The marketing timeline vs the actual timeline
Most cash buyer websites advertise a seven-day close. The seven days they are counting is from contract signing to closing, not from your first phone call to money in your account. The actual total from start to finish is usually 10 to 21 days for a local investor and 14 to 60 days for an iBuyer.
The difference matters when you have a real deadline. If your foreclosure sale is in 14 days, the 'seven day close' marketing means you need to be under contract today. That is often not realistic because the phases before contract take time too.
Phase 1: Initial offer (24 to 72 hours)
From your first inquiry to a preliminary offer in your hand is usually 24 to 72 hours. The fastest cash buyers respond within hours and quote a number same-day after asking a few questions. The slower ones take two to three business days because they want to walk the house before quoting.
iBuyers automate this phase and give you an algorithmic offer within 24 hours, sometimes minutes. The number is preliminary and almost always gets revised after their in-person inspection.
Phase 2: Walk-through and revised offer (3 to 7 days)
Local investors usually walk the house once, often the same week. After the walk-through they either confirm their original number or revise it based on what they saw. This phase takes 3 to 7 days depending on how busy the buyer is and how flexible your schedule is.
iBuyers schedule a more formal inspection that usually happens 5 to 10 days after the preliminary offer. They use a third-party inspector and the report drives any offer revision.
Phase 3: Contract signing to closing (7 to 21 days)
Once you accept the revised offer, you sign a purchase agreement. The buyer's title company opens title, runs a title search, and prepares closing documents. Title work takes 5 to 14 days depending on the title company's queue and any issues that come up (liens, judgments, missing signatures on prior deeds).
For a clean title and a local investor with their own cash, this phase often closes in 7 to 10 days. For iBuyers it is usually 14 to 21 days because they coordinate with their corporate legal and treasury processes. For a wholesaler trying to assign the contract to another buyer, this phase can stretch to 21 days or more while they shop the deal.
What actually causes delays
Title issues are the number one delay cause and they have nothing to do with the buyer. A lien from a contractor you forgot about, a judgment from a credit card debt, a prior owner who never properly transferred title, an old mortgage that was paid but never released. Any of these adds days or weeks while the title company chases the paperwork.
The number two delay is buyer financing falling through. This is supposed to be impossible in a cash sale, but if the buyer was actually planning to use a private lender or hard money loan and that lender backs out, the deal stalls or dies. The protection is to verify the buyer's funding source upfront and to use a buyer with their own balance sheet rather than borrowed money where you can.
The number three delay is the buyer trying to retrade after walking the house. They came in at $200,000, walked the house, and now say $180,000 because they found water damage in the basement. You can either take the lower number, push back to a middle ground, or walk and start over with a different buyer. Knowing this happens is the difference between feeling pressured and feeling prepared.