To pay cash for a house, you deliver the full purchase price at closing without a mortgage — usually by wire transfer to the title company or closing attorney — after signing a purchase agreement, running a title search, and completing whatever inspections you want. The mechanics look a lot like a financed purchase, minus the lender. What changes is who’s responsible for the safeguards: with no bank in the deal, every check that protects your money is a check you have to order yourself.
Here is what that looks like from offer to recorded deed, and what to do after.
Prove You Have the Money
Sellers won’t take a cash offer seriously without a proof-of-funds letter. It comes from your bank or financial institution, shows your name and the account balance, and should be dated within the last 30 days.
The funds have to be liquid — money that can be wired or turned into a cashier’s check right away. Stocks and mutual funds in a brokerage account usually don’t count on their own, because selling them takes time and the final number can shift. If your money sits in more than one account, you’ll need a letter from each institution, or a consolidated statement from your financial advisor.
Order the Checks a Lender Would Normally Require
A mortgage lender pays for a title search, requires an appraisal, and insists on lender’s title insurance because it’s protecting its loan. You’re protecting your own money, so you have to order these yourself.
Title Search and Owner’s Title Insurance
A title search pulls public records to find liens, unpaid taxes, easements, or ownership disputes tied to the property. The title company issues a title commitment listing the conditions under which it will insure the title. Owner’s title insurance is a one-time policy that covers you for things a search can miss: forged documents, recording errors, undisclosed heirs who show up years later. Premiums usually run from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the state and the price. Coverage lasts as long as you own the home.
Skipping this is one of the biggest risks cash buyers take. Nobody is going to require it of you, and no institution steps in if a defect surfaces later.
Home Inspection
A professional inspection covers the roof, plumbing, electrical, foundation, and major appliances. For a standard single-family home, expect $300 to $500 depending on size, age, and location. The report gives you room to negotiate repairs or a price cut, or to walk away if what turns up is serious enough.
Land Survey
A survey confirms the exact boundaries and shows whether any structures, fences, or driveways cross onto a neighbor’s lot or a utility easement. Boundary fights are expensive to litigate and can force the removal of improvements, so paying for the survey now is much cheaper than sorting it out later.
Appraisal
Lenders order appraisals to make sure the property is worth what they’re lending. Nobody requires one of you, but it’s still worth doing. An appraiser looks at comparable sales, condition, square footage, and neighborhood trends to estimate fair market value. If it comes in under the asking price, you have real data to renegotiate — or to back out before overpaying. The appraisal also helps later when you’re setting insurance coverage, appealing a property tax bill, or thinking about resale. Most residential appraisals cost $350 to $750.
Write the Purchase Agreement With the Right Contingencies
The purchase agreement is the binding contract. Most buyers use a form from a state bar association or regional real estate commission so it complies with local law. It needs the property’s legal description (lot and block from the existing deed), the final price, and the earnest money deposit, typically 1 to 3 percent of the purchase price, held in escrow until closing.
Cash offers appeal to sellers partly because they drop the financing contingency, the clause that lets a buyer walk if their loan falls through. You still want two other contingencies in the contract:
- An inspection contingency giving you a set number of days to inspect and either negotiate repairs, ask for a credit, or cancel if the findings are bad enough.
- A title contingency giving you time to complete the title search and clear any liens or ownership issues before you’re locked in.
You can waive these to make your offer more competitive. Doing so is faster but leaves you with no exit if something serious turns up.
Know What You Still Pay at Closing
Paying cash means no application fees, no loan origination charges, no discount points, no mortgage insurance, and no lender-required appraisal fee. What remains:
- A settlement or closing fee to the title company or closing attorney for coordinating the transaction and preparing documents. It varies widely by location.
- The title search charge, and the owner’s title insurance premium if you buy it.
- Prorated property taxes. If the seller has already paid taxes covering days you’ll own the home, you reimburse them. If taxes are owed but unpaid, they credit you.
- Recording fees charged by the county recorder’s office to record the new deed.
- Transfer taxes, where they exist. Rates range from nothing in states without one to several percent of the purchase price. Who pays — buyer, seller, or split — depends on local custom and what the contract says.
At closing you get a settlement statement, an itemized list of every charge and credit on both sides. Federal law requires a specific Closing Disclosure form only when a federally related mortgage is involved. Cash deals aren’t subject to that rule, but title companies and attorneys still prepare a comparable statement (sometimes on the older HUD-1 format) so both sides can check the numbers.1LII / Legal Information Institute. 12 CFR Appendix A to Part 1024 – Instructions for Completing HUD-1 and HUD-1a Settlement Statements Review it before you sign so the amount due matches what you expect.
Protect the Wire From Fraud
Wire fraud is now one of the most common scams in real estate closings. Criminals break into email accounts belonging to agents, title companies, or attorneys and send buyers fake wiring instructions that route the money to an account they control. Once the wire goes to the wrong place, it’s usually gone.
A few habits that reduce the risk:
- Get wiring instructions early, in person or by calling a phone number you already have on file. Not a number pulled from an email.
- If instructions arrive by email, call the title company at a trusted number and confirm every piece — routing number, account number, recipient name — before you authorize the transfer.
- Treat last-minute changes, misspelled email domains, and urgent “wire now” messages as red flags. Wire details are set up early and shouldn’t suddenly change.
- After sending, call the title company and confirm the money arrived in the right account.
Send the Funds and Record the Deed
Most cash buyers deliver the price by domestic wire transfer, some by cashier’s check. Banks typically charge $25 to $75 for an outgoing domestic wire, and some waive the fee on premium accounts or large transfers. Many banks cap daily transfer amounts, so you may need to visit a branch and authorize the wire ahead of time. A cashier’s check from your bank works too, though many title companies prefer wires because receipt is instantly verifiable.
At the closing table the seller signs the deed transferring ownership to you. It has to be acknowledged before a notary before it can be recorded. Once signed and notarized, the deed goes to the county recorder’s office and becomes part of the public land records. Recording puts the world on constructive notice that you own the property and protects you from someone later claiming they bought the same place or attached a lien to it. The title company or attorney usually handles recording, but confirm it happened. An unrecorded deed leaves you exposed to priority disputes.
Handle the Federal Reporting Rules
Form 1099-S
Real estate sales with gross proceeds of $600 or more get reported to the IRS on Form 1099-S.2Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1099-S (04/2025) The filing obligation belongs to the settlement agent, not the buyer.3LII / Legal Information Institute. 26 USC 6045(e)(2) – Definition of Real Estate Reporting Person Your job is to check that the information reported about you and the transaction is right. For returns due in 2026, the penalty for a late or incorrect 1099-S is $340 per return.4Internal Revenue Service. Information Return Penalties
Form 8300 and Physical Currency
If any party in the deal receives more than $10,000 in physical currency — actual bills and coins — the recipient has to report it to the IRS and FinCEN on Form 8300. Wire transfers and cashier’s checks don’t count as “cash” for this purpose; a cashier’s check over $10,000 is specifically excluded. So the typical cash home purchase doesn’t trigger Form 8300. What does trigger serious trouble is structuring payments to stay under the threshold, for example splitting currency deposits into amounts just below $10,000. That’s a federal crime carrying fines up to $100,000 and up to five years in prison.5Internal Revenue Service. IRS Form 8300 Reference Guide
Buying Through an LLC or Trust
If you’re buying through an LLC, corporation, trust, or other legal entity instead of in your own name, an additional rule applies. FinCEN’s Residential Real Estate Rule, effective March 1, 2026, requires certain professionals at closing to file reports identifying the beneficial owners of the purchasing entity whenever residential property transfers to a legal entity or trust without external financing.6FinCEN. Residential Real Estate Rule This does not apply if you’re buying in your own name.
Cover Yourself After Closing
Buy Homeowner’s Insurance Anyway
With a mortgage, the lender forces you to carry homeowner’s insurance. Paying cash, nobody does. But going without it means you take the full hit on fire, storm damage, vandalism, liability claims, and everything else a policy would cover. Rebuilding after a major loss can cost more than you paid for the house. Buy the policy.
File for Property Tax Exemptions
Many jurisdictions offer homestead exemptions or other property tax reductions for owner-occupied homes. When a lender handles closing, the paperwork sometimes prompts you to apply. As a cash buyer, filing is on you — usually with the local tax assessor’s office and typically within the first year of ownership. Miss the deadline and you can end up paying hundreds or thousands more in property taxes than you had to.