Relocation & Job Moves
Relocating? Sell on your schedule, not the market’s.
A start date, a report date, or a lease that begins on the first — relocations run on somebody else’s calendar, and the house is the one piece that refuses to cooperate. We’re a local family that buys Inland Empire homes for cash with a closing date you choose, paperwork you can sign from your new city, and no repairs, no showings, and nothing left to manage from a thousand miles away.
The date matters more than the number — until it doesn’t.
Two mortgage payments, or a mortgage plus a new lease, is what makes a relocation expensive. A certain closing date is worth real money against that. But if your timeline is generous and the house shows well, listing it may still net you more — and we will tell you so plainly instead of pretending otherwise.
How a relocation sale fits around a move.
You set the dates. We work backwards from them.
Tell us about the house
Address, condition, and — most important — the date you need to be gone. Five minutes on the phone or the form.
A written offer in hand
Within 24 hours, in writing, with the math shown. No inspection contingency to re-trade later.
You pick the closing date
As little as 7 days if the truck is already booked, or months out if you would rather move first and close after.
We handle what’s left
Sign in front of a notary near your new home, proceeds get wired, and anything you couldn’t take stays for us.
Why relocations and traditional listings fight each other.
A financed retail sale has moving parts that don’t care about your start date: an appraisal, an inspection, an underwriter, and a buyer whose own move has to line up. Even a smooth escrow runs weeks, and the ones that fall apart tend to fall apart late — after you’ve already given notice at work, signed a lease in the new city, and stopped being able to attend to the house at all.
Then there’s the part nobody budgets for: managing a listing from somewhere else. Lawn service, utilities kept on for showings, a locked-up house drawing attention, and a repair request from the buyer’s inspector that you now have to coordinate by phone in a different time zone. Every one of those is a small bill and a bigger distraction during the month you can least afford one.
We remove the contingencies rather than the price transparency. Our offer is cash, condition doesn’t change it, and the closing date is the one you name. If we agree on a number, that is the number at closing — we do not re-trade after a walkthrough.
Closing from your new city — how it actually works.
You do not need to fly back. Escrow opens with a local title company here, your documents go out by overnight courier or secure email, and you sign them in front of a notary near your new home — mobile notaries will come to your office, your kitchen table, or a base legal office. The signed originals come back to escrow, the deed records here, and your proceeds are wired to your account.
One honest caveat, because sellers ask: California has authorized remote online notarization, but the rollout is phased — the Secretary of State has to certify the state’s platform before California-commissioned notaries can perform it, and that has not happened yet. Plan on ink on paper with a notary in the room wherever you are. It is a scheduling detail, not an obstacle, and we build a couple of days of courier time into the calendar for it.
If you would rather have someone here act for you, ask early. Whether a power of attorney works is the title company’s decision, not ours, so we raise it at the start of escrow rather than discovering a problem the week you’re driving across Arizona.
- Sign near your new home, not in Riverside
- Proceeds wired, not mailed as a check
- No repairs, no staging, no showings
- Utilities can stay off — nobody needs to tour it
- Closing date set around your report or start date
- Whatever you can’t ship, leave for us
Two tax items nobody mentions until escrow.
The first is the capital-gains exclusion. Normally you need to have owned and lived in the home for two of the previous five years to exclude up to $250,000 of gain ($500,000 for most married couples filing jointly). If a job is moving you before you reach two years, the IRS provides a work-related safe harbor: if your new work location is at least 50 miles farther from the home than your old work location was, you may qualify for a partial exclusion, prorated by the months you owned and lived there against 24. It is a real relief valve, and plenty of relocating owners never learn it exists.
The second is California withholding. Escrow is generally required to withhold 3⅓% of the sales price and send it to the Franchise Tax Board unless you certify an exemption on FTB Form 593. Two exemptions matter most here: the property was last used as your principal residence under the same IRC § 121 rules — without regard to the two-year period — or the sales price is $100,000 or less. This is a prepayment credited against your California return, not an extra tax, but it does change how much lands in your account on closing day, which matters if that money is the deposit on your next home.
If the house was a rental for part of the time you owned it, both items get more complicated: depreciation you claimed cannot be excluded, and periods of non-residential use are treated separately. We are not tax advisors and we won’t pretend to be — bring these two questions to a CPA before you sign anything, and ask escrow to confirm which Form 593 box applies to you.
PCS orders and military moves.
Report dates negotiate with no one. Families stationed at March Air Reserve Base own all over Riverside County — Riverside, Moreno Valley, Corona — because there is no on-base family housing, and a PCS can put a house on the market with a matter of weeks of warning. At Fort Irwin, about 37 miles northeast of Barstow, off-post families are often in Barstow or down the 15 in Victorville and Hesperia, and the same clock applies.
We can set the closing for before you leave or well after you arrive, buy the house exactly as it stands, and take whatever the weight allowance won’t cover. Tell us your report date first and we will build the rest of the schedule around it.
Take what matters. Leave the rest.
Movers charge by weight, and half of what’s in a garage isn’t worth what it costs to ship. Take the photo albums, the tools you actually use, the things with a story. The dresser that won’t fit, the paint cans, the treadmill, the boxes in the attic — leave all of it. We handle everything left behind after closing, at no cost, so your last day in the house is a walkthrough and a handshake instead of three trips to the dump.
The same goes for condition. No repairs, no touch-up paint, no carpet cleaning, no landscaping to keep up for a listing you’re not going to have. The offer is built on the house as it is on the day you call.
And if listing is the better move, we’ll say it.
A cash sale buys speed and certainty, and both are worth paying for when the calendar is tight. But it isn’t always the right answer. If your relocation is still a few months out, the house is in good shape, and you have an agent who can manage showings while you pack, the open market may well net you more after commissions — and we would rather tell you that than take a deal you’d regret.
Look at the current numbers before you decide. Our Inland Empire market report is updated monthly with cited data on both counties, including how long homes are actually sitting, and it will tell you more about your odds on the open market than any buyer’s opinion — including ours.
Local Knowledge
We know the corridors people leave from.
Riverside and San Bernardino Counties are built around commutes — the 15, the 10, the 215, and the 60 — and jobs that move people out of them just as often as into them. We buy across both counties, from Corona, Fontana, and Moreno Valley to Hemet and San Jacinto, and up through the High Desert in Victorville, Hesperia, and Apple Valley. Whether your next stop is Sacramento, Texas, or an assignment overseas, the sale can be handled entirely from where you are.
Common Questions
Answers before you even ask.
Can you buy the house after I have already moved out?
Yes, and it is one of the simplest versions of this. A vacant house means no showings to coordinate and no schedules to work around. Leave the keys with us or arrange access through escrow, and you never have to come back.
Do I have to be in California to close?
No. Escrow opens with a local title company, your documents come to you, and you sign in front of a notary near your new home — a mobile notary can meet you wherever is convenient. Proceeds are wired to your account when the deed records here.
Can I choose a closing date that fits my move?
That is the point. As little as 7 days if you are already packing, or months out if you would rather move first and close later. Tell us the date you need to be gone and the date you want the money, and we build the escrow timeline around both.
I have owned the house less than two years — will I owe capital gains tax?
Possibly less than you think. The IRS offers a work-related safe harbor: if your new work location is at least 50 miles farther from the home than your old one was, you may qualify for a partial exclusion prorated by how long you owned and lived there. Confirm your specific numbers with a CPA — we can’t give tax advice, only tell you the question is worth asking.
Will California hold back tax from my sale proceeds?
Escrow generally withholds 3⅓% of the sales price for the Franchise Tax Board unless you certify an exemption on FTB Form 593 — most commonly that the home was last used as your principal residence, or that the price is $100,000 or less. It is a prepayment credited on your California return, not an added tax, but it affects what wires to you on closing day.
Do I need to clean it out or fix anything first?
Nothing. Take what matters to you and leave the rest exactly where it sits — furniture, boxes, garage, all of it. We handle the cleanout after closing at no cost, and no repair on your list will change our offer.
How fast can this be done from first call to money in my account?
A written offer within 24 hours, then closing in as little as 7 days through a local title company. The number we agree on is the number you get — no re-trades after a walkthrough — and if listing would net you more, we will tell you before you commit to anything.
Have a different question? Ask us directly — a real person answers.
Keep reading
Sell a house as-is, in any condition
No time for repairs before the move? We buy it exactly as it sits.
Sell a rental with tenants in it
Moving away and thinking of renting it out instead? Read this first.
Inland Empire market report
Cited monthly data on prices and days on market in both counties.
How it works — all three ways we buy
Traditional cash offer, creative partnership, or a profit-share second payment.
Give us your dates. We’ll work around them.
Tell us about the house and when you need to be gone. You’ll have a fair written offer within 24 hours, and one less thing to manage from your new city.
Free and no-obligation. See how it works — including all three ways we can buy.
This page is general information for Inland Empire homeowners, not legal, tax, or financial advice. Laws and figures change; always confirm how they apply to your situation with a qualified professional. Tax items referenced here (the IRC § 121 exclusion and its work-related safe harbor, and California’s 3⅓% real estate withholding on FTB Form 593) reflect federal and state rules as of mid-2026 and are summarized in general terms. Amounts, exemptions, and forms change — confirm your own situation with a CPA or tax attorney and with your escrow officer.