the house desk

Cash offer calculator: what a quick sale would cost you

For a seller deciding whether a cash offer is worth taking. Where a company publishes no percentage, the tool shows nothing for it rather than a guess.

On this page
  1. The calculator
  2. How the offer is worked out
  3. What cash buyers publish
  4. What it will not do
  5. Questions people ask
  6. What to do with the number

The short answer

The cash offer calculator starts from HM Land Registry sold prices for similar homes and shows what an agent, an auction and each named cash buyer would leave you.1 Each company line uses that firm's own published percentage, dated and linked. A firm that publishes none is left blank. The data covers England and Wales only.

What homes like yours are selling for, and what each route leaves you

Enter a postcode in England or Wales and pick the kind of property. The sold prices come from HM Land Registry's own records,1 and your postcode goes to Land Registry and to postcodes.io, nowhere else.

How this works. Land Registry records a sale weeks after it completes, so the two most recent months are always incomplete and are left out. The window is the twelve whole months before that, compared with the twelve before it. The middle price is the exact median of every standard sale of that property type in that local authority, not an average, so one unusual sale cannot move it. Price paid data is Crown copyright, published under the Open Government Licence v3.0.1 Postcode lookup by postcodes.io, using Ordnance Survey and Office for National Statistics data.2

What it cannot tell you. It holds no listing dates, so it cannot say how long a sale takes. It covers England and Wales, because that is what Land Registry's price paid data covers.

How is a cash offer calculated?

The calculator applies each house-buying company's published percentage of market value to the median sold price for your property type in your local authority. It sets an agent sale beside them. The result is arithmetic on published figures, and no firm has made an offer for your home.

A median here describes your local authority rather than your street. The postcode is turned into a local authority by postcodes.io,2 and HM Land Registry is asked about every standard sale of that type in it. Half sold for more and half for less. A median knows nothing about your own home, its condition, its position on the street or whether the roof is sound, so it is not what your home is worth. Treat it as the centre of the range you are selling into.

For the agent line the calculator assumes 1.3 per cent including VAT, Rightmove's average for 2025.4 A real quote will be higher or lower, and the estate agent fees calculator runs yours.

From one median to the offers, on an illustrative £200,000

  • District median, illustrative £200,000
  • Agent fee at 1.3 per cent including VAT4an agent sale leaves £197,400 minus £2,600
  • The gap to an offer at 85 per cent, the highest any profiled company publishes5leaves £170,000 minus £27,400
  • Down to 70 per cent, the lowest of Property Solvers’ figures7 minus £30,000
  • Left at 70 per cent £140,000
Our arithmetic on an illustrative £200,000 median. Conveyancing and moving costs are left out of every line.

Check the number of sales beside the middle price before you look at the price itself. If it is only a handful, I would give the median little weight when judging an offer and lean on recorded sales nearest your own home instead.

Haroon Ali Author, The House Desk. Over 11 years in property and renovation

How much do cash house buyers pay?

Among the companies The House Desk profiles, those that publish a figure put their offers at 70 to 85 per cent of market value. Good Move and Upstix publish offers of up to 85 per cent, and Property Solvers 70 to 80 per cent. Three publish no percentage at all.567 The Office of Fair Trading found in 2013 that sellers typically gave up 10 to 25 per cent of market value on a quick sale.3 The monthly tracker records these published figures each month.

No percentage on this page is our estimate. The company figures are each firm's own, read on the date shown and cited in full on its profile. When The House Desk checked the first page of Google on 23 September 2026, every cash offer calculator on it was published by a company that buys houses or passes sellers to one, and each used a percentage band it did not source.

The figures behind the calculator, and who published each
FigurePublished byWhat kind of figure
Up to 85 per centGood Move5 and Upstix, which describes it as a 15 per cent discount6Company claim
70 to 80 per centProperty Solvers, across its own pages7Company claim. Its pages do not agree with each other
No percentageWe Buy Any House,8 National Homebuyers9 and Express Offers10Nothing published, so the tool leaves them blank
10 to 25 per cent given upThe Office of Fair Trading, 20133The only figure that is not a company's own claim: what the regulator found sellers typically give up on a quick sale
Auction buyer feesAllsop,11 Bond Wolfe,12 SDL Auctions13 and iamsold14Each auction house's own published fees

All thirteen companies we have researched, including the ones that publish nothing, are on our company reviews. Those thirteen are not the whole market. They are the firms whose published terms we have read and dated.

What this tool will not do

Valuing your home, measuring how long a sale takes and covering Scotland or Northern Ireland are all outside the calculator.

What the calculator does, and what it will not do

  • Shows what homes of your type sold for across your local authority The median from HM Land Registry price paid data, queried live.1
  • Shows how many sales that median rests on The count sits beside the price. Some districts record very few detached houses or flats in a year, and a median drawn from a handful of sales is worth little.
  • Values your home Nobody can value a specific house from a postcode, and the sites that offer to are selling something.
  • Says how long a sale takes Land Registry records completions, not listings, so the data holds no time on the market at all. A tool claiming to measure that from this source is measuring something else as well.
  • Covers Scotland or Northern Ireland They keep their own registers.

Questions people ask about this calculator

Where do the sold prices come from?

HM Land Registry price paid data, queried live when you press the button, which covers every standard sale registered in England and Wales. The figure is the exact median, the middle price of those sales, for your property type across your local authority.

Is this a valuation of my house?

No. It shows what homes of that type sold for near you, and what each route would leave on that figure. What a firm would pay for your own home depends on the home, which nobody can judge from a postcode.

Why does it ignore the last two months?

HM Land Registry records a sale weeks after it completes, so the most recent months are always missing sales that have happened but are not yet registered. Counting them would make the latest months look quiet when they are only incomplete.

Why does a buyer fee at auction matter to a seller?

Because a bidder who has to find several thousand pounds in fees on top of the hammer price has that much less to bid with. At Allsop the fee is a flat 2,000 pounds including VAT. At iamsold it was 4.5 per cent with a 6,600 pound minimum in its March 2024 article, which on a cheap lot is a large share of the price.

Does the tool cover Scotland or Northern Ireland?

No. HM Land Registry price paid data covers England and Wales. Scotland has its own register and a different selling process, with an earlier binding point.

What to do with the number

If the gap looks small against your deadline, a direct sale may be the right answer. Run the checks in our guide to house-buying companies before you accept anything. If it looks large, the open market is probably worth the wait, and the three ways to sell shows what each one asks of you. Either way, get any offer in writing with the percentage stated, and check it against sold prices on your own street rather than the district median. Every line here leaves out conveyancing, which each route pays, and solicitor fees when selling covers that bill.

Find the route that fits you

Three questions, about 30 seconds. Your answers stay in your browser.

Sources

(14)

Numbers in the text link to these. Each was read on the date shown. How we research

  1. Price Paid Data, linked data service and query endpoint HM Land Registry. Official register. England and Wales. Read 22 September 2026.
  2. Postcodes.io: postcode and geolocation API for the UK Postcodes.io, open source project. Company's own published information. United Kingdom. Read 22 September 2026.
  3. Quick House Sales, market study report (OFT1499) Office of Fair Trading. Regulator or enforcement body. UK. Read 14 September 2026.
  4. How much are estate agent fees and how do they work? Rightmove. Company's own published information. UK. Read 14 September 2026.
  5. Sell your house fast Good Move (ARN Capital Ltd). Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.
  6. Property buying company questions Upstix Technologies Ltd. Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.
  7. Property Solvers homepage Property Solvers Limited. Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.
  8. How it works We Buy Any House (LXB Equity Limited). Company's own published information. United Kingdom. Read 22 September 2026.
  9. Terms and Conditions Momentum Asset Management Ltd, trading as National Homebuyers. Company's own published information. UK. Read 14 September 2026.
  10. Express Offers homepage Express Offers (SQ Property Trading Ltd). Company's own published information. United Kingdom. Read 23 September 2026.
  11. How to buy property at auction Allsop LLP. Company's own published information. United Kingdom. Read 23 September 2026.
  12. Our buying at auction guide Bond Wolfe. Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.
  13. Guide to auction fees for buyers SDL Property Auctions. Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.
  14. Fees explained: buying and selling with MMoA iamsold (IAM-SOLD Ltd). Company's own published information. England and Wales. Read 23 September 2026.