Cash Is King — But Not in This San Francisco Market

Lenders are closing in 14 to 18 days right now for buyers who are preapproved — right here in San Francisco, on SF properties, with SF underwriting and SF condo docs. The whole thing.

Sit with that for a second. Fourteen days. That used to be cash-offer territory. Now it's just... Tuesday.

So when a new buyer client tells me they're all cash and ask if that's an advantage for them, I get it — old habits from a slower city. But I have to be honest with them: that math doesn't hold up the way it used to, not here, not right now.

Here's the scenario I put in front of my cash buyers: imagine you are the seller.

You get two strong offers. One is all cash, 10-day close. The other is $25K more, 35% down, financed, closing in 14 days.

Would you wait four more days for an extra $25K?

I would. Every time. Because at the end of the day, it's all cash for the seller. You're not the one sitting at the lending desk — you're the one at the closing table, and the number that shows up there is the number that matters.

"I can't compete with an all-cash buyer."

I hear this from my SF buyers constantly. My answer is always the same: yes, you can — as long as you're working with the same budget. In this city, a preapproved buyer closing in two and a half weeks isn't the underdog anymore. The financing isn't the risk it used to be. The risk is whether you brought your best offer.

The other myth I have to talk people out of: that cash buyers get a "deal" in San Francisco.

That may have been true once. It's still true in some other markets — slower ones, with less competition, where a fast close is genuinely rare. It is not true here right now. Not with this level of demand and this many preapproved buyers moving at cash-buyer speed. SF sellers aren't discounting for certainty when certainty costs them $25K and only saves them four days.

I watched this play out firsthand on one of my recent listings. Five offers came in. One was all cash. It came in under asking.

The seller didn't bother countering. Didn't bother considering it at all. Not because cash isn't nice — it's because in this market, "nice" doesn't outweigh "less."

The bottom line for SF sellers: don't let the word "cash" do your negotiating for you. Look at the actual number that lands in your account, not the story attached to how it gets there.

The bottom line for SF buyers: stop counting yourself out before you've even written the offer. Bring your best number, get preapproved, and let the timeline speak for itself — this market is moving fast enough for both of us.

Cash is king. It's just not wearing the crown alone in San Francisco anymore.