When a cash offer will not clear what a seller still owes, the structure becomes the deal and price stops being the only lever. This 3,226 sq ft house was built in 2022, sits in a resort-amenity community in northern St Johns County, and has a tenant paying $5,000 a month through next summer. The market read is hard: 29% odds of selling, 9.8 months of inventory, and 18 listings in twelve months that never found a buyer against 11 that closed. Because of that, the resale was priced off bottom of market rather than the fair-value line — a list at $650,000 with one $50,000 price drop planned in, landing at $600,000. Back a 25% profit margin and the costs of sale out of that and the cash offer is $419,000. The seller holds a 3.7% mortgage, which changes everything, so the deal was underwritten three more ways: sold to a buy-and-hold investor who takes over that note at around $546,000; listed conventionally once the tenant is out; or sold to an end buyer on a wraparound at $700,000 with 20% down. The cash offer came last of the four, and the video says so.

Real Offers · Northern St Johns County, off County Road 210

My Cash Offer Was the Worst of the Four Ways to Sell It

Name: My Cash Offer Was the Worst of the Four Ways to Sell It — The cash offer, and the three structures that beat it
Uploaded: 2026-10-29
Duration: 5 min 54 s
Channel: Bryce Spraggins
Description: A 29% chance of selling, a resale priced off the bottom of the band, and a 3.7% mortgage that makes three other structures worth more than cash. The $419,000 offer came last of the four.

By Bryce Spraggins · October 29, 2026

3,226 sq ft · built 2022 · tenant in place at $5,000 a month through next summer · HOA and club fees of $1,125 a month · seller holds a 3.7% mortgage

A 2022-built 3,226 sq ft house with a tenant at $5,000 a month and a seller holding a 3.7% mortgage. The neighborhood sold 29% of what it listed. Cash offer: $419,000, and it was the worst of the four ways it was underwritten.

The address and the homeowner's name are never shown. Everything else — the condition, the comps, and the number — is exactly what happened.

The cash offer, and the three structures that beat it

October 29, 2026

A 29% chance of selling, a resale priced off the bottom of the band, and a 3.7% mortgage that makes three other structures worth more than cash. The $419,000 offer came last of the four.

How This Number Was Built

This is a 3,226 sq ft house built in 2022, in a resort-amenity community in northern St Johns County, with a tenant paying $5,000 a month on a lease that runs to next summer. The seller asked for a cash offer. She got one, plus three other ways to sell the same house, because the cash offer was not the best of them and the video says so out loud.

The market read came first, and it is ugly. The comp pull was deliberately hyperlocal — her neighborhood only, not a radius — and there was just enough sales data to read it. There are about nine months of inventory on the market. Six months is considered a balanced market, so nine is firmly a buyer’s market. Over the last twelve months 11 homes closed, 9 are still for sale, and 18 never found a buyer at all. That is a 29% chance of selling if you list.

So the resale was priced off the bottom of the band, not the middle. The scattergram puts fair market value at this size around $717,892, with a top near $767,211 and a bottom near $668,574. In a normal market the middle is the honest read. Here it is not, and Bryce says plainly that going off the bottom line is not what he usually does. The plan on camera is to list at $650,000 and budget for one $50,000 price drop, which means underwriting to a $600,000 sale. Take a 25% profit margin and the costs of sale out of $600,000, with nothing needed to make the house market-ready, and the cash offer is $419,000.

Then comes the part that makes this video different: “I don’t know if you can accept that. I don’t know your situation, but if you’re trying to just get cash out, I’m guessing you’re probably not going to be able to do that.” The seller holds a 3.7% mortgage, and a rate like that written in 2022 is worth real money when new loans cost more than seven percent. So the deal was underwritten three more ways.

Sold to a buy-and-hold investor who takes over the 3.7% note. Using a subject-to or a wraparound, the buyer keeps the existing rate and brings 20% to 25% cash to the table. The arithmetic only works for the investor at around $546,000, because a rental carrying $1,125 a month of HOA and club fees has to be bought cheaply enough to leave a return. Bryce is direct about where he sits: he would not be a buyer at that number, but he believes he could assemble that deal quickly, for a $20,000 fee.

Listed conventionally. He would list at $650,000 and expect $600,000 — but he would not recommend listing it at all until the tenant is out, which means the seller carries the full monthly cost with no rent coming in. He frames that as an investment in getting it sold: shown vacant and staged, it has its best chance in a heavy buyer’s market. The net sheet is lower than the headline suggests, and still better than any investor deal.

Sold to an end buyer who keeps the 3.7% rate. This is the one that reaches her number. With a retail buyer putting 20% to 25% down and taking over the existing note, the price goes to $700,000. An owner-occupant is not pricing off a cap rate; they are comparing a payment, and a 3.7% note beats anything a bank is writing today. Bryce names the risks rather than glossing them — holding a note has real exposure, and a wraparound gets complicated — and offers to walk through it off camera rather than pitch it on screen.

The video ends the way the good ones in this series do. All the math is on cards the seller can pause and check, share with anyone else who gets a say, and argue with. And if her read is that the market is not favorable enough to sell at all, he says that is a legitimate answer too.

A 3,226 sq ft house built in 2022, with a tenant paying $5,000 a month on a lease that runs to next summer.
The comp pull was hyperlocal, her neighborhood only rather than a radius, because there was just enough sales data to read it that way.
About nine months of inventory. Six months is a balanced market, so this is firmly a buyers market.
Over twelve months 11 homes closed, 9 are still for sale, and 18 never found a buyer. That is a 29% chance of selling.
Fair market value at this size reads about $717,892, with a top near $767,211 and a bottom near $668,574.
The resale was priced off the bottom of the band rather than the middle, which Bryce says on camera is not what he normally does.
The plan is list at $650,000 and budget for one $50,000 price drop, so the underwriting runs off a $600,000 sale.
A 25% profit margin and the costs of sale come out of $600,000. Nothing was needed to make the house market-ready.
The cash offer is $419,000, and he says out loud that he does not know whether she can accept it.
The seller holds a 3.7% mortgage, which is why the deal was underwritten three more ways.
To a buy-and-hold investor taking over that note, the math works at around $546,000. He would not be a buyer at that price but would assemble the deal for a $20,000 fee.
Listed conventionally he would not recommend going to market until the tenant is out, which means the seller carries the full monthly cost with no rent.
To an end buyer who keeps the 3.7% rate, the price reaches $700,000, because an owner-occupant is comparing a monthly payment rather than a return.
He names the risks of holding a note and the complexity of a wraparound rather than selling the structure, and offers to walk through it off camera.

The Actual Comps

These are the real charts this offer was priced from — not a re-creation.

The cash offer broken down, with the list price, the planned price drop and the market record beside it — The cash offer and the arithmetic behind it. **List at $650,000**, budget **one $50,000 price drop**, underwrite off **$600,000**. Out of that comes a **25% profit margin**, the costs of sale on both sides, and a small credit for the rent banked while the house is held, landing on a cash offer of **$419,000**. The right-hand column is the reason the resale is priced so conservatively: **38 homes went to market in twelve months, 11 closed, 18 never found a buyer**, and there are **9.8 months of inventory** at **0.9 sales a month**. (Click to enlarge.)

Pricing scattergram of recent neighborhood sales, with the fair market value line and confidence band at the subject size — Every comparable sale in the neighborhood over six months, plotted against living area. At the subject’s **3,226 sq ft** the line reads **fair market value $717,892**, **top of market $767,211** and **bottom of market $668,574**. Two things to read honestly: the **R² is 0.50**, so size explains about half of what price does here and no more, and the red crosses are the **11 homes that went to market and never sold**. The resale was priced below the bottom of this band because of them. (Click to enlarge.)

The odds of selling in this neighborhood over twelve months, with 2025 and 2024 for comparison — The sell-through record, which is the number that set the whole offer. Over the last twelve months **11 closed, 9 are for sale and 18 did not sell** — a **29% chance** of selling, at **0.9 homes a month**, with **9.8 months** of inventory standing in front of you. The two prior years are worse, not better. (Click to enlarge.)

What an investor can pay for the property at a 6% and an 8% return, all cash and financed — What an investor can actually pay, which is a different question from what the house is worth. Against a **5.00% ten-year Treasury**, an investor wants at least 6% to take on a house instead of a bond. On rent of **$60,000**, less **$13,500** of HOA and club fees, insurance and taxes, a cash buyer reaches **$559,211** at 6% and **$442,708** at 8%. A financed buyer stops well short of that, because debt service and the fee stack compete for the same income. (Click to enlarge.)

The subject-to structure at $546,000 showing the buyers cash in and total first-year return — The investor version, at the price where it actually works. The buyer takes over the **3.7% note** and brings **$72,337**, which buys a house with a tenant already paying **$5,000 a month**. Cash flow is modest at **$4,380**, but on a 3.7% loan the principal pays down **$11,651** in the first year alone — nearly three times the cash flow — for a total first-year return of **22.2%**. Cash-on-cash by itself reads 6.05% and hides most of that. (Click to enlarge.)

Why the same subject-to deal fails for an investor and works for an owner-occupant at a higher price — The same structure at a higher price, and why the buyer has to change. At **$650,000** an investor earns **1.52%** on **$178,417** of cash while a **5.00%** Treasury pays him more to do nothing. An owner-occupant is not comparing it to a bond. He is comparing **$4,774 a month** here against **$5,881** on a new loan at today’s rates, and **$5,000** to rent the very same house. To match that payment with a bank loan he would need **49% down**. (Click to enlarge.)

Common Questions

Why would a cash offer be the worst of four ways to sell a house?

Because a cash offer is capped by what the house will resell for, and every other structure is capped by something else. Here the resale was underwritten at $600,000 in a market where only 29% of listings sell, which produced a cash offer of $419,000. But the seller holds a 3.7% mortgage written in 2022, and that note is worth real money when new loans cost over seven percent. A buyer who can keep that rate will pay far more than a buyer who has to replace it. Selling to an investor who takes over the note works at around $546,000. Selling to an owner-occupant who takes over the note reaches $700,000, because an owner-occupant is comparing a monthly payment rather than calculating a return. The cash offer is fast and certain, and on this particular house it is also the lowest number on the table. Saying that out loud is the point of the video.

What does a 29% chance of selling actually mean?

It means that of all the homes in this neighborhood that resolved one way or the other over the last twelve months, only 29 out of every 100 actually closed. Eleven homes sold, nine are still sitting on the market, and eighteen were listed and never found a buyer at all. At roughly 0.9 sales a month there is close to ten months of standing inventory. Six months of inventory is generally considered a balanced market, so nine to ten months is firmly a buyers market. The practical consequence for a seller is that listing is not a decision to sell, it is a decision to try, and the odds say most people who tried here did not succeed.

Why price off the bottom of the market instead of fair market value?

Because the fair value line describes what homes are worth, and sell-through describes what actually closes. At this size the line reads about $717,892, with a top near $767,211 and a bottom near $668,574. In a balanced market the middle of that band is the honest number. In a market where eighteen sellers listed and never sold, pricing to the middle means joining them. So the plan was to list at $650,000, which is below even the bottom of the band, and still budget for one $50,000 price drop. That is a deliberately conservative read, and Bryce says on camera it is not what he normally does. The cash offer is then backed out of the lower number rather than the hopeful one.

What is a subject-to or a wraparound sale, and why does the sellers interest rate matter?

Both are ways for a buyer to take over the payments on the sellers existing mortgage instead of getting a new loan. In a subject-to, the buyer takes title and keeps making payments on the loan, which stays in the sellers name. In a wraparound, the seller creates a new note to the buyer that wraps around the existing one and keeps paying the original lender. The rate is the reason anyone bothers. A mortgage written in 2022 at 3.7% costs roughly half what a new loan costs today, and that difference is worth tens of thousands of dollars a year to whoever gets to keep it. That is why a buyer who can take over the rate will pay a materially higher price than a buyer who has to replace it.

What are the risks of selling subject-to or on a wraparound?

They are real and a seller should get legal advice before agreeing to one. The sellers name stays on the underlying mortgage, so the sellers credit remains exposed to a buyer who stops paying, and the original loan almost certainly contains a due-on-sale clause that lets the lender call the balance if title transfers. Seller financing on an owner-occupied home is also regulated: under federal rules a seller financing a single property in a twelve month period may include a balloon payment, while a seller financing up to three must offer a fully amortizing loan with no balloon at all. None of that makes these structures improper, and they are used routinely, but they are documents a real estate attorney should draft rather than a template. In the video these options are explained and then taken off camera for exactly that reason.

Why not just list the house with a Realtor?

Listing is on the table here and it nets more than any investor deal. The complication is the tenant. The recommendation on camera is not to go to market until the tenant is out, because a vacant, staged, well-photographed house has a far better chance in a heavy buyers market than an occupied rental that is hard to show. That means the seller carries the full monthly cost with no rent coming in for the marketing period, which is an investment in getting it sold rather than a cost to avoid. With 29% odds and nearly ten months of inventory, that is a real risk to weigh rather than a formality.

Why charge a fee to put a creative deal together instead of just buying it?

Because the two are different jobs. Buying it is a cash offer at $419,000, which is what the resale supports. Assembling a subject-to sale to a buy-and-hold investor at around $546,000 is not a purchase at all, it is finding the buyer, structuring the transaction and getting it closed, and the fee for that work was stated on camera as $20,000. Bryce is explicit that he would not be a buyer at $546,000 and is not pretending otherwise. Separating the two roles out loud is what lets a seller judge the cash offer on its own merits rather than wondering which hat is being worn.