Guide · Selling as-is
As-is means you are not repairing anything. It does not mean you are not telling anybody anything, and that distinction is where sellers get into trouble.
As-is means you are not repairing anything. That is the whole of it. You are telling buyers that the price reflects the condition and that you will not be fixing what an inspection turns up.
It does not mean you are not telling anybody anything. That distinction is where sellers get into real trouble in Oklahoma, and it is the first thing this page deals with.
The second thing, and the more useful one, is that most of what is wrong with an older Tulsa house does not stop a sale. It stops a loan. Once you understand which of your problems are loan problems and which are merely price problems, the whole decision becomes straightforward.
What is on this page
We buy houses as-is, so read the last section knowing that. We are not attorneys, contractors, inspectors, insurers or appraisers. The statutes cited are real and quoted accurately, but how they apply to your sale depends on facts we have not seen. Cost figures are Tulsa market ranges for orientation. Get three written quotes.
Selling as-is is a statement about repairs and nothing else.
We buy houses, so read the last section knowing that. We are not attorneys, contractors, inspectors or appraisers. Cost figures here are Tulsa market ranges for orientation, not quotes. Get three written quotes for anything you are seriously considering.
This is the expensive misunderstanding, so here is the statute rather than a paraphrase.
Under the Residential Property Condition Disclosure Act, at 60 O.S. 832, the definition of seller reaches an owner who is not represented by a real estate licensee but who receives a written request from the purchaser to deliver a disclaimer statement or a disclosure statement. Selling privately does not put you outside the Act, and neither does selling as-is.
Section 834(A) requires delivery before acceptance of an offer to purchase. Where it is delivered after the offer has been submitted, 834(B) provides that the offer may be accepted only after the purchaser has acknowledged receipt and confirmed the offer.
Late delivery does not just make you late. It hands your buyer another decision at exactly the moment you thought you were under contract.
Section 838 lists the exemptions: court ordered transfers, foreclosure related transfers, certain fiduciary transfers where the fiduciary has not occupied the property, transfers between co-owners, transfers to a spouse or a direct lineal relative, divorce decree or settlement transfers, certain corporate transfers, governmental transfers, and newly constructed previously unoccupied dwellings.
Whether your sale sits on that list is a legal conclusion about your transfer, not a box you tick because one of them sounds close.
Disclose what you know. Do not speculate about what you do not. A seller who writes "roof leaked in 2019, repaired by a roofer, no leak since" is in a far stronger position than one who writes nothing and hopes. Our page on Oklahoma seller disclosure requirements covers what actually goes on the form.
This single idea reorganises the whole decision and almost nobody explains it.
A buyer paying cash can buy a house with a forty year old roof, a failed panel and a tree in the sewer line. They will pay less for it, but nothing prevents the sale.
A buyer with a mortgage cannot, and the reason usually is not the lender's opinion of the roof. It is that the lender requires homeowners insurance at closing, and an insurer will not write a policy on certain conditions. No policy, no loan. No loan, no buyer.
It is: does this stop a lender or an insurer, or does it only affect the price?
| Condition | Usually a price problem | Usually a loan or insurance problem |
|---|---|---|
| Dated kitchen or bathroom | Yes | No |
| Worn carpet, old paint | Yes | No |
| Roof at or past end of life | No | Yes, insurers decline or exclude |
| Active roof leak | No | Yes |
| Failed or obsolete electrical panel | No | Yes, frequently an insurance decline |
| Aluminium branch wiring | No | Often, depending on the carrier |
| Failed septic system | No | Yes, many loan programmes require a passing inspection |
| Foundation movement, active | No | Frequently, and it affects the appraisal too |
| Foundation movement, old and stable | Yes | Sometimes, documentation decides it |
| Cast iron drains at end of life | Yes | Rarely, unless collapsed |
| Unpermitted addition | Sometimes | Sometimes, the appraiser may not count the space |
| Standing water, mould | No | Yes |
If everything on your list is in the left column, as-is costs you some price and nothing else. If anything is in the right column, your buyer pool has narrowed to people who do not need a mortgage, and that is the real decision in front of you.
Tell us what is wrong with it. We will tell you honestly whether a financed buyer could still complete, because if they can you will do better listing it than selling to us.
No obligation, no fee, and no pressure. If listing would net you more we will say so on the call.
Generic as-is advice is written for a generic house. These are the items that come up over and over in this market specifically, and knowing which one you have is more useful than any general principle.
Much of the Tulsa area sits on expansive clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. Houses move. A great deal of that movement is old, seasonal and harmless, and a great deal of money is spent on piers that were never needed.
What matters to a buyer is whether it is active and whether there is documentation. Our articles on why Tulsa houses move, which cracks actually matter and what foundation repair costs here go through it properly, and a transferable warranty is worth more at resale than most sellers realise.
Green Country is hail country and that has a consequence sellers do not see coming. Insurers here have become cautious about roof age and visible hail damage, and some will decline outright or offer only actual cash value cover on an older roof.
This is the most common single reason a financed sale collapses in this market. Our articles on insurers dropping roof coverage, how long a roof lasts here and actual cash value against replacement cost cover it.
Certain panel brands common in houses of a particular era are an insurance problem rather than a code problem, and the first a seller hears of it is a carrier declining. Our article on panels that fail inspection names what inspectors flag.
Houses wired in a particular window used aluminium for branch circuits. It is not automatically dangerous and it is not automatically a decline, but it is a question every insurer asks. Our article on aluminium wiring covers what mitigation looks like.
Both turn up in Tulsa houses of particular vintages, and both are an insurer question. Our article on polybutylene and galvanised plumbing covers which is which.
Different problem: not usually an insurance issue, but an expensive one, and a camera inspection is how it is found. Our articles on cast iron drain lines and tree roots and camera inspections cover what a buyer will see.
A converted garage, an enclosed patio, an addition nobody pulled a permit for. This affects the appraisal (the space may not count), sometimes the loan, and always the negotiation. Our article on unpermitted work covers the options.
Your buyer pool is defined by this more than by your price.
The most flexible on condition in normal circumstances, but still bound by the insurance requirement and by the appraiser's judgement on anything that affects safety or marketability.
Both have property condition standards that go beyond a conventional appraisal, and both commonly catch items a conventional appraisal would not. Peeling paint on an older house, missing handrails, an inoperable heating system, exposed wiring and roof condition are the classic flags.
Relevant on rural property around the metro, with its own condition standards and its own geographic eligibility.
The route most sellers have never heard of. A renovation loan lets a buyer finance the purchase and the repairs together, which in principle makes a damaged house financeable. In practice they are slower and fewer lenders and agents are comfortable with them. Our article on renovation loans for buyers covers when one is realistic.
No conditions, no appraisal requirement, no insurance requirement at closing. This is why a house with a right-column problem tends to sell to a cash buyer: not because cash buyers are clever, but because they are the only ones who can complete.
Sellers plan for the inspection and the appraisal. Almost nobody plans for the insurance binder, and it kills more Tulsa deals than the appraisal does.
The sequence that catches people: buyer offers, inspection passes well enough, appraisal comes in, and then in the last fortnight the buyer cannot get a carrier to write the policy at a price they can live with, or at all. The loan cannot close without it.
As-is does not mean no inspection. It means no repairs, and the difference matters.
A buyer will still inspect, and in most contracts they still have the right to walk on what they find. What as-is does is set the expectation beforehand, which is genuinely valuable because the argument that kills deals is not the report, it is the surprise.
Some sellers pay for their own inspection before listing. There are two honest views.
There is no universal answer. Our article on what a home inspector checks covers the scope, and inspection report repairs covers what you actually owe when the report lands.
Buyers do not deduct the cost of the repair. They deduct the cost of the repair, plus the hassle, plus their own uncertainty about what else is behind it, plus a margin if they are an investor.
That multiple is why a seller who can comfortably do a repair frequently should. A five thousand dollar item can easily cost fifteen thousand in price when a buyer has to take it on unknown.
Our net proceeds calculator and repair cost estimator let you put your own numbers against both routes rather than guessing, and repair or sell as-is works through the decision in detail.
A written cash offer is free and commits you to nothing. Put it against an agent's valuation and you will know whether the repair is worth doing.
No obligation, no fee, and no pressure. If listing would net you more we will say so on the call.
If you are going to spend anything at all, spend it here.
Get three written quotes for anything substantial. Ranges published anywhere, including on this site, are for orientation. A roof on a simple ranch and a roof on a complex cut-up roofline are not the same job and are not the same number.
Rarer than people assume, and generally looking for a bargain rather than a project.
Real, and the best price you are likely to get for a house needing work, but slow and dependent on finding a buyer whose lender and agent are comfortable with the product.
Care about the numbers rather than the kitchen. A good outcome for a house that is structurally fine and cosmetically tired.
Want a discount large enough to cover the work, the holding and a profit. They will make an offer on almost anything, and the offer will reflect all three.
Fastest and most certain, at a discount. Our page on the four kinds of cash buyer operating in Tulsa sets out how to tell them apart, which matters more than most sellers realise, and how a cash offer is calculated shows the arithmetic.
Saying as-is in the listing is marketing. Putting it in the contract is what has effect.
Have somebody read it. An hour of an attorney's time is cheap against a term you did not understand.
An appraiser is not an inspector and the two get confused constantly. The inspector tells the buyer what is wrong. The appraiser tells the lender what the property is worth and whether it meets the programme's condition standards.
Comparable sales, adjusted for differences. Condition is one of those adjustments, and an appraiser who cannot find a comparable in similar condition will adjust from a repaired house downwards, which is rarely generous.
An appraisal can come back "subject to" completion of specified work. That is the moment an as-is sale stops being an as-is sale, because the lender now requires those items done before funding. Either the seller does them, the buyer does them with permission, or the deal moves to a cash buyer.
This is worth understanding before you agree a financed contract on an as-is house. The as-is term binds you and the buyer. It does not bind the buyer’s lender.
Where an addition was never permitted, an appraiser may decline to include the square footage in the comparison. A four bedroom house appraises as a three bedroom house, and the gap is usually larger than the cost of resolving the permit would have been.
Our article on why appraisals come in low covers the causes and what can be done about one, and when the appraisal and the inspection disagree covers the situation where the two reports point opposite ways.
Two very different timetables depending on who buys, and it is worth seeing them side by side before you choose a route.
Call it sixty to ninety days from listing in normal conditions, and longer if the inspection produces a surprise or the first buyer walks.
Two to four weeks is normal. A probate, a lien, a missing heir or a defect in the chain makes it longer, and anybody promising seven days on a property with a title problem has not looked at the title.
On probate timelines. The periods described here are typical rather than guaranteed. How long an estate takes depends on the county, the court's calendar, whether anybody contests it and how complete the paperwork is. This is general information and not legal advice. Take your own estate to an Oklahoma attorney.
The abstract and the title opinion. Oklahoma is an abstract state, so the abstract is brought forward and an attorney examines it, and that takes the time it takes regardless of how the sale is funded. Our page on how fast a house can actually close in Oklahoma sets out what is achievable in each timeframe.
The law is identical across Oklahoma. What changes between towns is the buyer pool, and that changes the arithmetic rather than the rules.
In the metro suburbs there are enough buyers competing that a repair frequently returns its cost. In the county towns the pool is thinner and the ceiling the street supports is lower, so the same repair frequently does not. That is the single most useful thing a seller outside the metro can know, and our areas we serve page groups the eighteen towns by exactly that.
Town pages for the places this comes up most: Broken Arrow, Owasso, Sapulpa, Claremore, Catoosa and Muskogee.
We buy houses as-is. That is the business, so weigh this accordingly.
If a lender can fund the house and an insurer will cover it, list it. Marketed properly, an as-is house in that condition reaches owner occupiers and investors who will compete, and competition beats a single cash offer almost every time. We will say so on the phone.
We do not charge commission, fees or closing costs, and we do not make a number and then cut it after an inspection as a matter of routine. We buy at a discount and the discount is the deal, not a surprise at the end.
Tell us what happened and what the offers looked like. If the problem was price we will say so. If it was condition, that is the case we exist for.
No obligation, no fee, and no pressure. If listing would net you more we will say so on the call.
No, and this is the most expensive misunderstanding in the whole subject. As-is describes who repairs things. It has no effect on the duty to disclose what you know.
Yes. Under 60 O.S. 832 an owner not represented by a licensee is a seller for the purposes of the Act where the purchaser makes a written request for a disclaimer or disclosure statement.
Section 834(A) requires delivery before acceptance of an offer to purchase. If delivered afterwards, 834(B) provides the offer may be accepted only once the purchaser has acknowledged receipt and confirmed the offer.
Section 838 lists them, including court ordered and foreclosure related transfers, certain fiduciary transfers, transfers between co-owners, transfers to a spouse or direct lineal relative, divorce decree transfers, certain corporate and governmental transfers, and newly constructed previously unoccupied dwellings.
Yes. As-is means no repairs, not no inspection, and unless the contract removes the inspection contingency the buyer can still walk on what they find.
There are two honest views. It removes surprises and lets you price properly. It also means you now know, and what you know you have to disclose. There is no universal answer.
A price problem lowers what someone will pay. A loan problem stops a financed buyer completing at all, usually because an insurer will not write a policy and a lender requires one. The second changes who your buyer is.
Because a mortgage requires homeowners insurance at closing. If no carrier will write the property at a price the buyer can live with, the loan cannot close even though the buyer wants the house and the appraisal came in.
It can stop a financed sale. Insurers in Green Country have become cautious about roof age and hail damage, and a decline means no policy, no loan, no buyer. It is the most common single reason a sale collapses in this market.
Not on its own. Much of the area sits on expansive clay and a great deal of movement is old and stable. What matters is whether it is active and whether you have documentation, and a transferable warranty is worth more at resale than most sellers realise.
It is generally an insurer question rather than a lender one, and it is a question every carrier asks. It is not automatically a decline and mitigation exists.
It can affect the appraisal, because the appraiser may not count the space, and sometimes the loan. It is always part of the negotiation. As-is does not make it disappear.
Sometimes, but both have property condition standards beyond a conventional appraisal and both commonly catch peeling paint, missing handrails, an inoperable heating system, exposed wiring and roof condition.
A loan that finances the purchase and the repairs together, which in principle makes a damaged house financeable for an owner occupier. They are slower and fewer lenders and agents are comfortable with them.
Buyers deduct the repair cost plus the hassle plus their uncertainty about what else is behind it, plus a margin if they are an investor. That is why a repair you can comfortably afford is frequently worth doing.
Anything that unblocks a loan or an insurance binder, cleaning and clearing, active leaks, and anything a photograph will show. Not a kitchen renovation.
In the metro suburbs it frequently pays for itself because it restores the financed buyer pool. Further out, where the ceiling the street supports is lower, it frequently does not. Get three written quotes before deciding either way.
Cash owner occupiers, buyers using a renovation loan, landlords, flippers, and cash buying companies. Each pays differently and each moves at a different speed.
The as-is term itself, what happens with the inspection contingency, your disclosure delivered on time, what stays and goes by name, and any credit agreed in place of a repair. Have somebody read it.
Sometimes, and a credit is not the same as a price reduction as far as a lender is concerned. It is worth understanding the difference before agreeing either.
The law is identical statewide. The buyer pool is not. In the metro suburbs a repair frequently returns its cost; in the county towns it frequently does not, because the pool is thinner and the ceiling is lower.
Frequently yes, and it is one of the commonest as-is situations. Whether you can sign depends on how title was held and whether probate is required.
If a lender can fund it and an insurer will cover it, list it. Competition between buyers beats a single cash offer almost every time, and we will tell you that.
No commission, no listing fee and no closing costs charged to you. We buy at a discount and the discount is the whole of how it works.
Not as a matter of routine. If something material turns up that nobody knew about we will say so and explain it, but a number that quietly drops before closing is the practice that gives this industry its reputation.
A cash sale is commonly two to four weeks, set by the title work rather than by the condition. A listed as-is sale runs on ordinary timescales.
One short conversation, a written offer within 24 hours, and no pressure to take it. If listing is genuinely the better route for your property, we will tell you that instead.
Tell us the address and the rough condition. We will look at what genuinely comparable properties nearby have sold for and put a figure in writing.
No fees, no obligation, and your property is never listed publicly.