Most of what goes wrong in a cash sale comes down to one question: is the company making the offer actually the one buying the house? When it isn't, the number moves and the closing date slips. Here is where we stand.
The Price Dropped Days Before Closing and There Was No Time to Back Out
This is the oldest move in the business. A company signs a high-sounding contract, ties up your title for thirty days, then calls near the end with a new, much lower number. You've already stopped taking other offers. You're supposed to feel like you have no choice.
It works because that company was never buying. They were trying to sell your contract to somebody else, and the price drops when they can't find a taker.
Ohio law has something to say about this. Acting on someone else's behalf in a real estate deal for compensation requires a broker's license. The Division of Real Estate looks at whether there was real intent to close, and treats a company with no financial ability to buy, or one signing many contracts and closing few of them, as a red flag. Unlicensed activity can draw fines of up to $1,000 a day.
There's No Obvious Way to Tell a Real Buyer From Someone Shopping Your Address
There is, actually, and it takes about ten minutes.
Every deed and transfer in this county is permanently recorded by the Summit County Recorder, part of the Fiscal Office at 175 S. Main Street in Akron. That record is public. Look up the company sitting across your kitchen table and see whether it has ever actually taken title to a property here. A real buyer has a trail of closings under its own name. A company that assigns contracts often has none, because it never owns anything.
Run that check on us. Run it on whoever else made you an offer. It's the single most useful thing you can do before you sign anything, and we would rather you did it than take our word for it.
The Buyer's Financing Fell Apart and You Were Back to Square One
Even a clean retail deal is not a sure thing. Nationally, about 5 percent of contracts were terminated over the last three months of 2025, and 14 percent had settlements delayed. Appraisal problems alone held up 6 percent of them. That's the buyer's lender deciding, months in, that the house isn't worth what someone agreed to pay.
When it happens you go back on the market carrying a stigma, because everyone can see the listing went pending and came back.
None of those failure points exist here. There's no loan application, so there's nothing to be denied. There's no appraisal, so nothing comes in low. The money at closing is ours, which is the whole reason the date holds.
The Number on the Contract Should Be the Number on the Check
Ohio closing costs generally land somewhere between 2 and 5 percent of the sale price, and they don't fall the same way everywhere. Owner's title insurance is a good example. Sellers in Central Ohio typically cover that policy outright, while here in Northeast Ohio it's customarily split between buyer and seller. Add settlement and escrow fees, deed prep, and prorated taxes and the deductions stack up quietly.
We cover the closing costs and pay any delinquent taxes at closing. No commission, because there's no agent. No repair credits negotiated back out of your price after an inspection, because there's no inspection.
You should be able to look at the contract and know what the check says.
Nobody Explains What Actually Happens Between the Offer and the Check
Here's the whole sequence, in order.
You give us the address. We walk the house once, and that's the only time anyone comes through. We pull the closed sales we're comparing yours to and give you a number along with the reasoning behind it, so you can see the work rather than just the figure.
If you take it, we open title and handle the title work ourselves. Anything the search turns up, an old lien, a boundary that doesn't match the deed, back taxes, becomes our problem to clear. You pick the closing date. We pay the delinquent taxes and cover the closing costs at the table.
That's it. No lender, no appraiser, no second walkthrough, no renegotiation.
Most deals close in 7 to 10 days once title is clear, though the date is yours. If you need longer to find a place, take it. If a tax deadline is pushing you, say so and we'll work to it.
