as to how that offer was determined.

The first thing to mention is that the term lowball could mean simply getting an offer lower than expected. This all hinges on what is expected. If the value Bexar County has assessed your house at for property tax purposes is what you were hoping for, you’re likely to be disappointed and feel you have been lowballed. Many areas of San Antonio have been over-valued for several years. Homes are simply not selling for what the county has them valued at.

Most sellers that I’ve spoken to over the more than 2 decades I have been buying houses in San Antonio understand that they will likely get a lower offer by selling fast to a cash buyer. The reason is we are buying as an investment and are likely going to fix up the house and sell it. There are a lot of costs involved in buying the house, remodeling the house and then selling the house. When we account for those costs in our offers, they bring the offer amounts down considerably.

Consider that just selling a house in the current market in San Antonio is typically requiring we pay about 10% of the sales price in buyer cost assistance and agent’s fees. For a house that sells for $300,000, that is $30,000!

You may have heard about the 70% rule many house flippers and cash house buyers use. We take 70% of the estimated resale value of the home after we make repairs and updates. The 30% reduction is to cover those resale costs, our holding costs (property taxes, insurance, any rehab loan fees, utilities, HOA fees, etc) and our profit.

Therefore, most cash house buying companies, at least in San Antonio in 2026, are taking what they consider to be the price they will be able to resale the house for, multiplying that by 70% and then subtracting what it will cost us to repair and remodel the house to selling condition.

The benefit that companies like Danny Buys Houses gives you is that we have trusted contractor crews that give us good rates. This allows us to remodel the homes at lower costs than a homeowner might be able to. This helps bring our offers more in line with what would expect to net if you were to make those repairs and updates yourself and then sold through an agent.

Nobody likes lowball offers. We cannot speak for all cash house buying companies but we hope this discussion of how we calculate our offers helps you to determine whether an offer you get is truly lowball. Selling a house is stressful. Armed with knowledge of how cash buyers work can help make it a little easier.

If you want more information about how we value homes, please see our valuation methodology at https://dannybuyshouses.com/valuation-methodology.

How does selling my house to a cash home buyer work?

I get this question all the time and wanted to share how the process worked for Mike, a seller in California that had a house in San Antonio he wanted to sell as soon as the tenants moved out.

Mike, the seller, saw our reviews and decided to fill out the fast cash offer form on our website at DannyBuysHouses.com. He lives in California and had tenants in a house in San Antonio that were ending their lease. I called him to discuss the situation and he wanted to close as soon the tenants were out. He did not want to have to worry about something happening to the house once it became vacant.

I scheduled with his property manager to see the house. My walkthrough took about 30 minutes. Mike had mentioned some concerns with the foundation. I had observed cracks in the walls and knew there were issues. We come across this all the time in San Antonio and did not feel the need to schedule a foundation inspection. We already have a good idea of what the cost will be. This allowed me to make Mike a cash offer to buy the house as is after my walkthrough. He had questions about the offer and after I broke down the costs involved in coming up with the offer, he negotiated a slightly higher price. I accepted as the numbers would still work for us if we completed our repairs quickly and we happened to have a crew ready. We discussed the date he wanted to have the closing happen. I had a purchase agreement drawn up and sent to him for digital signatures.

Once signed, I sent the purchase agreement and earnest money to the local title company we have used for over 10 years. The title company handled all of the paperwork and payoffs necessary for Mike's loan balance and property taxes. On the day of closing, title hired a mobile notary where Mike lived to bring him the closing documents for signature. I signed at the title company. Once both signed copies had been received, title wired the proceeds to Mike.

The entire process took less than 2 weeks from start to finish. Mike was happy to have the house sold immediately after the tenants had moved out.