Selling a Colorado Home to a Cash Buyer: Step by Step

Selling a Colorado home to a cash buyer takes 9 steps and 7 to 21 days from the first call to a funded closing. The sale runs on the same Colorado Real Estate Commission contract a financed sale uses, closes at a Colorado title company, and skips the appraisal, the loan underwriting and 3 to 5 weeks of waiting.

This is the step-by-step playbook for a Colorado seller. It covers what a cash buyer asks for, which contract deadlines stay in the deal, what the title company does, what the seller pays, and what a seller nets on a $550,000 Aurora home. For the ranking of buyer types and their offer percentages, read the 7 types of cash house buyers in Colorado. For the decision itself, read when a cash offer beats listing a Colorado home.

Step 1: Know what the home is worth before anyone makes an offer

A cash buyer prices your home off recent sales, then subtracts repairs, holding costs and profit. A seller with a written value has a floor; a seller without one takes the buyer's number.

Order a Smart Pricing Report for your Colorado home first. It uses closed REcolorado sales within the last 90 days, adjusted for your condition, and it costs nothing. Investors in Denver, Aurora, Lakewood and Thornton pay 70% to 85% of that number for a home that needs work and 85% to 92% for a home that is rent-ready.

Step 2: Get 3 written offers and proof of funds

Call 3 buyers, not 1. Each one gets the same 20-minute walkthrough and the same disclosure packet (Step 4). Ask every buyer for two documents with the offer:

• A written offer on the Colorado contract. A number in a text message is not an offer. The Colorado Real Estate Commission's Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate (Residential) is the form; a buyer who refuses to use it is a buyer to drop.
• Proof of funds dated within 30 days. A bank or brokerage statement showing liquid cash equal to the purchase price plus closing costs. A pre-approval letter is not proof of funds. A hard-money lender's letter means the buyer is financing the deal.

Selling in Connecticut instead? Chatterton Homes buys houses in Fairfield County; the forms and the closing agent there differ from Colorado's.

Step 3: Read the Colorado contract before you sign it

Colorado does not use attorney closings. The Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate is the whole deal, and Section 3, the Dates and Deadlines table, is where a cash deal wins or loses time. Check these lines:

• Earnest money. Ask for 2% to 3% of the price, held at the title company, not in the buyer's own account. On a $550,000 home that is $11,000 to $16,500.
• Loan and appraisal deadlines. A true cash buyer leaves the New Loan Terms, Loan Availability and Appraisal deadlines blank or marked as not applicable. If those deadlines carry dates, the buyer is financing.
• Inspection Objection and Inspection Resolution deadlines. Set them at 5 to 7 days from the contract date, not 15. A cash buyer who wants 15 days of inspection is shopping the deal.
• Assignability. The contract has a box that makes it assignable or not. Leave it non-assignable unless you have agreed in writing to a wholesaler flipping your contract to another buyer.
• Closing date. 10 to 14 days from the contract date is realistic for a Front Range title company.
• Possession. Colorado sellers write in the day and hour. Ask for closing plus 3 days if you need time to move; a cash buyer agrees to this, while a financed buyer's lender wants the keys at funding.

The Colorado home selling guide walks through every section of the contract in plain language.

Step 4: Deliver the Colorado seller disclosures

Selling as-is in Colorado does not remove the duty to disclose what you know. It removes the duty to repair. Four documents go to every buyer before the inspection deadline:

• Seller's Property Disclosure (the Commission's residential form). Every known defect: roof age, hail claims, sewer backups, foundation movement on Front Range bentonite clay, basement water, past insurance claims.
• Lead-based paint disclosure for any home built before 1978, a federal requirement that applies to cash sales.
• Radon warning statement and any test results you have. Colorado law requires it; most Front Range counties sit in EPA Zone 1 for radon.
• HOA and metro district documents. Declarations, bylaws, current dues, any pending special assessment. Metro district mill levies in Parker, Castle Rock, Erie and Commerce City run 40 to 70 mills on top of the county levy.

Step 5: The inspection period with a cash buyer

A cash buyer inspects. The difference is scope: a 45-minute walkthrough with a contractor instead of a licensed inspector, a sewer scope on any home older than 1990, and a look at the roof from the ground. Hail damage is the number one reason a Colorado cash offer gets renegotiated after inspection, so pull your last hail claim and your roof's install date before the walkthrough.

If the buyer sends an Inspection Objection asking for a price cut, you have 3 choices under the contract: accept, counter, or let the deadline pass and the contract terminates with earnest money back to the buyer. A buyer who cuts the price more than 5% after the first visit is re-trading; go to offer number 2.

Step 6: Title work at a Colorado title company

In Colorado the title company is the escrow agent, the settlement agent and the insurer. Inside 3 to 5 business days of contract it produces:

• The title commitment listing every lien, easement and HOA covenant of record. Judgments, tax liens and unreleased deeds of trust show up here; clearing them takes 1 to 3 weeks, so order title the day the contract is signed.
• Your mortgage payoff letter. The title company requests it from your lender; you sign the authorization. Colorado mortgages are deeds of trust released through the county Public Trustee after payoff, and the title company files that release.
• The HOA status letter. $150 to $400, ordered from the management company, showing dues paid through closing and any transfer fee.
• Tax proration. Colorado property taxes are paid in arrears, so at closing you credit the buyer for the current year's taxes from January 1 to the closing date.

One rule: the title company will never email new wire instructions. If you get an email changing where your proceeds go, call the closer at the number on the title commitment.

Step 7: Closing day and getting paid

Signing takes 30 to 45 minutes at the title company or with a mobile notary. You sign the deed (a general warranty deed is standard; investors ask for a special warranty deed and that is acceptable), the settlement statement, the Public Trustee payoff authorization and Colorado's DR 1083 if it applies. The title company records the deed with the county clerk and recorder the same day and wires your proceeds the same day or the next business day.

Colorado has no state transfer tax. The state documentary fee is 1 cent per $100 of price, $55 on a $550,000 home. If you no longer live in Colorado when you sell, the state withholds 2% of the price or the net proceeds, whichever is less, against your Colorado income tax; a Colorado resident selling a primary residence has nothing withheld.

What a seller pays at a Colorado cash closing

Some cash buyers pay every line; get that in the contract's Additional Provisions.

What a seller nets: cash sale versus listed sale on a $550,000 Aurora home

The listed sale nets roughly $55,000 more and takes 45 to 75 days. The cash sale is the right call when the home needs $40,000 or more of work, when a Public Trustee foreclosure sale is under 60 days away, or when the move date is fixed. Otherwise the home equity and net proceeds guide shows how to keep the larger number. The Denver cash home buyer page lays out both paths side by side.

The cash-sale timeline in Colorado

1. Day 0: Pricing report in hand, 3 walkthroughs scheduled.
2. Day 1 to 3: Written offers and proof of funds received; contract signed; earnest money deposited at the title company within 3 days.
3. Day 2 to 5: Disclosures delivered; title commitment and payoff ordered; HOA status letter ordered.
4. Day 5 to 7: Inspection objection deadline passes or is resolved.
5. Day 8 to 10: Title cleared, settlement statement drafted, wire instructions confirmed by phone.
6. Day 10 to 14: Closing, recording, proceeds wired.

Red flags in a Colorado cash offer

• No proof of funds, or proof from a lender. The buyer is not a cash buyer.
• An assignable contract with $500 earnest money. A wholesaler is marketing your house to other investors and walks if nobody bites.
• A request to sign the deed before closing, or to leave the loan in your name. That is a subject-to deal, not a cash sale, and your credit stays tied to a house you no longer own.
• Pressure to skip the title company. Every legitimate Colorado closing runs through a licensed title agent.
• A second price cut after inspection. Go back to offer number 2.

Chatterton Homes publishes its process for Connecticut sellers; expect the same from any Colorado buyer, in writing, on the Colorado contract.

Where to go next

• How the Kenna Real Estate Group helps Colorado sellers
• The Colorado Home Seller's Guide
• When a cash offer makes sense in Denver
• The as-is sales process in Denver
• Colorado short sales guide for sellers who owe more than the home is worth
• Meet the agents of the Kenna Real Estate Group

Talk to the Kenna Real Estate Group

The Kenna Real Estate Group, Keller Williams DTC, brings Colorado sellers a written pricing report, 3 vetted cash offers and a listed-sale net sheet in one meeting, then runs the contract, the disclosures and the title company closing so nothing slips a deadline. Call or text 303-955-4220. A live person answers. Not a robot, not a phone tree. If you are buying next, search every home for sale in Colorado.