Ask Lemmy

I looked in to one once. They offered me $80k. I sold the house with a legit realtor a few months later for $370k. I consider them to be complete scams.

I've made over a million dollars by selling other people's homes since they don't ask questions like "is this your house?" or "how come you're not in any of the photos on the wall?"

If they offered twice what you paid for and you want to sell and get out, put your house in the market for three or four times what you paid for and see what happens.

They are trying to lowball people who need cash. If you accept an offer you have most likely been ripped off by 50k-200k

My mother did, a few years ago. She won't tell me the offer she got (aside from it being "a lot" higher than what she'd initially paid, but I don't know that price either), but she regrets it, now that she's seen what her house was later re-sold for.

they are scams.

they prey on ignorant and desperate folks.

just like any scamming thing.

What's wrong with the traditional route? A Realtor will list any house. Just empty it out, sweep it clean, and put it on the MLS. If you ask below market it will sell. If the price is right, it will sell the first day on the market. You don't need to do anything more than clean it. No painting, no staging. You can probably even sell the house as-is, if repairs are needed.

You'll come out better than with the scam company, even with paying the commission.

I suggest researching your market. No one is offering more than your house is worth, more likely you just don't realize how much your house is worth at the moment. But, you should also research wherever you want to move to, of course.

So there could be a few angles, all angles are you likely getting less for the convenience.

One angle is that the contract they offer gives them the right to back out and to sell the contract to someone else, typically refered to as wholesaling. Their goal is to offer you say $150k and attempt to sell it for $200k to someone else. And if that fails, they cancel the deal and walk away.

Another angle is they are a flipper and think they can make a profit regardless of the shape. They'll still do an inspection to make sure there isn't anything major.

If they reached out to you, their margin will be tighter because they want to be in the area. If you reached out to them, their margin will be larger because you might be desperate for cash.

If you talk to them, they will pressure you into signing a contract, but it would be worth it to find a real estate attorney to review the contract and be on your side.

Assuming all is above board, the main concern I have is if it’s worth that much to them, wouldn’t it be worth that much to me?

Yes, and then some. It sounds like you'd do better randomly selecting a realtor to throw it up on MLS "as-is," and even better if you followed the usual, admittedly annoying, process. These companies are not literal "risking jail" scams, but they're not your friends either, and they will not be offering you anywhere close to market value. My sister and I looked into a couple of them when our dad passed, and the offers were far below what we pulled with a Realtor, even priced to move and with a kind of costly "turnkey" arrangement where they arranged cleanup and inspections.

OP, I tried out one of those guaranteed offers. it's a giant scam: they told me amount X, but they'd send an inspector to adjust in minor details. The inspector came, they made me wait another week, and then offered "guaranteed" 60% of X. The whole thing wasted two weeks of my time that I could have spent finding a buyer.

Note: when you sign a contract as a seller with a realtor, you are generally on the hook for the commission even if you don't sell through the realtor. You could force a clause into the contract that makes that exception, but the realtor is realistically going to wait with marketing until that's sorted out. You'd still lose time, basically.

Now, if you are not currently talking with a realtor, you might as well invite as many of the cash offers into your place to give you a binding offer. I'd make sure they are still reputable firms that aren't just there to scope your place or to sell your information, but if you are not actively thinking of contacting a realtor, you might as well talk to these people and see if they are for real. Do not sign anything, of course, until the final number is there.

I haven't, but if you're looking for the name, they're called "wholesalers". Typically they get houses that won't sell on the market normally because they require too many fixes and aren't safe to live in. They're then sold to flippers.

Note, you don't actually sell to wholesalers, you sign a contract with them to sell to the holder of the contract for the agreed upon price. Then the wholesaler sells the contract to the flipper for a flat fee.

2nd note, a lot of people think they'll get cash once the contract is signed, that's not the case as the wholesaler has to sell the contract. This can be adventageous if the owner is facing foreclosure. Typically you can get more money from a wholesaler/flipper, than if your house goes into foreclosure. Because the wholesaler usually has a list of flippers on the books and a sale is often just a call away.

You were almost vulnerable to their scam OP because you want to escape so badly. That fucking sucks I get it, but these ghost companies will usually scam you in one or multiple ways. Glad you asked questions first.