How We Calculate a Cash Offer on a House in Northeast PA
Every offer we make starts the same way: what the house is worth today, what it would take to fix or resell it, and what your situation needs. Here is the math we use, with a real Archbald house as the example.
By Jake Arnold, FounderPublished 11 min readSources checked and linked
In this guide
249
offers made at 251 seller appointments, January to September 2026
56
houses we bought and resold, January 2025 to September 2026
0.5–2 mi
comp search radius, using closed sales from the last 6 to 12 months
7 days
or sooner to close when you need it. Our fastest closing took one day.
The five things that set our price
Everyone on our team was born and raised in Northeast PA, and we've bought houses from Scranton and Wilkes-Barre to Berwick and Mount Carmel. Here is how our founder, Jake Arnold, explains the way we price a house:
“We buy houses by looking at the situation. If there's a tenant in there, we might need to take some off the price, because that pays for getting the tenant out or taking care of the tenant. Maybe the tenant needs housing. Maybe a senior needs a leaseback. All of that factors into the price, along with the condition of the property, the location and the price per square foot. We do our comparable analysis in-house, and because we know this market like the back of our hand, we can come up with a price on the walkthrough and give it to you right there.”
Jake ArnoldFounder, House Buying Solutions PA| Factor | What we look at | How it moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| Condition | Roof, heat, water, wiring, foundation, kitchen and baths. We rate condition from 1 (gut it) to 5 (good shape). | More work means a bigger repair budget and more risk. |
| Location | The street, the school district, flood risk, and how fast houses sell nearby. | Sets the resale value and how long we'll own the house. |
| Price per square foot | What similar houses nearby actually sold for, per square foot of living space. | The starting point for value. |
| Your situation | A tenant in place, needing time to move, an estate, liens or back taxes. | Shapes the terms, and sometimes the price. |
| Risk | What nobody can see: behind the walls, under the floors, inside the boiler. | We buy as-is, so we price it in instead of asking you to fix it. |
How we value your house
We only count houses that actually sold. Asking prices, Zestimates and tax assessments stay out of the math: they tell you what someone hopes for or what the county thinks, not what a buyer paid.
We search in rings and finish each one before moving out. Widening the search never lowers the bar for what counts as a comparable house.
- Sold in the last 6 months
- Sold 7 to 12 months ago
How far we look for comparable sales
Pick a step to see which sales count. The dots are an example, not real sales.
Rural houses sometimes need comps from 2 to 3 miles out. We want at least three solid sales; with fewer, Jake reviews the number himself.
A comp has to match what drives value here: the same type of house, similar bedrooms and bathrooms, similar living area, the same kind of parking, similar condition, public water and sewer or a well and septic, and the same side of any big barrier like a highway or a rail line. Then we divide each sale price by its living area to get a price per square foot and apply it to your house.
As-is value vs. fixed-up value
Most of the confusion about cash offers comes from comparing them to the wrong number. Here are the values we worked out this summer for a house we bought in Archbald.
The house: a two-story built in 1925 with 3 bedrooms, 1 bath, about 1,400 square feet, a detached two-car garage and oil-fired steam heat. It had sat empty for about eight months after a tenant left it rough. The kitchen had been redone; almost everything else needed work.
| Sale | Where | Size | Sold | Price | Per sq ft | How we used it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Same street | 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 1,200 sq ft | May 2026 | $175,100 | $146 | Renovated, a bit smaller |
| 2 | 0.28 mile away | 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 1,795 sq ft | Aug 2025 | $255,320 | $142 | Fully updated, bigger, attached garage |
| 3 | Same street | 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 1,340 sq ft | Apr 2026 | $246,500 | $184 | Total remodel; a ceiling, not the average |
| 4 | Same borough | 3 bed, 1 bath, 1,461 sq ft | Apr 2026 | $245,000 | $168 | Finished lower level; upside |
As-is
$115,000 to $140,000
What it could sell for today, in its current condition. Nearby houses sold rough or dated went for about $74 to $101 a square foot.
Cleaned up and financeable
$150,000 to $180,000
After a cleanup and the repairs a buyer's bank would require.
Fully renovated
$210,000 to $225,000
Our after-repair value. We used $220,000, below the comp average, because the $184 remodel shouldn't pull the number up.
Strong retail sale
$235,000
Possible, but we don't count on it.
High case
$250,000
What the remodeled sale on the street suggests. We never price off this one.
Values from our comp sheet for the Archbald house, July 2026.
A cash offer is built from the as-is value, not the renovated one. The gap between the two is the work and the risk, and that's the part we take off your hands.
The math, line by line
Every offer runs the same subtraction. The numbers change from house to house, but the lines don't.
Offer = resale value − cost to resell − repairs − holding costs − buying costs − our margin. Most houses we buy in 2026 we resell as-is within weeks, sometimes after a cleanout; others need a full renovation first. Switch between the two to see how the costs stack up before our margin.
The offer math on two example houses
Modeled on a house we bought in Plains for a cleanout and a quick resale.
Resale value
What the house sells for after we buy it
$65,000
Cost to resell
Agent, transfer tax, closing costs and resale certificates
− $3,250
Repairs or cleanout
With a cushion for surprises
− $8,000
Holding costs
Heat, power, water, insurance, property taxes, snow and grass while we own it
− $3,500
Buying costs
Our closing costs, our share of the transfer tax and the cost of the money tied up
− $2,500
What's left
Your offer and our margin come out of this. Costs took 27% of the resale value.
$47,750
Our margin still has to pay for
- Payroll
- Business insurance
- Business taxes and fees
- Marketing
- Our office
- Houses that go over budget
What we usually keep:a few thousand dollars on a house
Example numbers, rounded.
On the cleanout house, those costs take about 27% of the resale value before we've made anything. On the renovation they take 37%, because there's more work and more that can go wrong. That's why a house that only needs a cleanout gets a bigger share of its value.
It's also why we don't use the old “70% rule,” which offers 70% of the fixed-up value minus repairs on every house. Holding costs, resale costs and risk change from house to house, so one flat percentage is wrong for most of them.
Your offer is what's left after our margin, and our margin is a lot thinner than most people think. It has to pay for payroll, insurance, business taxes and fees, marketing, our office, and the houses that cost more than we planned. Once all of that is paid, House Buying Solutions usually keeps a few thousand dollars on a house.
What repairs cost us in NEPA
We price repairs line by line, in the same categories a renovation lender uses, from permits and demolition to the final punch list, plus a cushion for what we can't see. These are the costs we've seen on our own jobs.
| Work | What it has cost us, 2025 and 2026 |
|---|---|
| Cleanout and demolition | About $1,200 light, $2,200 to $3,500 moderate, about $5,000 large |
| Interior paint, whole house | About $5,000 to $6,500 |
| Kitchen | About $4,000 for a light update, about $7,000 mid-range, $10,000 to $12,000 for a basic full replacement |
| Bathroom | Under $1,000 for small fixes, about $5,000 mid-range |
| Vinyl plank flooring | About $6 a square foot installed |
| Replacement windows | About $400 to $500 each, installed |
| Interior doors | About $650 each, installed |
| Small electrical or plumbing fixes | About $1,200; a service upgrade or sewer repair about $2,500 |
| Small exterior or structural repairs | About $800 to $2,000 |
A bigger example: a 2,772-square-foot house in Moscow had a roof leak, damaged ceilings and floors, a boiler on its way out, old breaker panels, four bathrooms to redo, a wet basement, and a well and septic nobody could vouch for. Our full scope of work came to $141,100 before the cushion. On a list that long, a few unknowns can swing the cost by tens of thousands of dollars, and the offer has to allow for that.
How your situation changes the offer
Your situation often matters as much as the house. None of this comes off a formula. We work it out with you at the appointment.
| Situation | What it means for your offer |
|---|---|
| A tenant lives there | We can buy with the tenant in place. A sale doesn't end a lease, so we price in what it takes to get the house back: time, sometimes an eviction, sometimes a payment for the tenant to move by a set date, and the turnover damage. If the tenant is someone you care about, tell us; sometimes the right answer includes helping them find their next place. See our guide to occupied houses. |
| You need time to move | You don't have to be out at closing. We've let sellers stay for 30 days after closing, and part of the proceeds can be held in escrow at closing while you move. For a senior moving in with family or into assisted living, that time often matters more than the last few thousand dollars. |
| It's an estate | The executor or administrator signs once the Register of Wills issues letters. Pennsylvania inheritance tax can be handled at settlement, with the title company holding funds in escrow when needed. See selling an inherited house. |
| There's a mortgage, liens or back taxes | Payoffs come out of the sale price at settlement, through the title company. They don't change what the house is worth, but they decide what you walk away with. See behind on property taxes. |
| It's empty, damaged or full of stuff | That's the condition line. We buy as-is, contents included if you want, and the cleanout goes into the repair budget. See selling a house full of stuff. |
When you get the number
First call
1First call
We learn the situation
Rebecca or another team member asks about the house and your situation: who lives there, what works and what doesn't, your timing, and what you're hoping to get. We don't guess at a number on that first call.Appointment
2Appointment
We walk the house with you
Thomas, our acquisitions manager, walks the house with you, or we go through it together on a scheduled phone appointment. We pull the comps beforehand, so we can usually give you a number at the end of that appointment. From January through September 2026, we made 249 offers at 251 appointments.After the appointment
3After the appointment
You get it in writing
You get a written offer with every option we can do for your house, a date it's good through, and buttons to accept it, ask us to take another look, or say no. Our Cash, Cash+ and Max Cash options are explained here.Your date
4Your date
We close on your date
A local title company handles the paperwork and the payoffs. If you need to move fast, we can close in 7 days or sooner; our fastest closing took one day. Clean title closes fastest, estates and liens take longer, and you can always pick a later date.
After you sign: the verification period
Selling as-is means you don't make repairs, clean out the house, or wait on a buyer's appraisal and mortgage approval. We take on what nobody can see, like the wiring behind the plaster, the sewer line under the yard or the boiler that runs fine until January. That risk is already in the number we give you at the walkthrough, and after this many houses, we know how to price it.
Our agreement has a short period, usually 14 days, that the contract calls an inspection period. For us it's a verification period, and mostly a scope-building one, not a home inspection. On a fast closing, it's shorter.
- Photos and the details our insurance company needs
- A renovation walk-through, not a home inspection
- A scope of work, so our contractors can start right after closing
- No repair list for you to work through
“In the contract it will say inspection, but it's not inspections. It's just a renovation walk-through, our verification period. Oftentimes we need to go there to take pictures and get the details for our insurance, and put together a scope for when our contractors go and start doing the work. We like to hit the ground running. It's more of a scope-building period.”
Jake ArnoldFounder, House Buying Solutions PAWhen listing beats a cash offer
If your house is updated, in good shape, and you can wait a few months for a buyer, their inspection and their mortgage, listing it with a good local agent will usually put more money in your pocket. We'll tell you that at the appointment. A cash offer makes sense when the repairs, the timing or the situation make a regular sale hard. Compare the paths in our agent vs. for-sale-by-owner vs. cash buyer guide and how long a sale takes in Pennsylvania.
Questions sellers ask
How do cash home buyers calculate their offers?
Most work backward from what the house will sell for after they buy it, then subtract repairs, holding and selling costs, and a margin. We value the house from closed sales within half a mile to two miles from the last 6 to 12 months, price the repairs line by line, and shape the terms around your situation.
Do you use Zillow or the tax assessment to value my house?
No. We use houses that actually sold nearby. Zestimates, asking prices and tax assessments can be useful background, but they don't go into our math.
What percentage of market value do cash buyers pay?
There's no fixed percentage. It depends on the gap between what your house is worth today and what it would be worth fixed up. A house that only needs a cleanout gets a much bigger share of its value than one that needs a roof, a boiler and new bathrooms. Be careful with anyone who quotes a flat percentage before seeing the house.
Will you lower your offer after we sign?
That's not what the time after signing is for. The number we give you at the walkthrough already accounts for what nobody can see. Our agreement has a short period, usually 14 days, that the contract calls an inspection period; we use it to take photos and get the details our insurance needs, and to plan the work so our contractors can start right after closing.
Can I stay in the house after closing?
Often, yes. We've let sellers stay for 30 days after closing, and part of the proceeds can be held in escrow at closing so you have time to move. Tell us what you need at the appointment.
Do you buy houses with tenants living in them?
Yes. A sale doesn't end a lease, so we price in what it takes to get the house back, from time to a move-out payment. Bring the lease and rent records to the appointment.
How fast can you close?
When you need to, we can close in 7 days or sooner. Our fastest closing took one day. Title work sets the pace: clean title closes fastest, estates and liens take longer, and you can always pick a later date.
Sources
Checked October 5, 2026. Laws, fees, programs and dates change, so confirm with the office listed before you rely on them.
- Realty transfer tax · Pennsylvania Department of Revenue
- Recorder of Deeds fee schedule and local transfer tax rates · Luzerne County
- Realty transfer tax rates by municipality · Lackawanna County Recorder of Deeds
- Pennsylvania realty transfer tax deviations · Alt Title
This guide explains how House Buying Solutions PA prices houses. It is general information, not an appraisal and not legal or tax advice. Every house and situation is different, and an appraiser or a local real estate agent can give you an independent opinion of value.
Example numbers are rounded and come from our own records. Transfer tax rates change; confirm the current rate with your county Recorder of Deeds or title company.
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