New Realtor.com research shows cash buying is cooling nationally. While certainty was always what sellers wanted from a cash offer, it’s generally becoming harder to get. Opendoor offers are now on Realtor.com, right where sellers are already looking.
Cash offers of the past
For most of the last five years, a cash offer meant valuable leverage in bidding wars. The weapon buyers used to beat other buyers. Sellers benefited from the crossfire, and what they gained was certainty: no financing to approve, no appraisal coming in short, a close date that held. Even as bidding wars become less frequent, sellers will continue to benefit from that certainty.
New research from Realtor.com finds cash purchases made up 31.4% of home sales in the first four months of 2026, down from 32.3% a year earlier, as more financed buyers return to a more balanced market.
What hasn’t faded though? Sellers still want the cash. It’s just not coming to them in the same way.
Certainty is scarce
Cash buyers are pulling back faster than the market as a whole. Realtor.com found total home sales fell 8.5% year over year while cash sales fell 11.2%. In other words, fewer cash buyers are out there to find your home’s listing on their own.
In a slower market, it’s true that price can be a real risk. Buyers have leverage again. Only about 1 in 4 homes now sell above asking, and the typical home closes below list. But there’s a second risk that gets far less attention, and it’s the one getting worse: the sale not happening at all. Roughly 1 in 7 pending home sales now collapses before closing, and relistings, homes that come back to market after a deal dies, are up 18% year over year.
Every one of those is a seller who thought they were done. Who had already started packing.
“Cash offers became known as a way for buyers to win bidding wars. But for sellers, the value was simpler: more confidence the deal would close, and a close date they could plan around. That matters even more now, with fewer cash buyers in the market and more deals falling through. Bringing Opendoor offers to Realtor.com gives sellers a cash option upfront, while they’re deciding what to do next.”
— Morgan Brown, Chief Growth Officer, Opendoor
What this looks like on Realtor.com
Realtor.com data shows homes typically took 60 to 85 days to go from newly listed to closed in 2025. That is two to three months of showings, negotiation, financing, appraisal, and hoping none of it falls apart.
Hannah Jones, Realtor.com’s senior economist, describes the cash advantage as “giving sellers confidence that a deal will close quickly and with fewer surprises.” Read the full report on Realtor.com.
Sellers who sold their home to Opendoor closed in about 29 days on average in the first half of 2026. Eligible sellers can close in as little as 21 days. There’s no time on the market, because sellers aren’t waiting on the market. We pay cash, so there’s no buyer side mortgage underwriting sitting on the critical path.
That is the whole mechanism. Opendoor is not a faster version of the same process, but a different process altogether.
How to get started
Cash offers from Opendoor are now available on the Realtor.com seller marketplace, and to homeowners who claim their home on the Realtor.com My Home dashboard.
Enter your address, see what Opendoor will pay, and pick your close date. No listing, no showings, no making repairs required. If you would rather list, you can do that too. The point is that you get to see both numbers before you decide.
