If you’re at the point of typing “sell my house for cash” and adding Orange Park to it, you probably have five or six questions you’d rather ask somebody than read about on a homepage.
Short version: yes we actually buy them ourselves, no you don’t fix anything, no you don’t clean anything out, and most closings run one to two weeks depending on what the title search turns up. The rest of this is the detail behind those.
Do you really buy it, or are you flipping the contract?
We buy them. That distinction matters more than anything else on this page.
A lot of companies advertising cash offers don’t purchase houses. They put yours under contract, then spend the inspection period trying to sell that contract to somebody who does buy. If nobody bites, they walk, and you’ve lost three weeks you might not have had. It’s legal and it’s common and it’s where most of the bad stories come from.
Ask every buyer you talk to, us included, straight out: are you purchasing this yourself or assigning the contract? Then check. Look the company up on the Florida Division of Corporations to see it exists and how long it’s been active, then search the county property records for their name and see whether they’ve actually bought anything around here. A company that buys houses leaves a trail of purchases. Ten minutes, and it tells you almost everything.
How bad can the house be?
Worse than yours.
I bought a place where the previous owner had been keeping chickens inside the house. Not in the yard, in the living room, and had been for a long time. We cleaned it out, rebuilt it, and somebody lives there now with no idea. So when people start apologizing on the phone about the carpet, I already know they’re underselling it.
Roof at the end of its life, panel nobody will insure, cast iron under the slab, an addition with no permit, a hoarding situation, fire damage, a tenant who won’t leave. All normal. The condition goes into the price, not into a decision about whether to show up.
What do I have to fix or clean?
Nothing, and I’d rather you didn’t.
Take what matters to you and leave the rest. The furniture, the garage, the shed that’s become a monument to projects that were going to get finished any weekend now. The cleanout is already in our budget and we’re set up for it in a way you aren’t on a Saturday with a rented trailer.
Don’t get a roof quote either. Don’t paint. Money you spend on a house you’re leaving comes back only if everything else goes right, and on a big-ticket item it mostly doesn’t come back at all. A new roof doesn’t add the price of a roof to what you sell for. It removes a reason for somebody to say no.
How is the offer calculated?
Recent closed sales on similar houses, minus what yours needs, minus what it costs us to hold and resell it, minus a margin. I go through all four out loud in your kitchen and you’re welcome to push back on any of them.
The part sellers should push on hardest is the repair estimate, because that’s where the room is. Ask what specifically we’re pricing in and what it would cost. If a buyer can’t answer that line by line, they made the number up.
You might hear the whole thing and decide it isn’t enough. That happens plenty and it’s a fine outcome. What nobody should accept is a figure with no explanation behind it.
How does that compare to going through an agent?
An agent will usually get a higher number on the sign. I spent 11 years as a licensed realtor so I’m not going to tell you otherwise.
The thing to watch is that the number on the sign isn’t the number you keep. Commission comes off both sides. Repair credits come off after the inspection. Then you’re paying for the house while it sits, and as of March 2026 the median Clay County house took 52 days just to get under contract, which is before closing. If the buyer’s financing falls apart at week five, you’re back at the start with a listing that now looks stale.
Both are real options and the right one depends on your house and your calendar. I just want you comparing what lands in your account against what lands in your account, not against what goes on a sign. The current local figures are in the market report if you want to run it yourself.
How fast can we close?
As little as seven days, and the thing that sets it is title, not us.
Clean title on a house owned by the same couple since 1988 moves fast. An heir who never signed, an old judgment against a prior owner, a contractor’s lien from 2014 nobody released, and it takes longer. Payoff letters are the other one, because your lender’s payoff department moves at whatever speed it moves.
Which means a promised closing date means nothing until the search comes back. Ask any buyer what happens to your date if title turns something up. You pick the day on our end and we’ll tell you straight whether it’s realistic.
What does it cost me?
No commission, because there’s no agent. No lender fees, because there’s no loan. We cover the standard closing costs on our purchases. What we agree on is essentially what you get.
What if I’m behind on payments or there’s a lien?
Neither one disqualifies anything, and both are more common than you’d think.
Whatever is owed gets satisfied at closing out of the proceeds, the same as any sale. Being behind on the mortgage just means the clock matters, so the sooner that conversation happens the more room there is to work with. If a case has already been filed, here’s what happens at each stage.
Liens are usually the bigger surprise. An old judgment against a previous owner. A contractor’s lien from a job somebody disputed in 2014 and then forgot. Unpaid HOA dues that grew fees on top of the dues. Code enforcement fines on a vacant property, which attach to the property itself rather than to the person. All of it turns up in the title search and all of it is workable, it just has to be found before closing rather than during it. You can pull your own property record from the Clay County Property Appraiser if you want a head start.
Can I take my time deciding?
Yes, and please do.
Nobody should make a decision about their house because somebody in their living room applied pressure. I had a seller push his closing back so he wouldn’t spend his vacation on the phone with a title company, which I completely understood. I’ve got an RV and I’ve made 19 national parks so far, so I’m not going to be the guy who wrecks somebody’s trip over a closing date.
If you say no, you’re not going to hear from me every Tuesday until Christmas. And if you want to know what working with us was actually like from somebody who isn’t me, the reviews are here. When you’re ready, We Buy Houses Orange Park will come look and give you a real number to work from.
Josiah Murdaugh grew up in Orange Park and spent 11 years as a licensed real estate agent before he started buying houses directly. He has bought more than a hundred since. About We Buy Houses Orange Park.