Sell Your House As-Is in Austin — Even the Ones That Need Real Repairs
Every buyer on the MLS wants a move-in ready home. Maybe your house needs a roof. Maybe it has foundation movement, or it hasn't been updated since the 1990s. Listing it means one of two things. You pay for the repairs first, or you watch financed buyers walk away after the inspection. We're the third option. We buy the house in the condition it's in today. The offer accounts for the work instead of asking you to do it.
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What It Means to Sell Your House As-Is in Austin
Plenty of listings say "as-is" and still expect a clean, empty house where everything works. We mean it more literally. We've bought Austin-area houses with active roof leaks. We've bought houses with foundation cracks wide enough to see daylight through. We've bought fire damage confined to a kitchen, a decade of hoarding, and tenants who had stopped paying six months earlier. None of that stopped a closing.
Concretely, you don't have to:
- Repair anything. Not the roof, not the HVAC, not the plumbing. Not even the rotted fascia the last buyer's inspector flagged.
- Clean anything. Not the carpets, not the garage, not the room nobody's opened since 2019.
- Remove anything. Take your keepsakes. Leave every stick of furniture, every box, every appliance. The cleanout is our cost after closing. It is not a line item deducted from your offer.
- Stage or show it. One walkthrough with us. It doesn't need to be tidy for that either.
- Get inspections or reports. We do our own checks, and we pay for them.
Foundation Movement Is Normal Here, and It Doesn’t Scare Us
Central Texas sits on clay soils that swell when wet and shrink when dry. Austin's drought and flood cycles work those soils hard. So slab movement here is closer to a regional condition than a defect. Texas A&M's Texas Real Estate Research Center is the state's main public real estate research group. It publishes ongoing research on Texas housing and construction if you want an authoritative read on the market.
Here's what matters for your sale. Retail buyers and their lenders treat a foundation report as a reason to renegotiate or run. We treat it as a line in the budget. We get our own pier bid, subtract the real number, and show it to you. Sellers are often surprised that the deduction is smaller than the panic. A typical partial pier job on an Austin-area slab doesn't cost that much. A spooked retail buyer usually demands a far bigger price cut after reading the same report.
Some suburbs feel this harder than others. Round Rock's 1980s and '90s subdivisions and the shifting clay under Buda generate more foundation calls than anywhere else we buy.
Fire, Water, Code Violations, and Other Things Lenders Hate
A financed buyer's lender requires the house to meet minimum property standards. That one rule shuts a whole group of Austin houses out of the retail market:
- Fire or smoke damage, even when it's contained to one room and not structural.
- Water damage and mold, including slow leaks found during a listing.
- Missing systems. No working HVAC, no working kitchen, or electrical that predates grounding.
- Unpermitted additions. The converted garage or added bedroom that never got a permit.
- Open code cases. Austin's code enforcement process can leave a property with active violations. A buyer's lender won't overlook them. The City of Austin explains how its code compliance and permitting processes work at austintexas.gov.
Cash removes the lender from the sale. That removes every one of those obstacles. We buy the property and resolve the issues afterward. We price that work into the offer honestly.
Hoarding, Estates, and Houses Full of a Lifetime
The call we get most often about contents starts the same way. "It's embarrassing, but the house is full." It isn't embarrassing to us, and it isn't an obstacle. We've bought houses where paths ran between stacks and every closet was packed. The cleanout is a normal line in our renovation budget.
Here's the practical advice we give. Walk through once with a box for the things that matter. Photos, documents, jewelry, the small irreplaceable stuff. Leave everything else exactly where it sits. Some sellers try to clean out a full house before selling. They routinely spend thousands on dumpsters and labor, plus weeks of weekends. All of it goes toward work a buyer was going to do anyway.
Most of those calls come from families settling a parent's estate, which is its own process with its own timeline. The contents question works the same either way: take what matters and leave the rest where it sits.
Should You Sell Your House As-Is in Austin, or Renovate First?
Sellers who want to sell a house as-is in Austin have two real paths. The right one depends on what you can fund and how long you can wait. Here's the actual comparison. Take a typical Austin house that would bring $450,000 renovated and needs $80,000 of work:
- Renovate and list: You fund $80,000, usually with cash or a loan. You manage contractors for two to four months. Then you pay roughly five to six percent in commissions and seller closing costs. You also carry the house while it's under construction and on the market. The ceiling is higher if everything goes right.
- Sell as-is to us: A written offer in the low $310,000s, closed in as little as seven days. Zero out of pocket. Zero contractor management. Zero risk that the renovation runs over or the market turns mid-project.
The right answer depends on whether you have the $80,000, the time, and the stomach. If you do, list it, and we'll say so. If you don't, the as-is number is a real number. It's available now.
Selling As-Is in Texas Still Means Disclosing What You Know
"As-is" describes the condition, not your honesty. Texas requires most home sellers to give buyers a written seller's disclosure notice. It covers known defects and important facts about the property. The rule lives in Chapter 5 of the Texas Property Code. There are limited exceptions, including certain estate and foreclosure transfers.
This is good news for you, not a burden. Tell us about the foundation, the leak, the flood, the unpermitted addition, the neighbor dispute. We won't reduce the offer for things we already expected to find. Disclosing them also protects you from a claim later. The sellers who get sued are the ones who hid something. Not the ones who sold a house that needed work.
If you truly don't know the answer to something, "unknown" is an acceptable answer on the form. You don't have to investigate or hire inspectors on our behalf. If you inherited the house and never lived in it, say so. That's common, and the disclosure rules differ for some estate sales. Your attorney or the title company will confirm what applies to your situation.
What Happens to Your House After We Buy It
Sellers ask this more than you'd think. It comes up most with people selling a family home. The answer is simple. We renovate it, and it becomes somebody's house again.
A typical Austin project runs two to four months. Structure and systems come first: foundation piers, roof, HVAC, electrical, plumbing. Then the parts people see: kitchen, baths, flooring, paint, landscaping. We pull permits where the work requires them. The City of Austin documents its development services process at austintexas.gov. Then the house goes back on the market or becomes a rental.
We say this because of a common story about cash buyers. The story says they flip houses without doing real work. That describes some operators accurately. So ask any buyer you're considering to show you a house they've finished. We're happy to. A company that renovates properly has a portfolio. One that assigns contracts to strangers doesn't.
How Selling to Us Works
Tell us about the house
Fill out the short form. Address, phone, name — that's it. No documents, no photos required to start.
Get your cash offer
We research the property, ask a few questions, and make a fair, no-obligation cash offer, usually within 24 hours. One quick walkthrough. No open houses.
Close on your schedule
Pick your closing date — as fast as 7 days or months out if you need time. A local Austin title company handles the paperwork and you get your money at closing.
Sell As-Is: Questions Sellers Ask
What does selling a house as-is actually mean in Texas?
It means the buyer takes the property in its current condition. You don't repair, replace, or credit anything. It does not erase your disclosure duty. Texas Property Code Chapter 5 still requires most residential sellers to disclose known defects in writing. With us, that works in your favor. Tell us everything, we price it in once, and you're protected from claims later.
Can I sell a house in poor condition without fixing anything?
Yes, that's most of what we buy. Foundation movement, dead HVAC, roof leaks, fire or water damage, code violations, decades of put-off maintenance. You don't clean, you don't haul, and you don't hire anyone. The offer accounts for the work, and we do it after closing.
Should I make cheap fixes before selling, like paint and carpet?
Not for a cash sale. Cosmetic touch-ups rarely change our number. We're redoing the surfaces anyway as part of a full renovation, so save the money. Small fixes do pay off in a retail listing. If you're going that route, paint and yard cleanup have the best return. We'll say so if listing looks like your better path.
How do I sell a fixer-upper fast?
Skip the two steps that eat up months: the renovation and the financed buyer. A cash buyer removes both. No contractor schedule, and no lender demanding the house meet minimum property standards. You get one walkthrough and a written offer with the repair math. Then a title-company closing in as little as seven days.
Do I need a pre-sale inspection before selling as-is?
No. We do our own evaluation during the walkthrough, and we pay for anything we want checked further. Ordering your own inspection first just costs you a few hundred dollars to learn things we'd price the same way. If you already have one, though, share it. Known information tightens the offer in your favor.
Will you buy a house with foundation problems?
Routinely. Central Texas clay soil moves, and slab issues are closer to a regional feature than a defect. We get our own pier bid and fold the real number into the offer. If you have paperwork from past foundation work, especially a transferable warranty, that's worth actual money. Mention it.
What about fire damage, mold, or an unpermitted addition?
All three are fine. They disqualify a house from most financed buyers, because lenders require a minimum property condition. They don't disqualify a cash purchase. We buy the property and resolve the issue after closing. That includes permits, through the City of Austin's process where required. The complication is priced once, openly, in writing.
Can I leave furniture and junk in the house?
All of it. Take what matters and walk away from the rest: furniture, appliances, the garage, the shed. The cleanout is part of our renovation budget, not a deduction from your offer. Sellers who spend weekends and dumpster fees emptying a house before calling us are doing free work.
Is selling as-is by owner risky?
The risk isn't the as-is part. It's disclosure mistakes and bad buyers. Protect yourself three ways. Put every known issue in writing, close only at a licensed title company, and have an attorney read anything you sign. We'll put all three in writing before you ask. A buyer who won't isn't your buyer.
How fast can an as-is sale close in Austin?
Seven days on clean title, like any of our purchases. Condition doesn't slow closing, because nothing needs fixing first. What sometimes adds time is title work, like old liens or estates. The title company clears those while the paperwork moves. See the full timeline on how it works.
Do you buy as-is houses outside Austin proper?
Yes. The same as-is terms apply across Travis, Williamson, and Hays counties. That runs from Round Rock and Cedar Park down to Kyle, Buda, and San Marcos.
The Same Help, All Over Central Texas
Wherever you are in the metro, the process is the same: Austin · Round Rock · Pflugerville · Cedar Park · Georgetown · Leander · Hutto · Kyle · Buda · San Marcos
Situations we help with: Selling Fast · Facing Foreclosure · Inherited a House · Tired Landlord · Divorce · Behind on Taxes
Get a Fair Cash Offer on Your Austin House
Tell us about the property and we'll call you back with a no-obligation cash offer, usually within 24 hours.
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How we work
You Found Us. We Didn't Chase You.
Our whole sales process is no-pressure by design: you get a written offer with the math attached, it stays open while you think, and there's no obligation at any point. One follow-up call, then we leave you alone.
We also don't do outbound marketing — none of it. No bandit signs stapled to utility poles, no cold calls interrupting your dinner, no stream of letters filling your mailbox asking to buy your house. If you've been getting those, they aren't from us. We put our effort into being easy to find in search results, plus a few Google ads, so we're here at the moment you decide it's time — and invisible until then.