Published October 7, 2026 in Market Update

Cash Buyers Closed Faster but Paid Less in Richmond County

By Jasmin Bradley

Real estate, Richmond County Market Update

I pulled every listing in Richmond County through October 7, 2026, and sorted the sales by how the buyer paid. Of the 2,156 sales where we know how the buyer paid, 471 were cash and 1,345 used a loan. That is enough to see a real pattern, and the pattern is worth understanding before you price your home or make an offer.

What cash buyers actually paid

The typical cash buyer paid $140,000 for a home in Richmond County. They got 94.5% of the last asking price and 90.4% of what the seller first asked. That is a meaningful gap from where sellers started, and it shows up consistently across the data.

Cash buyers also pushed harder on price. Sellers took a bigger cut from their first asking price with cash buyers than with financed buyers. Cash did not mean full price. It meant a faster close in exchange for a lower number.

What loan buyers actually paid

Buyers using a loan paid a typical $218,000, and they paid 100% of the last asking price. They also paid 97% of what the seller first asked. That is a much tighter gap than cash buyers left.

Yes, they took 40 days instead of 34. But they paid $78,000 more on the typical sale. For a seller, six days is a small wait for that kind of difference. For a buyer with a loan, knowing you are competing against cash at the lower end of the market is useful before you write your offer.

Do this, not that

The most common mistake sellers make with cash offers

Sellers hear the word cash and think it means more. In Richmond County right now, it usually means less. The typical cash buyer paid 90.4% of what the seller first asked. The typical financed buyer paid 97%. That is a 6.6 percentage point gap on whatever price you started at.

The mistake is taking a low cash offer quickly because it feels safer, without running the math on what a financed buyer would pay. Six days is not nothing, but a 6.6 percentage point difference in what you walk away with is not nothing either. Financed buyers paid 97% of first asking price in Richmond County. Cash buyers paid 90.4%.

There is one case where cash does make sense to take: when your home is priced under $150,000. Nearly 3 in 10 homes in that range never found a buyer at all, with 28.1% giving up without a sale. At that price point, a cash offer that closes is worth more than a financed offer that might fall apart.

What this means for you right now

If you are selling, the data says to think carefully before accepting a cash offer below your asking price. Financed buyers in Richmond County paid 100% of the last asking price on the typical sale. That means if your home is priced right, a buyer with a loan is likely to pay it. The 6-day difference in closing time is real, but so is the $78,000 gap in what each type of buyer typically paid.

If you are buying with a loan, you are not at a disadvantage in Richmond County, even against cash. The 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.28% as of October 1, 2026, according to Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, and that rate is up from 6.34% a year ago. Higher rates do make monthly payments bigger. But in this market, financed buyers are still getting homes, paying close to asking price, and closing in 40 days. Cash is not locking them out.