We Buy Houses for Cash in Texas

Texas is big enough that the details that complicate a sale change from one neighborhood to the next. A house in a Houston-area subdivision may sit inside a municipal utility district with its own tax and bond debt, a North Texas home may come with an HOA and a resale certificate, and a Gulf Coast property may have a water history that a buyer's lender and insurer want to see. Add repairs, showings, agent commissions and a buyer whose financing can fall through, and listing is not always the easy road. Swifty Home Buyers buys Texas houses for cash, as-is, and you choose the closing date. This page walks through the Texas rules and customs that matter, so you can compare a cash sale with a listing using real information instead of guesses.

We buy houses in all 50 states. This guide covers the rules that matter in Texas.

Texas sellers do not typically see a percentage-based state transfer tax line on the settlement statement, which sets the state apart from many others, but that does not make a sale free. The seller-side costs to plan for are real estate commissions in a traditional listing (negotiable, and often the largest single item), the owner's policy of title insurance, escrow and title company fees, any HOA transfer or resale certificate fees, payoff of loans and liens, and prorated property taxes. Who pays for the owner's title policy is a negotiated point in the contract rather than a fixed rule, so read that paragraph carefully. Property taxes are a large part of owning a home in Texas, and at closing they are commonly prorated so that you pay for the days you owned the house and the buyer pays for the rest. In a cash sale to Swifty there are no agent commissions, and we do not ask you to make repairs. Every closing cost is put in writing before you agree to anything, and it is worth asking any title company for an itemized estimate no matter how you sell.

Texas foreclosures are non-judicial in the usual case, meaning the lender or servicer does not have to sue first. Under Property Code 51.002 the servicer must send a written notice of default by certified mail and give you at least 20 days to cure. After that, notice of the sale must be given at least 21 days before the sale date. Sales are public auctions held between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the first Tuesday of a month at the county courthouse, or on the Wednesday if the first Tuesday falls on January 1 or July 4. Put together, the earliest sale can come roughly six weeks after the default notice, so the clock can move faster than many owners expect. You should not plan on being able to buy the house back after the sale. A foreclosure sale can also leave you owing more: under Property Code 51.003 a lender can sue for a deficiency within two years of the sale, but you may claim an offset if the home's fair market value was higher than the auction price. The state's Homeowner Assistance Fund closed its application portal in October 2023 after requests exceeded funding, so a HUD-approved housing counselor or legal aid office is the better first call. If you sell before the first Tuesday, the payoff comes out of the proceeds and any equity is yours instead of being lost at auction.

• Sell as-is
• Inherited house
• Foreclosure
• Tenants or rental property

Dallas County and North Texas

The Dallas County Clerk explains that foreclosure sales there are held the first Tuesday of every month on the north side of the George Allen Courts Building facing 600 Commerce Street, below the overhang, or at another place designated by the County Commissioners. Notices of sale must be posted 21 days before the sale, and the clerk's office posts them on its website by city and month. The clerk does not run the auctions; trustees acting for lenders do. If you see your address on that list, there is usually still time to sell before the first Tuesday.