There are roughly 86 companies buying houses for cash in the Memphis metro, and about 45 of them have enough of a track record to evaluate. They are not all running the same business, and the difference matters more than the number any of them quotes you first.
Cash home buyers in Memphis fall into four distinct models. Which one you are talking to determines whether the offer you accept is the amount you actually receive at closing. This page explains how to tell them apart, what to ask before you sign anything, and where the widely repeated claim about what cash buyers pay is and is not true.
A cash offer in Memphis is only worth the probability that it closes at the stated number. Four business models are operating here — rental holders, flippers, wholesalers who assign the contract to someone else, and lead aggregators who sell your phone number. Tennessee law gives you a specific right in the third case: a buyer who intends to assign your contract must disclose that to you in writing, in bold, large-font print inside the agreement, at least three business days before the assignment takes effect. The most useful thing you can do is ask which model you are dealing with, and get the answer before the paperwork, not inside it.
1. Rental holders. They buy, renovate lightly, and keep the house as a rental. Memphis is one of the country's largest turnkey-rental destinations, so there are a lot of these here, and a national operator buying for its own portfolio is the least likely to renegotiate — the purchase is a line item, not the whole trade. They tend to be narrow about what they will take, and uninterested in anything with a title problem.
2. Flippers. They buy, renovate substantially, and resell to a retail buyer. Their offer is tied tightly to a repair estimate, which means it moves when the estimate moves. This is the model most associated with the re-trade — a number agreed at the kitchen table and revised downward after an inspection. Not all of them do it. Ask directly what happens to your price if their estimate changes.
3. Wholesalers. They sign a contract with you and then sell that contract to a third party rather than closing in their own name. Tennessee expressly permits this and, since 2025, regulates it: SB 909 defined wholesaling and equitable interest and conditioned assignment on written disclosure. No license is required to do it lawfully. The risk to you is not that it is improper; it is that your closing now depends on a buyer you have never met, and if that buyer does not perform you are back where you started weeks later. You are entitled to be told, in bold print, in the contract, three business days before the assignment is effective. If nobody has mentioned assignment at all, ask.
4. Lead aggregators. The national "we buy houses" brands, and the postcards. Many are marketing companies that sell your information to local buyers. The signal is unmistakable: you fill out one form and receive five calls in an hour, none of them from the company whose name was on the card.
Several of the large national real estate websites — the ones that also sell agent referrals — publish a fixed percentage-of-value band that cash buyers supposedly pay. It gets repeated often enough that Memphis sellers arrive expecting a specific fraction of their home's value.
The band is not so much wrong as meaningless. A cash offer is arithmetic: what the house is worth repaired, minus what the repairs actually cost, minus the cost of carrying and reselling it, minus the risk the buyer is absorbing. A house needing a roof, HVAC, and a sewer line lands low in any such band. A house needing paint and a water heater lands high in it — and a house needing nothing produces a number you should refuse, because you should be listing it instead. A single published band cannot describe both, which is why nobody who has actually walked your house quotes one.
We do not publish a percentage or a range anywhere on this site, and you should be skeptical of anyone who does — us included, if we ever start. A range on a website is a number invented before anyone saw your house. The number on your house can only be produced after somebody walks it.
What the referral sites leave out is the other side of the ledger: commission, the repairs a mortgage lender will require before it funds, and the months of taxes, insurance, and utilities you pay while the house sits. On a sound Memphis house those still usually favor listing. On a rough one they frequently do not, and the percentage comparison never shows it.
If your house is structurally sound and sits in a neighborhood with real buyer demand — much of Midtown, Cooper-Young, Central Gardens, Evergreen, and most of Cordova and Bartlett — list it with an agent. A retail buyer is purchasing a home; every buyer on this page is purchasing a project. Even after commission and a couple of months of holding costs, a sound house usually nets more on the open market.
A cash sale earns its discount when the repair list is longer than you can fund, the estate is unfinished, the heirs are scattered across several states, taxes or code citations have gotten ahead of you, there is a foreclosure sale date, or the house has been a remote management problem for years. Those are real conditions with a real price, and paying it is a rational trade rather than a loss.
We are an Oklahoma-based company. We have bought houses in Tulsa for more than 25 years and we are new to Memphis — we would rather tell you that than have you discover it. We have no local tenure here and we are not going to claim any.
Three commitments, which are the same ones we would want from a buyer:
And if we walk your house and conclude you should list it, we will say so and tell you why. That costs us the deal and it is still the honest answer.
The category is not. Most of the roughly 86 companies operating here are running one of four legitimate business models, and wholesaling — the one people most often call a scam — is expressly lawful in Tennessee when the required written disclosures are made. What is genuinely predatory is narrower and easy to spot: a number quoted before anyone saw the house, a price revised downward late in the process, earnest money the buyer keeps control of, and pressure to sign the same day.
Ask for proof of funds — a bank letter or statement dated within the last month — and ask which title company they close through. Then ask whether they intend to close in their own name or assign the contract to someone else, because an assigned contract means the money is coming from a party you have not vetted. Tennessee entitles you to that disclosure in writing, in bold print, at least three business days before the assignment takes effect.
There is no reliable percentage, and the ranges published on national real estate sites are marketing rather than measurement. An offer is what the house is worth repaired, less the actual repair cost, less the cost of holding and reselling it, less the risk the buyer takes on. A house needing everything produces a low number and a house needing little produces a high one — and if your house needs almost nothing, you should be listing it rather than comparing cash offers.
Yes, and any buyer worth dealing with will encourage it. Compare the offers on more than price: who holds the earnest money, whether the buyer is closing or assigning, what happens to the number after an inspection, and how each one handles whatever your title needs. The highest opening number is frequently not the highest amount actually received at closing.
No. There are no commissions, no fees, and no closing costs charged to you by the buyer, and you should not pay for repairs, cleanout, or inspections. Amounts that have to be paid off out of the sale — a mortgage balance, delinquent city and county property taxes, liens — come out of the proceeds, which is not a fee but does change what you take home.
Some will and most will not. Tennessee's small-estate procedure covers personal property only and is capped at $50,000, so a house cannot pass through it, which means the estate either gets administered or the heirs convey their own interests and the buyer absorbs the cure. Buyers who can only close on clean title will hand the problem back to you. Selling an inherited house in Memphis sets out both routes and what each pays.
This is general information, not legal advice. Talk to a Tennessee attorney about your specific situation.
Get a no-obligation cash offer or an honest read on what the house is worth — call (901) 437-0069 or request an offer online.