Two cash offers can sit $5,000 apart on paper and be $20,000 apart in real life. Sellers compare the number at the top of page one, because that is what buyers want compared. But a purchase contract is not a price. It is a price plus a set of promises, deadlines, and escape hatches, and the promises decide whether you ever see the price at all.
I buy houses in Jacksonville and across Northeast Florida, and I have signed my side of more than 300 of these contracts over 13 years. The sellers who come out best are rarely the ones who grabbed the highest number. They are the ones who read the seven terms below before they signed. Each one controls money, time, or certainty. If two offers are close, these terms are the tie-breaker. If one offer towers over the rest, the catch usually hides in these terms.
Term 1: earnest money, and when it is actually due
Earnest money is the deposit the buyer puts down to prove the offer is real. Three details matter: how much it is, when it is due, and who holds it.
On amount, judge it against the price. A serious buyer on a six-figure house puts down real money, thousands, not a token $100 binder that costs them nothing to abandon. On timing, watch for a clause that makes the deposit due only after the inspection period ends. That clause lets a buyer tie up your house for weeks with none of their own money at risk, then walk at the deadline having lost nothing but your month. On the holder, the money should sit with a neutral local title company, in writing, where you can call and confirm it.
When I sign a contract, my earnest money goes to the title company at the start, and you can verify it with one phone call. A buyer who resists a real deposit, deposited early, has told you how the deal will go.
Term 2: the closing date, and who controls it
A closing date is only worth something if somebody owns it. Read yours for three things: whether it is firm or floating, who can move it, and what happens if the buyer misses it.
Floating language sounds like “on or before” a date weeks out, with extensions the buyer can trigger alone. A firm date names a day, and moving it requires both signatures. A buyer who needs 45 days because their money is tied to another closing is a different animal from a buyer who wants 45 days to shop your contract around. Get the answer into the contract: a firm date, extensions only in writing with your initials, and a hard end if the date slips.
My offers carry a date picked with you, built around your move or your estate timeline, and when the title is clear I can close in as little as 7 days. Speed is not the point. A date that means something is the point.
Term 3: closing costs, and whose pocket they come out of
The price on page one is not what lands in your account. Between the two sit the closing costs: title insurance, doc stamps on the deed, recording fees, and settlement charges. On a traditional Florida sale the seller customarily carries several of them, and on a $250,000 sale they can quietly take several thousand dollars. Two offers at the same price can net you very different amounts depending on who pays them.
So read the costs section line by line and ask one plain question: after every fee in this contract, what do I actually walk away with? A straight buyer answers with numbers, not adjectives. I break down how fees and timelines work on a Jacksonville cash sale in my guide to cash sale fees and timelines.
In my offers, I cover the standard closing costs, so the number you sign is the number you net, apart from your own mortgage payoff and any liens on the house. If another buyer’s offer looks higher, check whether their costs section quietly hands those charges back to you.
Term 4: the inspection period, and who gets access to your house
Most cash contracts carry an inspection period, often 10 to 30 days, even though the sale is as-is. What matters is what the period allows and what it costs you.
A long inspection period is a long option on your house. During it, some buyers hunt for a reason to cut the price, and the cut tends to arrive a day or two before the period expires, when you have the least room to react. Others use the access to run a parade of contractors, partners, and investor friends through your home, some of whom are really there to decide whether to buy your contract. Ask what inspections will happen, how many visits, and who each visitor is. One walkthrough with the buyer’s own contractor is normal. A revolving door is a sales floor.
My number is built from my own walkthrough before I ever make an offer, so the condition is already priced in. I ask for one visit, and if something hidden surfaces, you hear it from me with paperwork in hand, not as a price cut at the deadline.
Term 5: the assignment clause, in plain English
This is the term sellers hear the least about and deserve the clearest explanation of. An assignment means the buyer can transfer your contract to a different buyer before closing. The price and terms you signed stay the same, but the person across the closing table changes.
Here is the honest legal ground in Florida: unless your contract limits or prohibits assignment, a buyer generally can assign it, and they do not have to ask your permission first. Assignment itself is not a scam. A disclosed assignment to a real buyer who closes on your date can serve a seller fine. The damage comes from the undisclosed kind, where the person who signed never intended to close and your contract gets quietly shopped, sometimes through a chain of middlemen, each taking a cut and each adding a chance the deal collapses. I wrote a full breakdown of how to spot the bad version of this business in my guide to bad wholesalers in Jacksonville, and the assignment questions in it are worth asking any buyer word for word.
I sign contracts as a direct buyer, my company’s name is on the paper, and my own funds close my deals. If a situation made an assignment the right route for a seller, it would be discussed in the open, with the end buyer named, before it happened. What you should demand from anybody is not a promise that assignment can never happen. It is a plain answer on whether it might, and a contract that requires notice to you if it does.
Term 6: post-occupancy, if you need to stay after closing
Sometimes the money needs to change hands before you can physically leave: an estate waiting on paperwork, a replacement home that closes a week later, a lifetime of belongings to sort. Staying in the house after closing is called post-occupancy, and it is a normal, workable term, as long as it is written down before closing, not improvised after.
A proper post-occupancy agreement states how many days you stay, what deposit or holdback secures it, what the daily charge is if you stay past the date, and who carries insurance and utilities during the stay. Without that paper, a handshake promise can turn into a dispute mid-move. Sellers settling an estate run into this often, and the court timeline in selling a house during probate in Florida is exactly why the contract has to bend around real life.
When a seller needs time after closing, I put the days, the holdback, and the move-out date in writing at contract time. If a buyer will only promise it verbally, the promise is worth what the paper is.
Term 7: contingencies, outs, and what happens to the deposit
Every contract has exits. Your job is to count the buyer’s exits and read what each costs them.
Start with the financing contingency. A cash offer with a financing contingency is not a cash offer; it means a lender can still kill your deal in week six. Then read the inspection out: in many contracts the buyer can walk during the inspection period for nearly any reason, which is fair only if the period is short and the earnest money is already down. Then check the title and document contingencies and each deadline, because an out with no deadline is an out forever.
Finally, read the default language, because that is where deposit forfeiture lives. If the buyer walks outside their allowed outs, the earnest money should be forfeited to you as damages. That clause is the only real penalty a bad buyer ever faces, and it is exactly why Term 1 matters: a forfeited $100 binder punishes nobody, while real money on deposit changes behavior.
My contracts are short on exits by design. No financing contingency, because there is no lender. A brief inspection window. A firm date. If I default, my deposit is yours. A buyer confident in their close does not need many doors out of the deal, and a contract full of them is a confession.
How to compare two offers in ten minutes
Lay the contracts side by side and answer seven questions, one per term. How much earnest money, due when, held where? Is the closing date firm, and who can move it? Who pays which closing costs, and what do you net? How long is the inspection period, and who gets access? Can the contract be assigned, and will you be told? If you stay after closing, is it in writing? How many outs does the buyer have, and what does walking away cost them?
The better offer is the one with the better answers, and it is often not the one with the bigger number on page one. If an offer wins on price and loses on five of the seven terms, it is not winning. It is advertising.
What an offer from me looks like
Here is my yardstick: when I make an offer, it comes in writing with a firm closing date picked with you, earnest money deposited with a local title company at signing, standard closing costs on my side, one walkthrough, no financing contingency, and Synergy Redevelopers, LLC named as the buyer that intends to close. I have run my offers this way for 13 years and more than 300 transactions in Northeast Florida, and my closing record is why agents send me deals other buyers fumbled.
If you are holding an offer from anyone, including me, read the seven terms before you look at the price twice. If a clause in front of you reads like fog, call me at (904) 867-8673. I will walk through what it says in plain English, whether you sell to me or not. You can start with the full picture of how I work in my main guide to selling a house fast in Jacksonville.
Questions sellers ask me about offer terms
What is a normal amount of earnest money on a cash sale? Enough that walking away hurts. On a typical Jacksonville house that means thousands of dollars, deposited within days of signing and held by the title company. A three-figure deposit on a six-figure house is not earnest money. It is a placeholder.
A buyer offered well above everyone else. Should I take it? Read their terms first. An above-market price paired with a long inspection period, a tiny deposit, and several outs usually means the price gets renegotiated at deadline, when your options are gone. The highest firm offer beats the highest soft offer almost every time.
Can a buyer assign my contract without telling me? In Florida, generally yes, unless your contract restricts assignment or requires notice. What protects you is asking before you sign, requiring notice in the contract, and knowing who the end buyer is if it happens.
What if I need to stay in the house a few weeks after closing? Ask for a written post-occupancy agreement at contract time, with the days, the holdback or deposit, and the move-out date spelled out. Buyers who refuse to write it down are the ones to worry about.
Who pays closing costs on a cash sale in Florida? It is negotiable, and the contract decides. Traditionally the seller carries several standard costs, including doc stamps on the deed and, in many counties, the owner’s title policy. Cash buyers often cover some or all. What matters is your contract’s costs section and the net it produces.
What happens to the earnest money if the buyer backs out? It depends on which exit they use. A buyer who walks inside a valid contingency usually gets the deposit back. A buyer who defaults outside their outs should forfeit it to you. The contract’s default language governs, which is why the size and timing of the deposit matter from day one.