What should a cash buyer actually pay for my Texas home?

A fair, legitimate cash offer on a Texas home in reasonable condition runs 85% to 95% of true market value. That range is not a guess. Institutional iBuyers like Opendoor and Offerpad typically target 85% to 95% of a home’s assessed market value before fees (Houzeo Seller Closing Cost data, 2026; iBuyer.com Cash Offer data, 2026). Individual cash investors buying for a rental or a light flip commonly negotiate within a similar band, 5% to 15% below market value depending on your home’s condition and timeline (iBuyer.com Cash Offer data, 2026).

The reason that discount exists at all is real. A 2024 study from the University of California San Diego’s Rady School of Management, which analyzed actual closed transactions rather than marketing claims, found that all-cash buyers pay approximately 10% less than mortgage-financed buyers for comparable properties (UC San Diego Rady School of Management, 2024). Removing the financing contingency and the appraisal risk has genuine value, and a buyer who can close in two weeks instead of six is offering something real. A 5% to 15% discount is the honest price of that speed and certainty.

What is not honest, or at least not standard, is a “70% rule” pitch that puts your offer $75,000 to $125,000 below where a fair cash offer should land on a $500,000 home. That figure is not a market convention. It comes from a completely different corner of the real estate business: house flipping. Demand for financed purchases in North Dallas has held up even with the 30-year fixed mortgage rate at 6.49% (Freddie Mac PMMS, June 2026), meaning a well-priced home still draws a real buyer pool, exactly the competition a lowball cash offer lets you skip.

What is the “70% rule,” and why it is not a market standard

The 70% rule is a formula house flippers use to decide the maximum they can pay for a renovation project and still make a profit after repairs, holding costs, and their margin. The formula is: Maximum Allowable Offer equals the home’s after-repair value multiplied by 0.70, minus the cost of repairs. Nothing about that formula is a statement of what your home is worth today. It is a ceiling on what a specific type of buyer, a flipper who plans to renovate and resell, can afford to pay and still hit their profit target.

Here is the math on a $500,000 North Dallas home in move-in-ready condition, no repairs needed. Run the formula literally: $500,000 times 0.70 equals $350,000, minus $0 in repairs, equals a maximum allowable offer of $350,000, a full $150,000 below market value on a home that needs no work. The 30% set aside is not pure profit; it absorbs holding costs, financing, resale commission, and closing costs. But none of that changes the fact that the number has nothing to do with your home’s actual market value. It is a business-model ceiling, quoted as if it were a price.

Now compare that $350,000 number to the fair cash range from the previous section. At 85% of market value, a legitimate cash offer on that same $500,000 home is $425,000. At 95%, it is $475,000. The gap between the honest range and the 70% rule figure is $75,000 to $125,000, entirely dependent on which number you accept as your starting point.

Figures illustrate the formula applied to a representative $500,000 North Dallas home with no repair needs. Your specific number depends on condition, timeline, and which buyer type you are talking to.

Some investors do apply the 70% rule honestly, disclosing that it is their internal flip math and letting you decide whether that number works for your situation. Others present it as if it were simply “what cash buyers pay,” without the context that it was built for a different purpose entirely. That framing is where sellers lose real money without realizing it, especially in a market where sellers who list on the open market consistently receive offers closer to true value because competition among multiple qualified buyers, not a single quoted formula, is what actually sets the price (NAR, 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers).

Greatness is demonstrated, not declared. A fair number gets shown to you with the math attached. A lowball number gets declared as if questioning it were rude.

Wholesaler assignment fees and daisy chains: what you are actually funding

A wholesaler is not the end buyer of your home. They put your property under contract at a low price, then “assign” that contract to a different investor before closing, pocketing the difference between what they agreed to pay you and what the next buyer pays them. That difference is the assignment fee, and on North Dallas-priced homes it can run well into the tens of thousands, scaling with deal size, not with any work the wholesaler performed on your house.

The wholesaler’s contract price with you is where their version of the 70% rule usually lands, applied to an after-repair value they estimate themselves. If they also inflate the repair estimate to justify going even lower, the formula produces a number well under the 70% ceiling described above. An independent comparative market analysis, which a listing agent provides before you ever sign anything, is the only real check on either number.

Daisy chains: when your contract changes hands more than once

A daisy chain happens when the wholesaler who put your home under contract assigns it to a second wholesaler instead of an end buyer, who assigns it to a third, each one adding their own fee before the contract reaches someone who actually intends to close. Every link has to make a profit, pushing the effective price further from your quoted net, or collapsing the deal entirely when the math stops working for whoever is holding it last.

Daisy chains like this are one of the most common reasons a “guaranteed fast cash closing” falls through days before the scheduled date, since the seller was never dealing with the actual buyer, only the first link in a chain. A legitimate individual investor or institutional iBuyer does not need to daisy chain your contract; they are the actual buyer, with their own capital, closing on their own timeline.

iBuyers vs. individual cash investors vs. wholesalers: the fair range compared

Not every cash buyer prices the same way. The table below sets a realistic pay range for each category, so you can see quickly where an offer in hand actually sits.

An iBuyer’s net to you, after their service fee, typically lands closer to 80% to 90% of market value, not the full headline offer. The more a buyer plans to profit from reselling your home before they occupy it, the lower their offer needs to be to leave room for that profit.

What a fair cash offer looks like in Frisco, McKinney, Plano, and Prosper

The dollar gap between a fair cash offer and a 70%-rule lowball grows with your home’s price. The table below applies both numbers to each core city’s representative median sale price, so you can see the real range for a home like yours, not just an abstract percentage.

Representative median prices are the figures already verified for each city’s home value guide: Frisco (≈$650K, used consistently across cost-to-sell and as-is pricing tiers), McKinney ZIP 75070 (≈$471,000, Redfin McKinney Housing Market data, 2026), Plano citywide at roughly $500,000 (NTREIS, 2026), Prosper citywide (≈$805,000, Redfin / The Cliff Freeman Group, February 2026). Fair-range and 70%-rule figures are direct calculations applied to those medians.

Notice the pattern: Prosper’s higher price tier means the dollar gap between a fair offer and a lowball offer is the largest of the four cities, even though the percentage math is identical everywhere. A seller who does not check the number against their actual city has no way to know whether $563,500 on an $805,000 Prosper home is fair or a $120,000-plus lowball. The percentage will not tell you that. Sustained buyer demand from net domestic in-migration (U.S. Census Bureau, 2026) is exactly the buyer pool a cash offer lets you skip, so knowing your real number first matters.

When an offer below 85% might still be reasonable

None of this means every offer under 85% of market value is predatory. There are real, specific situations where a lower number reflects a genuine cost the buyer will actually bear, not just a wider profit margin they are trying to protect.

Significant, verifiable repair needs

If your home needs a new roof, foundation work, or a full HVAC replacement, a buyer’s discount for those items is a real cost, not a manufactured one, provided the repair estimate is documented and reasonable. The as-is selling process, including what you still must legally disclose in Texas regardless of condition, is covered in detail in our Prosper as-is selling guide.

A true, fixed closing deadline under 21 days

A pre-foreclosure trustee sale date, a probate deadline for dividing proceeds among heirs, or a hard corporate relocation date can make speed worth more than the last few percentage points of value. An offer at the low end of the fair range, or slightly below it, can still be the right call once you weigh what missing the deadline would cost.

A tenant-occupied property that cannot be shown

A home you cannot access for showings because a tenant will not cooperate limits your open-market options. A cash buyer willing to purchase occupied, without requiring vacant possession, is solving a real logistical problem, with value beyond the raw discount.

Outside of those situations, an offer meaningfully below 85% on a showable home with a normal timeline is worth a second opinion. See our full net-proceeds comparison at kaitlinlovern.com/cash-buyer-vs-listing-north-dallas/.

How to get a real cash offer number before you sign anything

Selling a house is a lot like eating an elephant. You do it one step at a time, and the same is true of evaluating a cash offer. You need four things, in order.

Step 1: Get a comparative market analysis, not a portal estimate

A CMA built on real, recent closed comparable sales gives you the true market-value baseline every percentage in this guide is measured against. Without that number, “85%” and “70%” are both meaningless. See our home value guide.

Step 2: Ask the buyer directly which category they are

An institutional iBuyer, an individual investor, or a wholesaler who intends to assign the contract? A straightforward answer tells you which range from the comparison table above applies to your offer.

Step 3: Request proof of funds and ask about assignment

A legitimate cash buyer can produce proof of funds without hesitation and will say plainly whether they intend to close in their own name. Most cash purchase agreements in Texas still route through a standard earnest-money and option-period structure (Texas Real Estate Commission, 1-4 Family Residential Contract), so a buyer unwilling to put down real earnest money is a signal worth taking seriously.

Step 4: Compare the net number, not the headline number

An iBuyer’s gross offer and their net-to-you figure after fees can differ by 5% to 8% of the sale price. Always ask what you will actually receive at closing. We run this exact comparison for every seller who calls with an offer in hand, whether or not they list with us. See our North Dallas fast-sale guide for the fast-close side of this decision.