Is it unsafe? If it is safe, leave it. If an inspector fails it, you can offer to replace it.

I mean, it is not going to come down soon.

Is there a door from house to deck & is deck elevated at that point? If yes, & if deck doesn’t pass inspection, it’d likely be a required fix to get any kind of financing for buyer since the existence of a door will require some safe surface to step out onto.

What’s the rest of the yard look like - nice & maintained or a major clean up project? Maybe you need to have a serious conversation with a good realtor & maybe you need to have house inspection done now so you can make an informed decision. Don’t know if your calculated equity includes or is net of all your costs of sale but sounds like the deck issue will take a big chunk of your equity either way.

Even if there is only a small chance it would pass, I would cross my fingers and hope for the best. And even if it failed, I might only offer the cost of tearing it out and putting in whatever small thing would get me to code. You never know what the next person has planned, they might envision a different use of the yard altogether.

Your realtor will give you the best advice. If it is unsafe, you would have to replace if a government funded loan, but your realtor may just say “wait and see.” I don’t think that giving cash would suffice. A good realtor has contacts that can help you understand your particular options.

Yes, talk to a local realtor. It seems you're presuming the only buyers you'll get are those with VA loans, and that may not be the case; a local realtor should be able to provide insight on that as well as how to handle the actual deck situation. And if you price it right, it may attract buyers who jump at the reduced price and will deal with the deck themselves -- heck, they may even build it themselves.

A story of my own about a bone-headed financial decision regarding a patio: My old house had a walk-out lower level with a patio that was below-grade and surrounded on all four sides by ground. Over the years it started to cave in so needed to be replaced regardless of whether I sold or not. I knew we were going to move within the next 3-5 years but me being me I decided to disregard advice I got and fix the problem by spending over $20-grand on something that didn't need to be done. In my head I thought I needed to do it up to the nines for it to be "good enough" but in reality a bare-bones fix would have sufficed. Stupid, stupid, STUPID ! It was a helluva patio, but we in fact did end up moving in just 3 years, and a $5-10K fix would have done just fine. No way no how did I recoup that money.