The short answer
You can get a cash offer on a St. Louis property within 24 hours. If the number works, we close in 7 to 14 days — or on whatever date you need. No agent commission (that is 5 to 6 percent you keep), no repairs, no cleaning, no closing costs.
TL;DR: Cash offer in 24 hours. Close in 7–14 days on your schedule. We buy in the City of St. Louis and throughout St. Louis County — brick row houses, North City properties, flood zone lots, inherited estates. No fees.
First: city or county?
St. Louis City and St. Louis County are separate jurisdictions. They split in 1876 and have not reunified. If your property is in the City — zip codes like 63104 (Soulard), 63116 (South City), 63118 (Bevo Mill), 63107 (near Penrose) — you are dealing with City courts, City code enforcement, and the City Sheriff’s Office. If it is in the County — Florissant, Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Chesterfield, Maplewood — you are in county territory with different dockets and different clerks.
For a cash sale this mostly does not matter — we buy in both. But if you have an open foreclosure notice or a city demolition order, which jurisdiction you are in determines exactly who is setting your deadline and where the paperwork lives.
Missouri foreclosure: non-judicial and no redemption period
Missouri is a deed-of-trust state. The foreclosure process runs under RSMo §§ 443.290–443.440 and does not require a judge or a court case. The lender declares default, publishes notice in a local newspaper for three consecutive weeks, and then holds the trustee’s sale at the courthouse.
In the City of St. Louis, that sale runs through the City Sheriff’s Office. In St. Louis County, the sale runs through county processes in Clayton. In either case, the published timeline is typically 60 to 90 days from the first notice to the auction.
Once the trustee’s deed records after the sale, there is no right of redemption. That is the hard cutoff. A cash sale can happen right up to the auction date — but not after it. The date on your notice is the only date that matters.
What the St. Louis housing stock actually looks like
St. Louis built most of its housing between 1880 and 1940, in brick. The dense row houses and two-family flats of South City, the grander brick colonials of University City and Clayton, the smaller workingman’s brick in Dutchtown and Gravois Park — this is the defining housing type of the market.
That stock has real problems for conventional financing. FHA and VA appraisers work from HUD 4000.1 minimum property standards. Deteriorating lead paint — peeling or chipping — fails those standards. Knob-and-tube wiring, common in homes built before 1940, is frequently uninsurable under standard homeowners policies, which means no mortgage. Galvanized plumbing past its service life flags the same way.
These are not problems that make a house unsellable. They make it unsellable to a financed buyer on a conventional timeline. Cash buyers skip the appraisal entirely. We price the property for what it is, not for what a lender’s guidelines require it to be.
North City: the part most agents skip
Baden, Walnut Park, Penrose, O’Fallon Park — these are real neighborhoods with real housing stock. They are also priced below what makes economic sense for most listing agents.
A property in Walnut Park that cash-prices at $35,000 generates a commission of $1,750 at 5 percent. That does not cover two weeks of an agent’s time. So the conventional market for that property is effectively zero. The house either sells to a cash buyer or sits vacant.
We have bought in North City. We do not pretend those neighborhoods are something they are not, and we do not offer numbers that do not work for either party. But if you have a property in that part of the City and you need to move it, we are one of the realistic options.
The Meramec River floodplain in southwest St. Louis County
Parts of Fenton, Arnold, Valley Park, and Pacific in southwest St. Louis County sit in NFIP flood zones along the Meramec River. The December 2015 flood crested near 48 feet at the Arnold gauge, a record that inundated hundreds of homes in those communities.
Properties in AE and AO flood zones carry a mandatory flood insurance requirement under 42 U.S.C. § 4012a. Under FEMA’s Risk Rating 2.0, premiums that were once grandfathered at low rates have been repriced to actual flood risk. For some properties along the Meramec, annual NFIP premiums now run $6,000 to $12,000. No lender will close without that coverage in place.
Cash buyers do not need a lender’s sign-off. We price the flood risk into the offer rather than making it your problem to resolve first.
Inherited property and the City’s land bank
St. Louis has a significant concentration of heir property — homes passed through families over decades without formal probate, where the title shows multiple potential claimants and no single clear owner of record. The City of St. Louis Land Reutilization Authority holds thousands of vacant properties in exactly this condition.
We are not the LRA. But we work with inherited and probate properties regularly, including ones where multiple heirs need to agree or where probate is still open. Missouri probate runs through the Circuit Court — City Circuit Court on Tucker Boulevard for City properties, the Probate Division in Clayton for St. Louis County properties. A cash sale can often close in parallel with or following probate depending on how the estate is structured.
Cash offer vs. listing with an agent
| Factor | List with an agent | Cash offer with us |
|---|---|---|
| Time to close | 45–90 days typical | 7–14 days |
| Repairs required | Often flagged at inspection | None — as-is |
| Commission | 5–6% of sale price | $0 |
| Closing costs | 1–3% buyer/seller split | $0 to seller |
| Financing risk | Buyer loan can fall through | No financing contingency |
| Appraisal required | Yes, for financed deals | No |
Straight answers — questions we get in St. Louis
What if the house has city code violations or a demolition order?
The City of St. Louis places liens on properties with open violations. Those liens attach to the title. When we close, they settle from the sale proceeds — you do not pay them out of pocket separately. Demolition orders are more complex; if the City has already scheduled a tear-down, call us and tell us exactly what the notice says.
Can I sell if the property is in probate?
In most cases, yes — but the estate needs authority to sell. If you have been appointed personal representative through the Circuit Court, you can sign the contract. If probate is not open yet, that is the first step. We work with sellers who are in the middle of this process regularly.
What if I owe back taxes?
Tax liens settle at closing from the proceeds, the same as mortgage liens. You do not have to pay them before we can buy. The title company handles the payoffs at the table.
Do you buy in St. Charles County?
Yes. St. Charles County is across the Missouri River — a different jurisdiction with its own courthouse in St. Charles City — but the same RSMo §§ 443.290–443.440 statute applies. We buy in St. Charles, O’Fallon, Wentzville, and St. Peters.
When selling to us is not the right call
If your home is in solid condition — updated mechanicals, no structural issues, nothing that would block conventional financing — and you have two months or more before any deadline, you will net more with an agent on the open market. This is true in the competitive suburban pockets: Kirkwood, Webster Groves, Maplewood, Ladue, Des Peres, and the west county suburbs. Buyers are real and active there.
A cash offer makes sense when the property has issues that block financing, when the timeline is short, when the agent math does not work at the price point, or when the simplicity of one offer and one closing is worth the trade. Call us at (615) 780-7349 and we will tell you which situation you are in — including if we think you would do better listing it.
We buy throughout Missouri, including Kansas City and the surrounding metro.