This is a McKinney deal we closed earlier this month. We are telling it because it is a clean example of the exact situation our phone rings for: a homeowner who ran out of runway with the bank, tried the retail route first, and could not get an offer in time.
The details are anonymized to protect the seller’s privacy. The mechanics are exactly how the deal ran.
The situation
The homeowner was behind with their lender and the arrears were growing. Like most people in that spot, they did the responsible thing first: they put the house on the market. A retail sale, in a normal window, would have been the right answer — pull the highest number the market will pay, use the proceeds to satisfy the lender, walk away clean.
It did not come together in time. The listing sat. No offer arrived on a timeline that fit where the loan actually was. The clock the bank was running did not care that the house was listed. And the more time burned off, the tighter the box got: keep waiting on a retail offer that might not come, or find a way to sell as-is, fast, before the lender’s process took the decision out of the seller’s hands.
That is the moment we get the call. Not because a cash sale is better than a retail sale — it usually nets less — but because a retail sale the seller cannot wait for is not actually on the table. When the choice is a slower, higher number you will not survive to collect versus a faster, certain number you can close on before the deadline, the certain number wins.
Why McKinney
McKinney is the Collin County seat, and it is a market we work directly. The county’s probate courts and administrative complex sit here, and the housing stock runs from the 1950s–1970s grid in East McKinney (75069) and around historic downtown to the master-planned communities out in Stonebridge Ranch and Craig Ranch. It is a strong, liquid submarket — which cuts both ways for a distressed seller. Strong demand means a clean, updated house lists and sells well. It also means a house that needs work, or a seller who needs speed, gets left behind by the exact retail buyers a listing is built to attract, because those buyers are financed and their lenders are slow.
For this seller, the house and the timeline both pointed the same way: a listing was never going to close inside the window the bank was giving them.
The offer we wrote
We walked the property, pulled title, ran the McKinney comps, and wrote a cash offer built around the one thing the seller actually needed — certainty, fast. Four terms carried the deal:
- A 14-day close. No appraisal, no lender underwriting, no financing contingency to stretch the timeline. The only real work between contract and close was the title work, and the title was clean enough to cure inside two weeks. We do not promise a date we cannot hit — on a tangled title or a probate cloud we would have quoted longer — but here, 14 days was real.
- As-is, in current condition. We did not ask for a single repair, a cleanout, or an update. The condition was priced into the offer on day one and it did not move afterward. There was no inspection objection waiting to reprice the deal after the seller had already committed.
- Proof of funds, up front. We handed over a proof-of-funds letter so the seller could verify — before signing anything — that the buyer could actually close. A funded buyer will show you the money. A paper buyer will change the subject.
- Earnest money over 1%, wired into escrow. This is the term I want sellers to pay attention to. A large part of the cash-offer industry runs on contracts backed by $10 to $100 in earnest money — a token that costs nothing to walk away from. When that buyer cannot flip the contract, they cancel, and the seller has lost two or three weeks they could not spare. We put real earnest money — over 1% of the price — into the title company’s escrow, money we forfeit if we fail to close without cause. For a seller racing a bank deadline, that is the difference between a buyer who intends to close and a buyer who is hoping to.
Every one of those terms exists to solve the same problem: this seller could not afford to bet the deadline on a buyer who might not perform.
Why we could move that fast
We were able to write strong terms and a short timeline because the house fit demand we already had. Diamond maintains working relationships with several institutional buyers and funds actively acquiring single-family homes across DFW and Collin County. When a property lands inside one of those buy-boxes — the right price band, the right condition, a home that rents — we are not signing a contract and then hoping to find someone to take it. The home was placed. That is what lets us shorten the timeline and stand behind the earnest money: the certainty on our side of the table becomes certainty on the seller’s side.
To be clear about what we are and are not: we are not a brokerage and we do not list houses. We are a Texas cash buyer. The seller had already tried the listing route with an agent; by the time they reached us, what they needed was not another attempt to sell on the open market — it was a buyer who could close before the bank’s process ran out. That is the role we play, and it is the only role we play.
The close
The deal closed in 14 days through a Collin County title company, as-is, at the agreed number, with the earnest money in escrow the whole way. The sale satisfied the lender and stopped the process the seller was racing. They walked out from under a loan they could not carry, on a timeline a retail listing was never going to hit.
If you are the McKinney seller reading this
Maybe your listing has sat without an offer. Maybe you are behind with your lender and the letters are getting more serious. Maybe both — that is usually how these two problems travel. Here is what this deal should tell you:
- A stalled listing is not the end of the road. You do not have to wait for the listing agreement to expire to get a cash number. You can compare one against your listing while it is still active.
- As-is means as-is. We buy in current condition. No repairs, no cleanout, no lender requiring the roof be fixed before it will fund.
- Ask any cash buyer for proof of funds and real earnest money. If they will not show you the money, or they want to tie up your house for $100, keep your options open. A funded buyer racing your deadline should be putting real money behind the contract, the way we did here.
- Speed depends on a clean title, and we will be honest about yours. If your title or lien situation means two weeks is not realistic, we will tell you before you sign, not after.
If you are behind with your lender, start with our guide to your real options when you fall behind on a Texas mortgage and the Texas foreclosure operational guide so you understand the timeline you are actually working against. When you want a number, get a written cash offer or read the McKinney seller guide. Either way, you will leave the conversation knowing what your real options are — which is more than the bank’s clock is going to give you on its own.