Here is a real as-is cash offer on a condo, and the comps behind it. The condo is 1,050 sq ft in a Jacksonville complex where the last six months of sales support about $100,000 on the open market and roughly $125,000 on a very good day. The cash offer to purchase it as-is — no repairs, no staging, no showings, no commissions, and the seller picks the closing date — was $50,000. The gap is not a discount off the retail price; it is the retail price minus the profit margin a cash home buyer has to hold and minus what it costs to make the unit market-ready. Listing it instead nets roughly $73,000 to $78,000 after about 12 percent in costs of sale and $10,000 or more spent up front, and takes about 90 days.

Real Offers · Off Old St Augustine Road, Jacksonville

A $100,000 Condo — and Why the Cash Offer Was $50,000

Name: A $100,000 Condo — and Why the Cash Offer Was $50,000 — The Offer
Uploaded: 2026-09-11
Duration: 4 min 6 s
Channel: Bryce Spraggins
Description: The comp set, the scattergram, the $50,000 cash number, and what listing it would actually net instead.

By Bryce Spraggins · September 11, 2026

1,050 sq ft condo · priced off six months of sales inside the same complex

A real as-is cash offer on a 1,050 sq ft Jacksonville condo. Bryce pulls every sale inside the complex, shows the scattergram, and walks the whole arithmetic — the $50,000 cash number, and what the seller would actually keep by listing it instead.

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

The Offer

September 11, 2026

The comp set, the scattergram, the $50,000 cash number, and what listing it would actually net instead.

How This Number Was Built

This is the video sent to a homeowner who had already been given a number over the phone and wanted it in writing. The point of it is not the offer — it is showing every step between the comps and the number, so the offer can be checked instead of trusted.

The comp set is one condo complex. Real estate is hyperlocal and a condo complex is the most hyperlocal market there is: same builder, same year, same roof, same amenities, same association. The search was shrunk until it covered nothing outside the complex itself, and there was still enough activity to price the unit — twelve closed sales, three that failed to sell, and one under contract in six months.

Reading the top and the bottom. The scattergram puts the subject at 1,050 sq ft with a fair market line of $105,936 and a top of market of $128,855. Both get rounded to the nearest quarter, and both get rounded down: top of market becomes $125,000, and the working number — the bad-day number, the one everything is planned against — becomes $100,000. Planning for the good day is how cash home buyers end up unable to close.

How the offer is built. Start at the $100,000 resale plan. Take out the profit margin, which on a low-price deal is the greater of 20 percent or $40,000 — here 20 percent is only $20,000, so the $40,000 floor governs. That is $60,000. Take out what it costs to make the unit market-ready, at least $10,000 and realistically $20,000 to $30,000. That lands the cash offer at $50,000, and it means the profit margin is already being eaten into before anything goes wrong.

The other door, with real numbers. The alternative is listing it. At the bad-day price of $100,000, about 12 percent comes off for commission and both sides’ closing costs, leaving roughly $88,000 — then $10,000 or more comes out of the seller’s own pocket up front to get it retail-ready. That is $73,000 to $78,000, about 90 days out, with showings, an inspection and likely repair requests in between. On a very good day at $125,000 it is $95,000 to $100,000.

So the trade is plain. Roughly $25,000 more in hand by listing, ninety days later, with money spent first and nothing guaranteed — or $50,000 with no financing, no appraisal, no inspection, on whatever date the seller picks. Both numbers are real. Only one of them is certain, and that is the entire product.

Why the comp set is one condo complex and nothing outside it
Reading top of market and fair market value off the chart — and always rounding down
The profit rule on low-price deals: the greater of 20 percent or $40,000, and why the floor governs here
The full bridge from a $100,000 resale plan to a $50,000 cash offer
What listing it actually nets after roughly 12 percent and $10,000 of prep money up front
Four closed sales at nearly the same square footage that ran from $62,000 to $124,000 — and what that says about condition

The Actual Comps

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

Offer summary infographic comparing a $125,000 top-of-market listing netting $95,000 to $100,000, a $100,000 listing netting $73,000 to $78,000, and a guaranteed $50,000 cash offer, with a band showing how the cash offer is calculated — The summary screen from the end of the video: the cash offer and both listing scenarios side by side, each one carried all the way down to what the seller actually keeps. The columns are ordered by how sure the number is rather than by how big it is — **maybe** at the top of the market, **certain** at the price the comps support, **guaranteed** for the cash offer. The band across the bottom shows the whole bridge from the $100,000 resale plan to the $50,000 offer, because a seller is going to do that subtraction anyway. (Click to enlarge.)

Pricing scattergram for a Jacksonville condo complex showing twelve closed sales, three unsold listings and one under contract, with a fair market value regression line of R-squared 0.44 and the 1,050 sq ft subject marked at a fair value of $105,936 — The scattergram the offer was read from — every sale and attempted sale inside the complex, twelve of them closed. The trend line has an R² of **0.44**, so square footage explains a little under half of what separates these prices and condition explains most of the rest. The honest way to read it is across, not down the line: **four closed sales within forty square feet of the subject ran from about $62,000 to about $124,000**, nearly a 2× spread at effectively identical size. That spread, not the slope, is why the top of the market and the working number are a judgment call. Two independent reads land in the same place — the top-of-market band prints $128,855 at 1,050 sq ft, and the highest closed sale at almost exactly the subject’s size closed near $124,000 — which is what makes $125,000 defensible. One closed sale at roughly 1,530 sq ft and $318,000 sits far above everything else and outside the top-of-market band; it is the single biggest reason the R² is not higher. (Click to enlarge.)

Common Questions

Why is a cash offer lower than what the property would sell for?

Because the two numbers are answering different questions. The retail figure is what a property will fetch after it has been repaired, staged, marketed and shown for roughly ninety days, minus the commissions and closing costs that come off at the table. A cash offer is what is left when a buyer takes on all of that work, all of that cost and all of that risk in advance, and pays today. On this condo the retail plan was $100,000 and the cash offer was $50,000: $40,000 of that gap is the profit margin the buyer has to hold, and the rest is the money spent making the unit sellable.

How does a cash home buyer decide what to offer on a condo?

By starting at the resale price the comparable sales actually support, then subtracting a profit margin and the cost to make the unit market-ready. On low-priced properties the margin is not a straight percentage. A 20 percent margin on a $100,000 condo is only $20,000, which will not cover the holding costs, closing costs on both ends and the resale commission, so a dollar floor governs instead — here $40,000. The offer is the resale figure minus that margin minus the renovation budget.

What does it cost to sell a condo on the open market?

Plan on roughly 12 percent of the sale price for the combined cost of sale — the listing and buyer-side commissions, the seller’s closing costs and a budget for the buyer’s closing costs. That is separate from what the seller spends before the property ever hits the market. Prep, cleaning, paint and staging on a small condo start around $10,000 and come out of pocket, before any offer arrives. On a $100,000 sale those two together take the seller from $100,000 to roughly $73,000 to $78,000.

Is it better to take a cash offer or list the property?

It depends entirely on whether the seller can afford the wait and the up-front money. Listing nets more on paper — on this condo roughly $73,000 to $78,000 against a $50,000 cash offer. But that figure arrives about ninety days later, requires $10,000 or more spent before the first showing, and survives an inspection and repair negotiation before it is real. A cash offer trades that upside for certainty and a closing date the seller chooses. Neither answer is right for everyone, which is why an honest offer shows both.

What does R-squared mean on a pricing scattergram?

R-squared measures how much of the price variation the trend line actually explains. An R-squared of 0.44, as on this condo complex, means square footage accounts for roughly 44 percent of the difference in sale prices and something else accounts for the other 56 percent — usually condition, updates, floor level and view. A high R-squared means size alone predicts price well and the line can be trusted; a low one means the line is a weak guide and the individual closed sales matter far more than the trend.

Related Resources

Get a Cash Offer How We Buy Houses Sell for Cash in Jacksonville How Accurate Is a Zestimate? ← All Real Offers & Videos