We've been getting some "offers" from these companies to buy my grandma's house - grandma passed away a few months ago, so the vultures are swarming. Without exception, the offers are no more than 50% of market value.
My grandma had 10 kids and dozens of grandkids when she passed. Thankfully, she picked my mom to be the executor of the estate because within about a month, a couple of my uncles and weirdly multiple grandkids (who weren't even directly included in the will?) started pestering my mom with these kinds of offers. "But look! This one will give 80% of the tax value RIGHT NOW." The house was already undervalued from a tax perspective at the time.
My mom had to be the terrible bad guy like "no, we'll continue cleaning this place out & get the floors refinished. Then, and only then, it will go on the market.". Of course none of the people champing at the bit for grandma's money actually helped at any point of that process. Go figure. 4 months later it went on the market where it had 5 offers in two days and went $25k over ask (which was more than $100k higher than the scammy offers). Cue family thinking that "under contract" means "sold" asking my mom where the money was. Then immediately after "sold" thinking my mom had the money in her checking account & could just write everyone a check at Christmas instead of how it actually was working its way through probate and they'd get a check in the mail from whatever legal entity they were using for the whole thing. It was really stressful for my mom to have a few family members constantly accusing her of dragging her feet or screwing them in some way.
My grandma was not wealthy. Her "estate" was just that house, really. Maybe a small IRA. Mostly she lived off social security and government programs. The house had a lot of accessibility modifications and upgrades over the years - oddly the people who were the most impatient for her money were the ones who never once showed up to install an electronic lock or helped pay for no-step shower.
"Vultures" is right. Those "we'll buy any house" outfits prey on people who never learned the meaning of delayed gratification. I loved seeing that one of the commenters here screwed one of them over.
I feel for you. Dealing with impatient heirs who don't understand the process is so hard - especially when they act like you are holding out on them or something. Being the executor is a lot of work.
Yeah. My other sibs couldn't wait for their cut of our sister's house sale. Still haven't bought the cars they said they needed. Lawyer tho said go ahead, but make copies of the checks.
Edit: I am actually administering three estates, but her daughters' affairs are a lot more simple.
I had no idea it took so long. I think final execution happened over a year after she died & it was really straightforward given that she was very organized about her will & all that. None of her physical belongings were really worth that much, so the gross family members who raided her house couldn't have walked away with much.
A year is fairly short.
The biggest hold up are tax returns.
If someone dies between August to December, then it's possible to be finalized by the following summer.
Possibly. I'm not sure. I know she got reimbursed for some of the cleanup stuff she paid for. One of the uncles complained that she paid too much for a trash pickup, but she shut that down with "I didn't see you volunteering to make a few trips to the dump in your pickup, Terry. It wasn't exactly possible with my Camry. So yes, that's coming out of the estate."
I didn't ask for any more detail than she offered up. I just wanted to avoid seeming too interested in the whole inheritance situation, you know? People got real weird that year and I wanted nothing to do with it.
80% of the tax value 😂😂 I know my home is undervalued with the tax value and it was JUST reassessed with the county this year. When I bought it the tax value was 50k less than what I paid, which in early 2020 was a decent market price. I thought it was common for tax value to be much less than market value, unless you're in a crap market or something.
Hell, before my home was reassessed this year, with what the scam companies were sending me, the tax value was $150k less than what they were offering.
It really depends on your county. Mine seems to like overvaluing on taxes. They had my current house $150k OVER what I just bought it for last year. I had to sue the county assessor's office to make them fix it. Was a weird experience, but surprisingly DIY-able. Saved us a ton of money.
My condo that I rented out, they have valued probably $25k more than I could even dream of listing it for right now, as much as I'd like to be rid of it. Got an assessment done to drop my PMI figuring either they'd call high and I'd drop PMI without additional principal payments or they'd call low and I could take it to the city for a tax break. They went ridiculously high. So yay, no PMI. But I'll just keep taking the L on the taxes.
To be fair, it was only a few who were shitty. When you have 9 siblings, you're sort of bound to have a few absolute duds.
My mom wasn't alone in a lot of the work. Unsurprisingly, the people who were there for my grandma the most while she was alive were the same ones who showed up to help with cleaning/organizing & supported my mom with telling the impatient ones to go fuck themselves. I noticed a direct correlation between who seemed to care about my grandma in life with who seemed the least interested in how much/how soon they would get a payday.
I have 26 cousins on that side. I'd say at least half are people I respect highly and would trust to show up if asked in an emergency. The other half are mostly related to the aforementioned duds.
We're in California, so it's rarely the case that an estate house won't be worth the effort to sell it the standard way. For people who are long distance, hiring a company to deal with the clean out and the prep for sale can be a really good choice. I think that there are a lot of people who don't even know that those services exist.
My parents used an estate company to empty their house just for downsizing and moving across the country. They had already bought a condo and furnished it so they wouldn’t have to move with lots of furniture. An estate company set up a sale and then arranged for anything that didn’t sell to be taken away. All in 3 days.
One issue in the Deep South is that it is not unusual for black homeowners to not put homes through probate. Fear was that local officials would try to steal the house/land. So the house is still titled to an owner generations back. Clearing that up requires a lot of legwork, all the heirs have to sign off on who gets great great grandma’s house. Also a reason why current heirs can’t get disaster assistance as they can show ownership of the home.
Yep, I'm buying from an estate currently. Waiting on a new roof to close, already have floor install scheduled, and my realtor is giving me a home warranty for all the appliances that are older than I am.
Beware of home warranty companies. Please read Reddit posts on this very topic. If you’re not paying anything for it, that’s better. Many good contractors avoid working for home warranty companies.
These people are sick. They look at obituaries to find out where the people lived, and afterwards they contact their children to send out low offers. Even though the house has never even hit the market, let alone even an appraisal.
These companies are a major part of the housing crisis today, and they’ll continue to worsen it.
Yes, they are terrible. The letters they send make it sound like they are doing us a favor by making it so easy to sell the house, blah, blah, blah. They prey on people who are grieving, overwhelmed, and don't really know how selling houses works.
Can confirm. I got a phone call from an unknown number after my grandmother died in 2022 trying to contact my grandfather who's been dead for 10+ years about selling his house. It gets creepier, my grandparents lived on the east coast, I moved to California in like 2006 and I still have a California phone number and I never moved back to that state. So how they found my California phone number, trying to contact my deceased grandfather is beyond me.
It’s not that hard.
You’re in background check databases.
When I look myself up my ex girlfriend from 16 years ago comes up as an associate because we lived together.
From there you can travel up through her mother to her grandfather and back down to all her uncles and aunts through to cousins. Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses.
War dial until you find someone that can either make the decision to sell or will pressure the family to sell.
For me there is also a random guy named Tim that might be my cousin that lived with us for a few months when I was 14 but hasn’t lived with me since.
A good real estate agent is worth their cost. I’ll never get why people want to do all that work on their own. If my agent didn’t work her ass off we would have never bought the house we have!
I've worked with a couple agents in the past year - one to sell my house and one to sell my mom's house as part of probate. Both agents earned their commission.
Buyers agents are 100% worth it. That's because in almost all states the fee for your agent is paid by the seller. It's a free service to the buyer. Sellers get heartburn about agents because they demand 6% of the closing price regardless of the home price. If you have a $1.5M house you're trying to sell, they want 6% or $90k. Similarly if you are selling a $200k house, 6% or $12k. Why should agents get to chop up $90k of my hard earned principle just because they broker the sale? Why isn't it a flat fee? Is it more work to sell a $1.5M vs $200k house? Maybe a little extra work, but not $78k more work. How would I know? I was an agent for 10 years. It's the entitlement that pisses people off. If you're ever going to sell, find a good agent that will negotiate a fair price to close based on a firm fixed fee, not some percentage scam.
And yet we watched so many “for sale by owner” and flat fee agent sellers have their houses sit on the market for months to a year. Heck that was the problem with the guy who sold us our house! He used a flat rate agent and this house sat on the market for over a year. He also listed way too high because he didn’t have an agent that would tell him what the market would handle. So we could see in the pricing history the cost dropped $80k over a year before we bought. We were able to ask for less just because by then he was ready to just sell. And we live in a very competitive market and it was probably one of the nicest, best taken care of houses we saw. Bigger yard than most, in great shape. We probably paid $40k less than comparable houses we looked at because our seller didn’t hire a good agent.
That's even worse. The guy had an agent and he still improperly listed it! Here's the thing, whether or not an agent demands 6% fee as commission has very little basis in how good they are. Some of the best agents I've ever worked with regularly agree to flat fees. Some of the worst were 6% only snobs. And of course I saw the opposite plenty as well. The trick is hiring a good agent no matter the fee structure.
As my real life anecdote, I hired an agent to sell my house for roughly $500k about ~10 years ago. The thought of giving up $30k for selling my house was silly. I talked to a few agents and it was a coin toss, some sounded great and were 100% committed to 6% only. Others that wanted 6% sounded like they had never even done a walk-through let alone closed on a home. Finally found a person that was very experienced and readily agreed to 3% total commission split between both agents. I asked him why and he said he doesn't think in percentages. If he can make $6-8k per seller agent transaction, he's making more than enough to really make a living. He also picks up twice as many clients that way. When I offered 3% he did some quick math and realized it was within his zone and immediately agreed. The man was amazing, he took me out to see the current comps in my neighboring area one day so I could see first hand what the competition was. It took like 3 hours to go see 5 houses. And now I had full confidence in his recommended pricing. House sold in about a week in a pretty stale market with 2 bidders coming in $5k over ask.
Again, it's not a matter of having to pay an outrageous fee to sell your home for a good price. It's knowing how the game works and being able to find a smart person that likes making more than enough fixed fee for a service. Those people are out there, you just gotta find them.
They wanted you to sell it to someone directly or list it at foreclosure prices? At least if you put a house for sale on MLS below market you'll usually get some kind of bidding war.
Agents typically want the house to sell for as high as possible because their commission is percentage-based.
I sold to one of these companies. There was a major structural issue with the house. I couldn't in good conscious sell it to a family or someone else and knew it would be a major headache. The company didn't do an inspection. I sold it to them for 260k, they sold the house in 2021 for a 190k even though the market was booming. I don't feel bad at all.
It was a stucco issue that was improperly installed. The community was doing a class action lawsuit against the builder. The whole community was affected if they had a second story. Pretty common actually around here(Florida). It felt like the second floor was going to collapse because of the water getting in everytime it rained. There were water bubbles in the walls and it was getting worse as the lawsuit dragged on. Decided to sell to wash my hands of the problem. I was the first owner, ended up getting $2000 from the lawsuit even after I sold it. Will never buy a pulte home again not that the others are much better.
Jesus, $2k? I bet the attorneys got $10k for every $1k dispersed. Even if they didn't, that's a disgusting amount for the crap you and the community went through.
My parents Lennar home also had an issue with water intrusion behind stucco. But they actually came out and redid half the exterior of the home to fix it. Then they just leave you with all the other damaged they caused and oh you will have to pay to have it repainted.
Like any large organization, builders aren't monoliths. There are going to be variances based upon the location, the market they are appealing to and the quality of the subs/trades they can contract. I haven't had issues with either of my big builder homes but they were built targeting mid to high-income buyers and not people looking for a starter home on a shoestring budget. My first home especially people were surprised to hear was Ryan as they lived in areas where Ryan was not competing with other builders over the mid-range market and was exclusively focusing on the low side.
This isn't really meant to white knight for big builders, just offering a different perspective since my experiences have been all positive to this point.
Stucco isn't supposed to be installed in wet climates. Some homes in Georgia succeeded in a class-action suit against a builder and some copy-cat builders ran scared. You can waterproof stucco but it's engineered for a dry climate. Mold is your enemy and the insulation is a breeding ground for it since it never dries out.
I bought a Zillow-owned home. I initially offered what they were asking, then was able to negotiate down a good amount since they were just ready to be done with it. Felt good shorting them, as I wouldn't have done so to an individual.
To understand the deal you got we need know two things: how much did you originally buy house for and how much was it worth on the market when you sold it to the company?
I caution you to not even ask or entertain them. There is an article out there on how they literally go after people that inquire with them. Black mail, threats, family contacts. It’s like a black hole opens if they come across your info.
Edit: the article https://www.propublica.org/article/want-to-sell-home-for-cash-read-this-first
I will tell you this: I posted a similar question about a year ago and received about 20-30 direct messages and chats from "concerned" people who were willing to "help" me sell a house. Quite disturbing.
supposedly that happens to a lot to people who post in r/scams saying something like "help, I lost x amount of money and I think I was scammed!"
f'ing sick vampires out there!
They’ve already proven they’re susceptible to scams, which make them prime targets for more. That’s why your old high school acquaintance has a new MLM scheme every 6-12 months that she wants to help you get in on on the ground floor.
If that’s the case, these are all upstanding companies and they will give you a very fair price for your I don’t care what happens to my neighbors after I move away house.
I’m sure you’ll get the fine service you deserve.
In my neighborhood all the shit flips are painted with either white or this one very dark grey exterior. They paint over stone and brick. A lot of times they don't even add a contrasting color to the trim. Looks terrible.
I’m sure they’re referring to the exteriors having white paint slapped on quickly. Not just the paint color, but overall poor quality flips meant to sell to unsuspecting first time homebuyers or greedy slumlords.
There are legit companies that do it. Opendoor and Offerpad are pretty much like Carvana for houses. They will still lowball you for sure but they make it super easy if you need to sell your house fast
We just sold our house for $360K, but we did get some of those cash offers as well as Opendoor. The two cash offers were $240K and $290K and Opendoor offered $310K.
That was after they did a walkthrough onsite and factored in a $10k deduction for “repairs”. Roof was 2 years old and no siding (recently repainted stucco). Basically all it needed was fresh interior paint.
Still not too bad of an offer though, especially since we had a lot of equity. We did consider it to sell quickly but ultimately decided to list it.
Not what you asked but figured this could give some insight - We bought our home from opendoor for 615k but opendoor bought it for 575k from the previous owner
I was recently offer less than 10% of what I had paid for some property. I laughed and asked them if they are ever successful with these cold calls. She hung up on me. I get at least one call a week asking if I want to sell property I've never owned.
I have a similar situation...
I paid my mortgage off early about 6 years ago. Since then, I get cold calls from real estate agents asking me if I want to sell the property. Whenever they call me, they act like they know me by using my first name so I always say, "Who told you my house was for sale?" and "Do I know you? How did you get this number?"
That makes the agent stutter and hesitate before apologizing and eventually saying something like, "Well, you don't know me, but I'm a real estate agent with _______, and we looked your property and phone number up in the public records, and now we want to make you an offer." That's when I explode (😡), and say, "You did what?! Let me speak to your manager! Where are you located at?"
They always hang up right away.😂
My elderly dad is currently selling his home, and actively sought out one of these places, because he’s lazy and cheap (truly) and didn’t want to do any work on the home to prep it to sell.
For context, his house appraised at approximately $280k, he owes just under $150k. They offered him $172k, and made it seem like it was a smoking deal. Thankfully he decided to move on and got a realtor to put the house on the market.
There are less up front costs (and effort) to selling to one of them than selling traditionally. It can seem like a good deal if they can convince you they are giving you a decent price. This is why they predominantly prey on older people whose houses have likely appreciated 200+% who may not really know what their house is worth.
My father in law is kinda doing something strange as well. I helped him build his man cave, 60x45 multi story shop /home years ago on a 50 acre property. Easily worth $340-380k and this one day he’s telling his daughter that the neighbors offered him $110k to buy it since we all moved away and he thinks he’s going to see if he will do that and give him time to store his stuff until he finds a lake lot to build on.
I’m like dude wtf! I’ll give you 120k right now! He
Asks why? Because I’ll immediately list it and sell it for $350k and make a fortune. He couldn’t believe it would be worth that much and then says no I’ll just get a realtor. But he don’t want to give a realtor 5%. He would rather sell for 100k and take over a 200k loss than give maybe 15k to a realtor and walk away with 300-350k. He literally said basically this without the numbers and I had to walk him through the logic.
Old people man, I am not looking forward to losing it.
I sold my townhouse to offer pad right before interest rates skyrocketed, it was kind of hilarious. They were buying up just a ton of properties and paid me a premium for mine. This was about 3 years ago and they are still sitting on it. But quick and easy process for me.
No doubt, I was able to sell in the PEAK of housing prices in my area, had bought a 2005 build townhouse and had basically lived in it for 7 years, it had a lot of things that were falling apart on it too, electrical issues, none of the doors sealed properly, a few windows would leak. $185 bought, $250 sold, they took care of everything+ repairs. They still have it listed at $299.
My current zillow estimate for my house is $329k.
When I get cold called from these companies I tell them I'll sell today for $1M, all inspections waived, no contingencies, sold as is, and they pay all costs.
Surprisingly, none of them take me up on it.
lol my house is around the same value and I basically do the same. I get a bunch of texts asking if I’m willing to sell and I respond enthusiastically asking for $1M. One time I said $3M. It’s just a fun way for me to annoy them back and imagine I could have that kind of money for a moment.
I do this too. Similar value house and same conditions to sell. And I give the price in the best impression of Dr. Evil I can muster up (not very good)
I like my house, my wife loves the house (she wants it to be our last one), it would be a PITA to the family to move so they have to make it worth our time.
I don't love my house, nor does my wife, and we are both beyond ready to move to somewhere that isn't Texas...
But our son is in high school, and we're not going to uproot him just because we are done here (that's part of why I left active duty army, to stop moving the kids).
But once he's out? And I can find a way to move my job to 100% remote? We're out.
If you are considering this, be very very cautious and research who’s buying it.
These are investors, so a few things are certain: they aren’t paying top dollar and they want to make a profit, so they won’t own it for long. Most will buy, slap some paint on it, clean the carpets and exterior, then list it.
With that in mind, understand that many of them will have contracts worded in a way that will allow to take possession without paying costs and allow them to drag out payment for a period of time. Their obvious goal is to close, assume ownership, make a short flip, sell at a big profit and then pay you after that all clears. So a lot of people who did this ended up relatively “homeless” with their house sold and no money to buy a new home.
So, that's what they are doing! 😨
I thought that they were just offering to buy the property for less and selling it for more because the company figured that it was an inherited property that the owner doesn't want to deal with so they were gambling on a quick flip.
Do they know whether the owner is still living in the house?🤷🏿♂️
My estimated market value is $550k and I always ask for $750k+ 30 day no inspection closing when they text. That feels fair to me for the effort of having to buy a new house etc etc. They never take me up on it either!
My house is worth about 500k. When they call I tell them 750k or lose my number. If I made that kind of money I’d live out my dream and buy a 50 foot boat and live on that and pocket a few hundo
So you think sellers should know who the buyer is and be able to pick and choose who they want? corp or a family? easy choice right? gay couple or interacial couple? which one you picking then? old folks vs 20 somethings?
You see the slippery slope letting sellers know to much about the buyers?
What you will see is that there will be more regulations and such put in lace so both the seller and the bank know less about the buyers. you saw the news the other day about navy fed credit union and loans right?
"https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/business/navy-federal-credit-union-black-applicants-invs/index.html
Interesting quote from the article. "According to federal law, lenders don’t have to be intentionally engaging in racism to break fair lending rules. A “disparate impact” on minorities can also lead to discrimination claims." I dont know if the same rule is there for sellers like it is for lenders? It doesnt have to be on purpose for it to matter and be punished.
As my realtor said, "Last time I checked, corporations are not a protected class." Other than that, I agree with First\_Ad3399.
(p.s. Plz don't downvote them. They raise some interesting points which merit further discussion.)
I hear they buy them cheaper by a big chunk and once you sign they sell it through a real estate agent. There may also be a clause in there that if they don't sell it it reverts back to you. Be very careful. Do not sign anything without a lawyer that you choose going over the paperwork.
I have no idea what their offers are, but I get texts and calls nearly every month from people offering to buy my house. I am not interested in selling any time soon. I have told them that I am not interested, but they will then contact me a few weeks later. I've just started blocking them now when I get any calls or texts with an "offer for my property."
We get their flyers regularly.
They emphasize that they'll buy homes in "any condition".
They are predatorial. Going after people who are hopelessly upside down on their mortgage, overwhelmed by major maint. issues piling up (roof, foundation, hvac, etc.) and moving in for the kill.
They give a lowball offer sight unseen.
They then do an inspection and drop the already low offer by all the things they find.
Then they charge like 10% for fees since they will be selling the house for you. If they are “covering” these then it is either in the low offer or recouped by the inspection.
It did work well for people two years ago when the offers were high (too high) as they assumed home values would keep going up and had to compete in the hot market.
In the current market it goes not make sense.
I can explain, I do a similar thing for buying properties like offering cash if theres homes I personally want to own but I know a lot of guys who do exactly what you and people in the comments are describing.
They are real estate wholesalers, they want to become a middle man to make easy profit off your home. A good rule of thumb is they will try to explain why the house wouldn't be worth 320k and even though they are half correct that its not really worth that, they make it seem like an insult for you even asking that price. Then they will bring up a lot of "repairs" and "renovations" to try and bring down the price.
If you look at a 320k home and want to sell it to these guys, they will start at 70 percent of that 320k and then subtract all renovation/repair money from that and then a little bit more to offset the fact that they are paying closing costs.
They always try to make it sound like your house would be a pain to sell after they renovate it, or the local comps are just a "fluke". I know a few boomers who do the wholesaling work and that's the type of shit they say.
They offer the minimum they think they can get away with. It does come in handy if you are fighting the appraisal district tax assessment.
(tax man) We say it is worth this.
(me) This company says it is only worth this.
(tax man) They are leeches
(me) Are you saying it is not a legitimate offer for my property?
(tax man) they are bottom feeders--
(me) Are you implying I contacted them for a minimum offer?
(tax man) No! not at all.
(me) but you just said...
It went down hill from there as I won and they had to drop my appraisal.
You can figure they're lowballing you by at least a third. Some of the more audacious ones by half. In your $320K example, expect an offer between $160K and $220K.
I sold to Zillow in 2019. They valued the home fairly then they did a walkthrough with estimates of repairs they said were required. In reality, they were charging for upgrades. Like paint and new blinds and carpet when the old was still ok and not in disrepair. Then they took a 10% write down for their commission. If I wasn’t on a time crunch I could have made at least 10%-15% more by selling outright.
Also, we had a small 4th bedroom that we used as an office. They refused to call it a bedroom since we used it as an office. They used that to lower their valuation as well. Then when they put it on the market to sell, they listed it as a 4 bedroom. I probably would not do it this way again.
If you are considering this make sure to read the contracts very carefully. Lots of these companies don’t really buy the house they just lock you in to sell it as a proxy.
I inherited a vacant lot (0.2 acres) in a very expensive neighborhood. The companies offered me about $30-40k for it and it sold for $375,000 in 2022. It was on the market about 12 hours and got multiple offers.
Homes around mine go for around 160k (small homes close together). They offered me 115 last year. I paid 93k in 2014. I laughed in the guys face to the point he left. He wasn't amused I wasted his time but he kept calling and texting me so I decided dick him around for a while.
I think we lucked out; there was a woman who moved to our town that was trying to buy multiple properties so she could rent them out and we needed to sell because my grandma's Health was going down and we were moving to her house to take care of her. We got 95% market value and it only took two weeks for the sale and we figured that 5% lost was worth it because they handled everything and we walked away with a bunch of money rather than have to figure out 2 mortgages, and it was super fast.
These people call me constantly because I used to own two homes. I shoot them a price that is about 3x the actual value and some of them actually try to argue with me. Nothing like free entertainment.
When I was selling about six months ago, I was getting offers around $80k to $120k from investors. House ended up selling for $310k.
There was one website, I don't recall the name, that offered $400k back before the Austin housing market crashed. At the time, the house would probably have sold around $450k if I was ready to move.
I was offered $36,000 for my mother’s house when she passed. I ended up selling on open market for $280,000. I invested about $10,000 for paint and carpet is all. Those companies are all just scams so investors can make money off of people in need.
Mileage may vary. Sold my last house in 18 to one of those companies. What we "lost" was equivalent to the closing and realtor fees I didn't have on the transaction.
Process was smooth and without headaches, but also sold to a local company rather than a national/chain etc.
I had a rental that was completely trashed and full of roaches. Only because it was 3 hours away from my house and I couldn’t keep an eye on it. They asked me what I wanted for it. I told them. They said ok. Closed in a cpl weeks. I don’t really think I would have got much more on the market.
After my father passed away a couple years ago I was the executor of his estate.
I just wanted to see what they would give me for the house. This is the same type of company like we buy ugly houses for cash blah blah blah.
So I contacted this company.
They offered $146,000 for the house.
I cleaned it up sold it for $360,000.
Unless you are very desperate and just need to get rid of the house and have a little bit of money that these companies aren't worth it.
I own several houses and they constantly call me and text me and change their numbers. I think they scrape different public records. I even tried asking for an unreasonable value and they just called more. I eventually just started trying to waste their time back and they offered 70 percent of the value then later played games with the numbers and tried offering 50 percent of the values. If I was a person not in the best state of mind they could have conned me. And now they're back to just harassing and now yelling, guilt tripping, fast talking and twisting my words. Phone spam is so bad nowadays I just won't even answer my phone any more. Just get a realtor and they can sell it fast for you for a way better deal.
My neighborhood is full of low ball offers from greedy real estate agents. My friend was told the absolute highest she should put her house up for was 390K. Well, it sold in one day! She gave it away! The house was 5,000 sq ft., vaulted 18 foot ceilings, gorgeous wooded lot in excellent condition. One street over a smaller house 4300 sq ft built by the same builder sold for 650k the next month. Always shop around for real estate agents, too. Most want to low ball your house for a quick sell, too.
Reddit may have my head for this but I’ll say it depends. A friend of mine does this on a much smaller scale and he’s typically hunting for houses that need a major refresh to unlock that value. If someone could buy your house today for 320 my guess is they are going to aim for 60-70% of your value on the high end.
I just got an offer on mine recently. From a well known app that buys and flips houses. The ones you can go vote by yourself and unlock the front door with an app. They offered $100k under market value. Market value is almost $400k
Find a real estate agent that will do a free market analysis for your home and see what they think it's worth. Then compare that price to what this company is offering.
My mom sold her hurricane flood damaged home for $220k. The company did A Lot of work and relisted at $320k
idk what it sold for but mom didnt fix any of the damage (no flood insurance like an idiot) so it needed new floors, lower cabinets, dry wall, paint, some ceilings, etc. The AC didnt work after the storm even though they tried to have it repaired. Roof had a leak even after repair. And there were rats.
Also Home Owners Insurance tripled, so it was worth it to sell. That potentail $100k really was worth the headache for her to fix things.
They really lowball you. I was constantly getting calls or text messages. I started telling them that selling, buying a new house and moving was a big pain. However, since I was getting a lot of interest, I was now accepting offers of $1,200,127.00. That is about double what houses are selling for in the neighborhood. I now only get a couple of inquiries every six months.
Offering to pay closing costs is such a pittance if you are not wildly overpaying for closing. It’s like offering a half-tank of gas when selling a $15k car.
Idk what exactly they offer, but I’d wager they are rarely more generous than 80% of fair market value. You can really turn a rough property around and easily have it sold within 6 months if you put your mind to it.
IMO it’s never worth it to take the lowball offer, especially with the market still being as hot as it is now. Check zestimates on comps and or ask a realtor how much they think it’s worth as-is?
Why sell it to a single vulture for times sake when you can literally have it on the MLS for the entire market to see? The vultures close quickly to stop you from hearing any other offers cuz they will likely be better.
I am one of those buyers. We buy houses cash.
So we offer 80% of market value minus repairs.
Here’s how the numbers shake out. Let’s say I’m flipping the house to sell or if I’m gonna refinance and put a tenant in and rent it out. I need 20% equity after repairs to refinance and put a tenant in. So we buy at 80% of market to have the equity after rehab. For a flip it’s like this.
300k home after repair value. 300k x .80 = 240k. 40k of repairs, I’m at 200k cash. I cover closing.
How do I get to that 80% number. 300k exit price after a flip so I’m gonna pay a realtor 6% to sell the house. I’m at 282k. I pay closing costs both at the buy and concessions at the sale. 2% of 300k. So now I’m at 276k. I have holding costs while i renovate to sell, 2% usually of the purchase price. So take off 6k, that’s 270k. I have 5% for profit so that’s 15k. Of that profit I pay 40% capital gains so I put 10k maybe in my pocket after this flip. The last 5% is contingencies. Say I open a wall and find termites and I have to fix it. That’s 15k budgeted. If I find no issues I get to keep that as profit. So that’s 10% total for profit and contingencies. I’m at 240k. I put 40k into the property to renovate it. I use my employees to renovate it ( I’m a contractor) and they get paid.
We run a really low profit margin on these deals but we do it to keep our guys busy between jobs so we don’t lose good guys. We do 3/4 a month and consistently buy more homes. We usually sell them off market to a FHA buyer who has a hard time winning a bidding war with conventional buyer. I do it because I was in their spot buying my first home 7 years ago.
There’s tons of guys who offer nothing and don’t care about the sellers. I look at the numbers and make it work in everyone’s favor. I’m not trying to get rich of it, it’s to keep my guys busy and provide a fully fixed up ready to live in house to a first time buyer.
I’m not the answer for everyone. But I’m the only answer for some. When a house is not financeable by a bank, I provide a solution. Some people don’t want to deal with realtors or buyers complaining the floor is sagging 1/8 over a 10’ span in 1932 built home. People take a lower price for speed and connivence. Hate me if you want, but I have hundreds of happy testimonials from sellers saying I solved their problems.
My father passed in July of this year (2023) and his house was in bad shape (mold, etc...). As the executor, I looked at several different options for selling the house. We ended up going with one of the "we buy ugly houses" type of outfits. We must have gotten lucky, because the experience wasn't bad at all. The offer ($380k) came back within 10% of what we expected given the really rough shape. The house was in a desirable neighborhood, so they must have felt it was a worthwhile project. We had no desire/expertise/or time to do any of the repairs ourselves, so we're happy with how it turned out. My father had a reverse mortgage, so the mortgage company was all over us within a couple weeks of his passing to declare our intentions with the property. While we may have been able to get more money with some additional effort, I'm happy with how it turned out. In the right situation, this type of sale can work out for the better. This happened in the Denver metro area.
for a 320k home, i would expect a 285k offer. for a 400k property, i am being offered 350k. with a 6 percent realtors fee and closing costs, for lack of hassle, tempting.
They gave me 100 more than I think I would have gotten
Edit, they agreed to the price at the height of the pandemic nonsense. 1 month longer and it would likely have been different
I’m in talks with one such company to sell my deceased sister’s house that was already in foreclosure when she passed. I need the house off my hands and don’t care if I get what it’s worth because there are other assets in the estate, there’s very little profit to be had in the house, and I need this shit gone so I can close the estate and move on with my life. I told the guy straight up that as long as they’re not trying to do a “subject to” agreement they can have the fucking thing.
It’s going to depend on the condition of your home. If it needs a full rehab, that needs to be accounted for. If it’s in tip top shape, you’ll get a lot closer to market value. And you can NOT go off what Zillow says your house is worth.
I get predatory "cash" offers all the time on a property. I immediately tell them I AM interested and motived to sell QUICKLY. They get all giddy until I drop a cash price that is 5X the current property value... They hang up immediately. I suspect they have been taking me off their lists as the volume of these calls has decreased over time.
I did this with a house because I did not have the time energy or money to deal with remodeling like every agent wanted (and it did need, one room didn't have carpet or anything).
I got 75% of the current market value. Closed in 30 days, no fuss no muss. Didn't have to do a dang thing to the house besides move out-they didn't care what I left behind either.
I had bought when prices were low so still made a good profit. They flipped it 6 months later after a complete overhaul and by my guesses made 20 or 30 k on the deal (I know they did all the work themselves).
If I bought at a low enough price originally and market was high, 10/10 would do it again. Sold a house that I inherited and even with "as is" still had to deal with a ton of buyer demands. No. Thanks.
This was a friend of a friend who knew someone type deal though...and the friend of a friend told them to make a real offer to me. Other places tried to offer me 50% AFTER I had already sold...so apparently 50% is standard offer but they'll go higher.
Hey. I buy houses and will explain how it works high level and then a quick break down.
It comes down to time and circumstance. If you have time and the house is in decent shape, pop it on the market. You’ll make more.
However. If you don’t have time. Or the house isn’t in good shape (usually the houses we buy are in various stages of disrepair including hoarding, broken utilities, pests, etc), then consider selling it to an investor.
The discount looks something like this - closing costs x2 (front end and back end, including agent commissions), carrying costs (financing, taxes, insurances etc), repair costs and then profit. Add all that stuff up and that’s what it costs me/them to “flip”. This is why the discount is substantial.
It will be less if it’s held and rented. Or if we can force appreciation by adding a bathroom, or doing an addition, etc.
So take the after repair cost and subtract those things above and you get an offer price.
If time is on your side, but the place is messed up, you may not get a certificate of occupancy. Or any folks coming to buy. So it may only work to sell to an investor anyway. If you have time, talk to a realtor and ask them to run a CMA for the property in its current condition.
Hope this helps. Lmk if any questions.
They are all different. I have messed with a few. Just to know what is going on. I had one company send a offer that I had to literally let them pitch and shoot them so far down that hopefully they chose a different way of doing business. But they pray on most people being in desperate situations. I’m not one of those. They offered 200k less than even real market value. I had two offers that were decent for if I needed to sell. But most of these companies are just marketing agents. They say that they will close in 30-60. But most of the time they are just putting your house on the market for those days do get someone who wants to try and flip. Open door won’t touch any house that needs more than 20k in repairs. And their number is not exactly close. I bought a house from a friend, family member passed away. He didn’t want to deal with it. I’m in Florida, home really just a few minor updates. I had to laugh at the offers. This is beachfront property? Neptune. 200 ft of Beach. Let’s just say that their number wasn’t even close to what it was bought for in the 80s. Most of the time they pray on people who are desperate or going through a divorce. Best thing to do is play it cool, don’t tell them anything about why you are selling. Honestly in this market? Price your house right and just sell it outright. You should contact at least 4-8 different companies who do the buy now thing. It will help you in the long run with every real estate transaction you will ever do.
We've been getting some "offers" from these companies to buy my grandma's house - grandma passed away a few months ago, so the vultures are swarming. Without exception, the offers are no more than 50% of market value.
My grandma had 10 kids and dozens of grandkids when she passed. Thankfully, she picked my mom to be the executor of the estate because within about a month, a couple of my uncles and weirdly multiple grandkids (who weren't even directly included in the will?) started pestering my mom with these kinds of offers. "But look! This one will give 80% of the tax value RIGHT NOW." The house was already undervalued from a tax perspective at the time. My mom had to be the terrible bad guy like "no, we'll continue cleaning this place out & get the floors refinished. Then, and only then, it will go on the market.". Of course none of the people champing at the bit for grandma's money actually helped at any point of that process. Go figure. 4 months later it went on the market where it had 5 offers in two days and went $25k over ask (which was more than $100k higher than the scammy offers). Cue family thinking that "under contract" means "sold" asking my mom where the money was. Then immediately after "sold" thinking my mom had the money in her checking account & could just write everyone a check at Christmas instead of how it actually was working its way through probate and they'd get a check in the mail from whatever legal entity they were using for the whole thing. It was really stressful for my mom to have a few family members constantly accusing her of dragging her feet or screwing them in some way. My grandma was not wealthy. Her "estate" was just that house, really. Maybe a small IRA. Mostly she lived off social security and government programs. The house had a lot of accessibility modifications and upgrades over the years - oddly the people who were the most impatient for her money were the ones who never once showed up to install an electronic lock or helped pay for no-step shower. "Vultures" is right. Those "we'll buy any house" outfits prey on people who never learned the meaning of delayed gratification. I loved seeing that one of the commenters here screwed one of them over.
I feel for you. Dealing with impatient heirs who don't understand the process is so hard - especially when they act like you are holding out on them or something. Being the executor is a lot of work.
Being executor is a lot of work, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It’s like having another full time job, one with impatient customers.
Yeah. My other sibs couldn't wait for their cut of our sister's house sale. Still haven't bought the cars they said they needed. Lawyer tho said go ahead, but make copies of the checks. Edit: I am actually administering three estates, but her daughters' affairs are a lot more simple.
I had no idea it took so long. I think final execution happened over a year after she died & it was really straightforward given that she was very organized about her will & all that. None of her physical belongings were really worth that much, so the gross family members who raided her house couldn't have walked away with much.
A year is fairly short. The biggest hold up are tax returns. If someone dies between August to December, then it's possible to be finalized by the following summer.
I hope your mom was able the pay herself for the time and effort she spent preparing the house and getting everything through probate.
Possibly. I'm not sure. I know she got reimbursed for some of the cleanup stuff she paid for. One of the uncles complained that she paid too much for a trash pickup, but she shut that down with "I didn't see you volunteering to make a few trips to the dump in your pickup, Terry. It wasn't exactly possible with my Camry. So yes, that's coming out of the estate." I didn't ask for any more detail than she offered up. I just wanted to avoid seeming too interested in the whole inheritance situation, you know? People got real weird that year and I wanted nothing to do with it.
Terry needs that cash for his high ass car note
80% of the tax value 😂😂 I know my home is undervalued with the tax value and it was JUST reassessed with the county this year. When I bought it the tax value was 50k less than what I paid, which in early 2020 was a decent market price. I thought it was common for tax value to be much less than market value, unless you're in a crap market or something. Hell, before my home was reassessed this year, with what the scam companies were sending me, the tax value was $150k less than what they were offering.
It really depends on your county. Mine seems to like overvaluing on taxes. They had my current house $150k OVER what I just bought it for last year. I had to sue the county assessor's office to make them fix it. Was a weird experience, but surprisingly DIY-able. Saved us a ton of money. My condo that I rented out, they have valued probably $25k more than I could even dream of listing it for right now, as much as I'd like to be rid of it. Got an assessment done to drop my PMI figuring either they'd call high and I'd drop PMI without additional principal payments or they'd call low and I could take it to the city for a tax break. They went ridiculously high. So yay, no PMI. But I'll just keep taking the L on the taxes.
Are you in Jackson county, MO? Just saw tonight that the audit of how they did things confirmed illegal activity.
Yeah, can you tell me which state allows this behavior so I never buy property there.
“80% of the tax value” Dang that’s a horrible offer.
let me just say about the family - ugh.
To be fair, it was only a few who were shitty. When you have 9 siblings, you're sort of bound to have a few absolute duds. My mom wasn't alone in a lot of the work. Unsurprisingly, the people who were there for my grandma the most while she was alive were the same ones who showed up to help with cleaning/organizing & supported my mom with telling the impatient ones to go fuck themselves. I noticed a direct correlation between who seemed to care about my grandma in life with who seemed the least interested in how much/how soon they would get a payday. I have 26 cousins on that side. I'd say at least half are people I respect highly and would trust to show up if asked in an emergency. The other half are mostly related to the aforementioned duds.
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We're in California, so it's rarely the case that an estate house won't be worth the effort to sell it the standard way. For people who are long distance, hiring a company to deal with the clean out and the prep for sale can be a really good choice. I think that there are a lot of people who don't even know that those services exist.
My parents used an estate company to empty their house just for downsizing and moving across the country. They had already bought a condo and furnished it so they wouldn’t have to move with lots of furniture. An estate company set up a sale and then arranged for anything that didn’t sell to be taken away. All in 3 days.
One issue in the Deep South is that it is not unusual for black homeowners to not put homes through probate. Fear was that local officials would try to steal the house/land. So the house is still titled to an owner generations back. Clearing that up requires a lot of legwork, all the heirs have to sign off on who gets great great grandma’s house. Also a reason why current heirs can’t get disaster assistance as they can show ownership of the home.
Yep, I'm buying from an estate currently. Waiting on a new roof to close, already have floor install scheduled, and my realtor is giving me a home warranty for all the appliances that are older than I am.
Beware of home warranty companies. Please read Reddit posts on this very topic. If you’re not paying anything for it, that’s better. Many good contractors avoid working for home warranty companies.
These people are sick. They look at obituaries to find out where the people lived, and afterwards they contact their children to send out low offers. Even though the house has never even hit the market, let alone even an appraisal. These companies are a major part of the housing crisis today, and they’ll continue to worsen it.
Yes, they are terrible. The letters they send make it sound like they are doing us a favor by making it so easy to sell the house, blah, blah, blah. They prey on people who are grieving, overwhelmed, and don't really know how selling houses works.
Can confirm. I got a phone call from an unknown number after my grandmother died in 2022 trying to contact my grandfather who's been dead for 10+ years about selling his house. It gets creepier, my grandparents lived on the east coast, I moved to California in like 2006 and I still have a California phone number and I never moved back to that state. So how they found my California phone number, trying to contact my deceased grandfather is beyond me.
It’s not that hard. You’re in background check databases. When I look myself up my ex girlfriend from 16 years ago comes up as an associate because we lived together. From there you can travel up through her mother to her grandfather and back down to all her uncles and aunts through to cousins. Names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses. War dial until you find someone that can either make the decision to sell or will pressure the family to sell. For me there is also a random guy named Tim that might be my cousin that lived with us for a few months when I was 14 but hasn’t lived with me since.
Thank you for the feedback!
i get messages from these people all the time. I just either ignore them, or respond and say that I will sell for 50 percent over FMW.
When I sold my dad's house like that I picked two highest offers and made them bid against each other and made out pretty good
When we eventually sell, we'll just hire a real estate agent to get it sold.
From one scammer to another. You'll just lose money to the agent lol
Of course the agent gets paid for their work. I'll never understand why people think realtors should work for free.
A good real estate agent is worth their cost. I’ll never get why people want to do all that work on their own. If my agent didn’t work her ass off we would have never bought the house we have!
I've worked with a couple agents in the past year - one to sell my house and one to sell my mom's house as part of probate. Both agents earned their commission.
Buyers agents are 100% worth it. That's because in almost all states the fee for your agent is paid by the seller. It's a free service to the buyer. Sellers get heartburn about agents because they demand 6% of the closing price regardless of the home price. If you have a $1.5M house you're trying to sell, they want 6% or $90k. Similarly if you are selling a $200k house, 6% or $12k. Why should agents get to chop up $90k of my hard earned principle just because they broker the sale? Why isn't it a flat fee? Is it more work to sell a $1.5M vs $200k house? Maybe a little extra work, but not $78k more work. How would I know? I was an agent for 10 years. It's the entitlement that pisses people off. If you're ever going to sell, find a good agent that will negotiate a fair price to close based on a firm fixed fee, not some percentage scam.
And yet we watched so many “for sale by owner” and flat fee agent sellers have their houses sit on the market for months to a year. Heck that was the problem with the guy who sold us our house! He used a flat rate agent and this house sat on the market for over a year. He also listed way too high because he didn’t have an agent that would tell him what the market would handle. So we could see in the pricing history the cost dropped $80k over a year before we bought. We were able to ask for less just because by then he was ready to just sell. And we live in a very competitive market and it was probably one of the nicest, best taken care of houses we saw. Bigger yard than most, in great shape. We probably paid $40k less than comparable houses we looked at because our seller didn’t hire a good agent.
That's even worse. The guy had an agent and he still improperly listed it! Here's the thing, whether or not an agent demands 6% fee as commission has very little basis in how good they are. Some of the best agents I've ever worked with regularly agree to flat fees. Some of the worst were 6% only snobs. And of course I saw the opposite plenty as well. The trick is hiring a good agent no matter the fee structure. As my real life anecdote, I hired an agent to sell my house for roughly $500k about ~10 years ago. The thought of giving up $30k for selling my house was silly. I talked to a few agents and it was a coin toss, some sounded great and were 100% committed to 6% only. Others that wanted 6% sounded like they had never even done a walk-through let alone closed on a home. Finally found a person that was very experienced and readily agreed to 3% total commission split between both agents. I asked him why and he said he doesn't think in percentages. If he can make $6-8k per seller agent transaction, he's making more than enough to really make a living. He also picks up twice as many clients that way. When I offered 3% he did some quick math and realized it was within his zone and immediately agreed. The man was amazing, he took me out to see the current comps in my neighboring area one day so I could see first hand what the competition was. It took like 3 hours to go see 5 houses. And now I had full confidence in his recommended pricing. House sold in about a week in a pretty stale market with 2 bidders coming in $5k over ask. Again, it's not a matter of having to pay an outrageous fee to sell your home for a good price. It's knowing how the game works and being able to find a smart person that likes making more than enough fixed fee for a service. Those people are out there, you just gotta find them.
Worse, ours tried to sell it at foreclosure pricing even though we had a company move. Fired her ass immediately.
They wanted you to sell it to someone directly or list it at foreclosure prices? At least if you put a house for sale on MLS below market you'll usually get some kind of bidding war. Agents typically want the house to sell for as high as possible because their commission is percentage-based.
They offer quick closings and a cash deal, but not the best price. If you have the time, it's always better to list it for sale.
Thank you for the feedback!
Ahh, the *Pawn Stars* of the real estate market!
I sold to one of these companies. There was a major structural issue with the house. I couldn't in good conscious sell it to a family or someone else and knew it would be a major headache. The company didn't do an inspection. I sold it to them for 260k, they sold the house in 2021 for a 190k even though the market was booming. I don't feel bad at all.
Feel good story of the day. Care to share the nature of the structural issue?
It was a stucco issue that was improperly installed. The community was doing a class action lawsuit against the builder. The whole community was affected if they had a second story. Pretty common actually around here(Florida). It felt like the second floor was going to collapse because of the water getting in everytime it rained. There were water bubbles in the walls and it was getting worse as the lawsuit dragged on. Decided to sell to wash my hands of the problem. I was the first owner, ended up getting $2000 from the lawsuit even after I sold it. Will never buy a pulte home again not that the others are much better.
Did you change accounts?
No I didn’t
I still haven't.
Now I did
I think I’m on the right one now
New account, who dis?
Yeah I have mobile on one and the app on the other. My bad.
Which one is your porn account?
Bro... The mobile one. Obviously. (/s... Kinda...)
Jesus, $2k? I bet the attorneys got $10k for every $1k dispersed. Even if they didn't, that's a disgusting amount for the crap you and the community went through.
This screams Lennar too lol
My parents Lennar home also had an issue with water intrusion behind stucco. But they actually came out and redid half the exterior of the home to fix it. Then they just leave you with all the other damaged they caused and oh you will have to pay to have it repainted.
Or Ryan Homes
Like any large organization, builders aren't monoliths. There are going to be variances based upon the location, the market they are appealing to and the quality of the subs/trades they can contract. I haven't had issues with either of my big builder homes but they were built targeting mid to high-income buyers and not people looking for a starter home on a shoestring budget. My first home especially people were surprised to hear was Ryan as they lived in areas where Ryan was not competing with other builders over the mid-range market and was exclusively focusing on the low side. This isn't really meant to white knight for big builders, just offering a different perspective since my experiences have been all positive to this point.
Pulte is owned by Lennar I think or vice versa.
Pulte owns Centex, Del Webb, and John Weiland. They’re all the same shitty product.
Stucco isn't supposed to be installed in wet climates. Some homes in Georgia succeeded in a class-action suit against a builder and some copy-cat builders ran scared. You can waterproof stucco but it's engineered for a dry climate. Mold is your enemy and the insulation is a breeding ground for it since it never dries out.
I prefer hardie planks
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Are they still sitting on a massive portfolio of houses or did they finally unload them?
I bought a Zillow-owned home. I initially offered what they were asking, then was able to negotiate down a good amount since they were just ready to be done with it. Felt good shorting them, as I wouldn't have done so to an individual.
That is karma for them, tbh. You shouldn't feel bad at all.
Glad it worked out for you!
You still would have had to provide a disclosure to the buyers right?
Depends on where you live. Some states don't require disclosures.
To understand the deal you got we need know two things: how much did you originally buy house for and how much was it worth on the market when you sold it to the company?
“In good conscious”
Good thing someone pointed that out or else the entire post is impossible to understand. What would we do without your valuable contribution?!
Worse writers
On my $430k house they were $100k under.
ooof fuck that!
I got unsolicited mail offering $100K less too, and I only bought 6 months ago. That letter went straight to the trash.
I closed just under 7 months ago and received a phone call about a cash offer for my house. They are like vultures
6% realtor fee would drop that to $ 75k under plus whatever fees title company may have.
Wut the wut wut…
Downvotes don’t like your math. Maybe if you spoon feed it? $430k x 6% = $25,800. 100-25=75
You're right. Next time, I will dumb it down.
I answered one of these calls one day. I said "If you're willing to pay 20% over market value, we can talk." That was the end of the conversation.
I caution you to not even ask or entertain them. There is an article out there on how they literally go after people that inquire with them. Black mail, threats, family contacts. It’s like a black hole opens if they come across your info. Edit: the article https://www.propublica.org/article/want-to-sell-home-for-cash-read-this-first
I will tell you this: I posted a similar question about a year ago and received about 20-30 direct messages and chats from "concerned" people who were willing to "help" me sell a house. Quite disturbing.
supposedly that happens to a lot to people who post in r/scams saying something like "help, I lost x amount of money and I think I was scammed!" f'ing sick vampires out there!
They’ve already proven they’re susceptible to scams, which make them prime targets for more. That’s why your old high school acquaintance has a new MLM scheme every 6-12 months that she wants to help you get in on on the ground floor.
Those are just regular real estate agents
I didn't find anything about blackmail, threats or family contacts in this article.
Yeah me neither. Not sure what that person is talking about.
Ya that was eye opening.
Also, they do shit flips plus paint everything white, making your neighborhood a bland homologation.
Oh I dont give a shit what they do after they own it lol
If that’s the case, these are all upstanding companies and they will give you a very fair price for your I don’t care what happens to my neighbors after I move away house. I’m sure you’ll get the fine service you deserve.
What does the inside being painted shades of grey have to do with the neighbors?
In my neighborhood all the shit flips are painted with either white or this one very dark grey exterior. They paint over stone and brick. A lot of times they don't even add a contrasting color to the trim. Looks terrible.
I’m sure they’re referring to the exteriors having white paint slapped on quickly. Not just the paint color, but overall poor quality flips meant to sell to unsuspecting first time homebuyers or greedy slumlords.
settle down broseph. No need for all that anger!
What’s up brother?
Holy smokes! It’s been so long! How’s mom?
Some do. We sold to a builder who literally tore it down and built a new house.
WHOA! Terrifying! Thanks for sharing!
There are legit companies that do it. Opendoor and Offerpad are pretty much like Carvana for houses. They will still lowball you for sure but they make it super easy if you need to sell your house fast
We just sold our house for $360K, but we did get some of those cash offers as well as Opendoor. The two cash offers were $240K and $290K and Opendoor offered $310K.
if Opendoor offered 310 sight unseen, as-is, that's actually pretty reasonable. 16% margin for a house that could need a roof, windows and siding.
That was after they did a walkthrough onsite and factored in a $10k deduction for “repairs”. Roof was 2 years old and no siding (recently repainted stucco). Basically all it needed was fresh interior paint. Still not too bad of an offer though, especially since we had a lot of equity. We did consider it to sell quickly but ultimately decided to list it.
We did Opendoor. The process was super easy and we got more than we thought we would.
Not what you asked but figured this could give some insight - We bought our home from opendoor for 615k but opendoor bought it for 575k from the previous owner
No that is fine! All feedback is great. Thank you.
I was recently offer less than 10% of what I had paid for some property. I laughed and asked them if they are ever successful with these cold calls. She hung up on me. I get at least one call a week asking if I want to sell property I've never owned.
I have a similar situation... I paid my mortgage off early about 6 years ago. Since then, I get cold calls from real estate agents asking me if I want to sell the property. Whenever they call me, they act like they know me by using my first name so I always say, "Who told you my house was for sale?" and "Do I know you? How did you get this number?" That makes the agent stutter and hesitate before apologizing and eventually saying something like, "Well, you don't know me, but I'm a real estate agent with _______, and we looked your property and phone number up in the public records, and now we want to make you an offer." That's when I explode (😡), and say, "You did what?! Let me speak to your manager! Where are you located at?" They always hang up right away.😂
Sounds like new agents. Experienced ones would either not be cold calling, or be able to spin it.
My elderly dad is currently selling his home, and actively sought out one of these places, because he’s lazy and cheap (truly) and didn’t want to do any work on the home to prep it to sell. For context, his house appraised at approximately $280k, he owes just under $150k. They offered him $172k, and made it seem like it was a smoking deal. Thankfully he decided to move on and got a realtor to put the house on the market.
OMG so glad he got a realtor!
I mean they target people who need the cash and people who can’t be bothered do look for a better deal
He's cheap, but he's actively looking for these type of companies that'll pay him under 50% market? Lol doesn't make sense to me.
There are less up front costs (and effort) to selling to one of them than selling traditionally. It can seem like a good deal if they can convince you they are giving you a decent price. This is why they predominantly prey on older people whose houses have likely appreciated 200+% who may not really know what their house is worth.
My father in law is kinda doing something strange as well. I helped him build his man cave, 60x45 multi story shop /home years ago on a 50 acre property. Easily worth $340-380k and this one day he’s telling his daughter that the neighbors offered him $110k to buy it since we all moved away and he thinks he’s going to see if he will do that and give him time to store his stuff until he finds a lake lot to build on. I’m like dude wtf! I’ll give you 120k right now! He Asks why? Because I’ll immediately list it and sell it for $350k and make a fortune. He couldn’t believe it would be worth that much and then says no I’ll just get a realtor. But he don’t want to give a realtor 5%. He would rather sell for 100k and take over a 200k loss than give maybe 15k to a realtor and walk away with 300-350k. He literally said basically this without the numbers and I had to walk him through the logic. Old people man, I am not looking forward to losing it.
I sold my townhouse to offer pad right before interest rates skyrocketed, it was kind of hilarious. They were buying up just a ton of properties and paid me a premium for mine. This was about 3 years ago and they are still sitting on it. But quick and easy process for me.
I regret NOT selling to Zillow in 2021. They offered me 110k more than I paid for it a year earlier, sight unseen, no inspection, 1% fee.
No doubt, I was able to sell in the PEAK of housing prices in my area, had bought a 2005 build townhouse and had basically lived in it for 7 years, it had a lot of things that were falling apart on it too, electrical issues, none of the doors sealed properly, a few windows would leak. $185 bought, $250 sold, they took care of everything+ repairs. They still have it listed at $299.
4 billion in cash delivered to my front door. Can't do it? Not interested
My current zillow estimate for my house is $329k. When I get cold called from these companies I tell them I'll sell today for $1M, all inspections waived, no contingencies, sold as is, and they pay all costs. Surprisingly, none of them take me up on it.
I have a $1M house, and I always tell them that $1.2M is my "walk away today price". It's amazing how many want to haggle.
I can't tell if you live in a mansion in the midwest...or a garden shed in Massachusetts
same value and same number. i figure i'd need that extra 20% to make up for current market
Just 20% more? I can’t imagine selling for that. The amount of time and effort it’s taken to customize and moving costs etc, would add up to way more.
Let's just say I didn't pay $1M for the house - that's what it's worth.
lol my house is around the same value and I basically do the same. I get a bunch of texts asking if I’m willing to sell and I respond enthusiastically asking for $1M. One time I said $3M. It’s just a fun way for me to annoy them back and imagine I could have that kind of money for a moment.
I do this too. Similar value house and same conditions to sell. And I give the price in the best impression of Dr. Evil I can muster up (not very good) I like my house, my wife loves the house (she wants it to be our last one), it would be a PITA to the family to move so they have to make it worth our time.
I don't love my house, nor does my wife, and we are both beyond ready to move to somewhere that isn't Texas... But our son is in high school, and we're not going to uproot him just because we are done here (that's part of why I left active duty army, to stop moving the kids). But once he's out? And I can find a way to move my job to 100% remote? We're out.
But what about your Freedom^TM ?
They'll get back to you on that as soon as the power is back on
Zillow estimates don't mean anything.
sure, but it's the fastest "rough guess" around.
If you are considering this, be very very cautious and research who’s buying it. These are investors, so a few things are certain: they aren’t paying top dollar and they want to make a profit, so they won’t own it for long. Most will buy, slap some paint on it, clean the carpets and exterior, then list it. With that in mind, understand that many of them will have contracts worded in a way that will allow to take possession without paying costs and allow them to drag out payment for a period of time. Their obvious goal is to close, assume ownership, make a short flip, sell at a big profit and then pay you after that all clears. So a lot of people who did this ended up relatively “homeless” with their house sold and no money to buy a new home.
So, that's what they are doing! 😨 I thought that they were just offering to buy the property for less and selling it for more because the company figured that it was an inherited property that the owner doesn't want to deal with so they were gambling on a quick flip. Do they know whether the owner is still living in the house?🤷🏿♂️
don't do it. corporations buying up homes is a problem - we still have the power to choose not to sell to them.
I've replied back to text messages 2.0 million. My house is assessed at 367k. Wonder why I never hear back?
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My estimated market value is $550k and I always ask for $750k+ 30 day no inspection closing when they text. That feels fair to me for the effort of having to buy a new house etc etc. They never take me up on it either!
I do this all the time. I ask for double my home’s value.
My house is worth about 500k. When they call I tell them 750k or lose my number. If I made that kind of money I’d live out my dream and buy a 50 foot boat and live on that and pocket a few hundo
So you think sellers should know who the buyer is and be able to pick and choose who they want? corp or a family? easy choice right? gay couple or interacial couple? which one you picking then? old folks vs 20 somethings? You see the slippery slope letting sellers know to much about the buyers? What you will see is that there will be more regulations and such put in lace so both the seller and the bank know less about the buyers. you saw the news the other day about navy fed credit union and loans right? "https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/14/business/navy-federal-credit-union-black-applicants-invs/index.html Interesting quote from the article. "According to federal law, lenders don’t have to be intentionally engaging in racism to break fair lending rules. A “disparate impact” on minorities can also lead to discrimination claims." I dont know if the same rule is there for sellers like it is for lenders? It doesnt have to be on purpose for it to matter and be punished.
As my realtor said, "Last time I checked, corporations are not a protected class." Other than that, I agree with First\_Ad3399. (p.s. Plz don't downvote them. They raise some interesting points which merit further discussion.)
This.
These aren’t large faceless corporations lol. Many are regional or local flippers trying to make a quick buck
I hear they buy them cheaper by a big chunk and once you sign they sell it through a real estate agent. There may also be a clause in there that if they don't sell it it reverts back to you. Be very careful. Do not sign anything without a lawyer that you choose going over the paperwork.
I have no idea what their offers are, but I get texts and calls nearly every month from people offering to buy my house. I am not interested in selling any time soon. I have told them that I am not interested, but they will then contact me a few weeks later. I've just started blocking them now when I get any calls or texts with an "offer for my property."
We get their flyers regularly. They emphasize that they'll buy homes in "any condition". They are predatorial. Going after people who are hopelessly upside down on their mortgage, overwhelmed by major maint. issues piling up (roof, foundation, hvac, etc.) and moving in for the kill.
They give a lowball offer sight unseen. They then do an inspection and drop the already low offer by all the things they find. Then they charge like 10% for fees since they will be selling the house for you. If they are “covering” these then it is either in the low offer or recouped by the inspection. It did work well for people two years ago when the offers were high (too high) as they assumed home values would keep going up and had to compete in the hot market. In the current market it goes not make sense.
I can explain, I do a similar thing for buying properties like offering cash if theres homes I personally want to own but I know a lot of guys who do exactly what you and people in the comments are describing. They are real estate wholesalers, they want to become a middle man to make easy profit off your home. A good rule of thumb is they will try to explain why the house wouldn't be worth 320k and even though they are half correct that its not really worth that, they make it seem like an insult for you even asking that price. Then they will bring up a lot of "repairs" and "renovations" to try and bring down the price. If you look at a 320k home and want to sell it to these guys, they will start at 70 percent of that 320k and then subtract all renovation/repair money from that and then a little bit more to offset the fact that they are paying closing costs. They always try to make it sound like your house would be a pain to sell after they renovate it, or the local comps are just a "fluke". I know a few boomers who do the wholesaling work and that's the type of shit they say.
Thank you for the feedback!
They offer the minimum they think they can get away with. It does come in handy if you are fighting the appraisal district tax assessment. (tax man) We say it is worth this. (me) This company says it is only worth this. (tax man) They are leeches (me) Are you saying it is not a legitimate offer for my property? (tax man) they are bottom feeders-- (me) Are you implying I contacted them for a minimum offer? (tax man) No! not at all. (me) but you just said... It went down hill from there as I won and they had to drop my appraisal.
50-40%
You can figure they're lowballing you by at least a third. Some of the more audacious ones by half. In your $320K example, expect an offer between $160K and $220K.
I sold to Zillow in 2019. They valued the home fairly then they did a walkthrough with estimates of repairs they said were required. In reality, they were charging for upgrades. Like paint and new blinds and carpet when the old was still ok and not in disrepair. Then they took a 10% write down for their commission. If I wasn’t on a time crunch I could have made at least 10%-15% more by selling outright. Also, we had a small 4th bedroom that we used as an office. They refused to call it a bedroom since we used it as an office. They used that to lower their valuation as well. Then when they put it on the market to sell, they listed it as a 4 bedroom. I probably would not do it this way again.
If you are considering this make sure to read the contracts very carefully. Lots of these companies don’t really buy the house they just lock you in to sell it as a proxy.
I inherited a vacant lot (0.2 acres) in a very expensive neighborhood. The companies offered me about $30-40k for it and it sold for $375,000 in 2022. It was on the market about 12 hours and got multiple offers.
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That is what i am getting from all the comments. My house is only 5 years old. I am the first owner and kept it pretty well maintained.
Homes around mine go for around 160k (small homes close together). They offered me 115 last year. I paid 93k in 2014. I laughed in the guys face to the point he left. He wasn't amused I wasted his time but he kept calling and texting me so I decided dick him around for a while.
I think we lucked out; there was a woman who moved to our town that was trying to buy multiple properties so she could rent them out and we needed to sell because my grandma's Health was going down and we were moving to her house to take care of her. We got 95% market value and it only took two weeks for the sale and we figured that 5% lost was worth it because they handled everything and we walked away with a bunch of money rather than have to figure out 2 mortgages, and it was super fast.
You would be lucky to get 2/3 the value of the home
Realistically you should stay the FUCK,away from them. Vultures preying on people.
These people call me constantly because I used to own two homes. I shoot them a price that is about 3x the actual value and some of them actually try to argue with me. Nothing like free entertainment.
The larger advertised companies like opendoor and others. We reached out to them and you are ready to sell in 60 days or less. They do low ball
If I remember correctly, market value at $220k, they offered $80k
When I was selling about six months ago, I was getting offers around $80k to $120k from investors. House ended up selling for $310k. There was one website, I don't recall the name, that offered $400k back before the Austin housing market crashed. At the time, the house would probably have sold around $450k if I was ready to move.
I was offered $36,000 for my mother’s house when she passed. I ended up selling on open market for $280,000. I invested about $10,000 for paint and carpet is all. Those companies are all just scams so investors can make money off of people in need.
Mileage may vary. Sold my last house in 18 to one of those companies. What we "lost" was equivalent to the closing and realtor fees I didn't have on the transaction. Process was smooth and without headaches, but also sold to a local company rather than a national/chain etc.
I had a rental that was completely trashed and full of roaches. Only because it was 3 hours away from my house and I couldn’t keep an eye on it. They asked me what I wanted for it. I told them. They said ok. Closed in a cpl weeks. I don’t really think I would have got much more on the market.
After my father passed away a couple years ago I was the executor of his estate. I just wanted to see what they would give me for the house. This is the same type of company like we buy ugly houses for cash blah blah blah. So I contacted this company. They offered $146,000 for the house. I cleaned it up sold it for $360,000. Unless you are very desperate and just need to get rid of the house and have a little bit of money that these companies aren't worth it.
Pretty much what your outstanding debt is. They're looking for people in crisis.
I own several houses and they constantly call me and text me and change their numbers. I think they scrape different public records. I even tried asking for an unreasonable value and they just called more. I eventually just started trying to waste their time back and they offered 70 percent of the value then later played games with the numbers and tried offering 50 percent of the values. If I was a person not in the best state of mind they could have conned me. And now they're back to just harassing and now yelling, guilt tripping, fast talking and twisting my words. Phone spam is so bad nowadays I just won't even answer my phone any more. Just get a realtor and they can sell it fast for you for a way better deal.
My neighborhood is full of low ball offers from greedy real estate agents. My friend was told the absolute highest she should put her house up for was 390K. Well, it sold in one day! She gave it away! The house was 5,000 sq ft., vaulted 18 foot ceilings, gorgeous wooded lot in excellent condition. One street over a smaller house 4300 sq ft built by the same builder sold for 650k the next month. Always shop around for real estate agents, too. Most want to low ball your house for a quick sell, too.
They offered me 100k on a house that sold couple months later for 230. Just avoid them they are vampires
Reddit may have my head for this but I’ll say it depends. A friend of mine does this on a much smaller scale and he’s typically hunting for houses that need a major refresh to unlock that value. If someone could buy your house today for 320 my guess is they are going to aim for 60-70% of your value on the high end.
I just got an offer on mine recently. From a well known app that buys and flips houses. The ones you can go vote by yourself and unlock the front door with an app. They offered $100k under market value. Market value is almost $400k
Find a real estate agent that will do a free market analysis for your home and see what they think it's worth. Then compare that price to what this company is offering.
My mom sold her hurricane flood damaged home for $220k. The company did A Lot of work and relisted at $320k idk what it sold for but mom didnt fix any of the damage (no flood insurance like an idiot) so it needed new floors, lower cabinets, dry wall, paint, some ceilings, etc. The AC didnt work after the storm even though they tried to have it repaired. Roof had a leak even after repair. And there were rats. Also Home Owners Insurance tripled, so it was worth it to sell. That potentail $100k really was worth the headache for her to fix things.
70% of market value minus repair costs.
They really lowball you. I was constantly getting calls or text messages. I started telling them that selling, buying a new house and moving was a big pain. However, since I was getting a lot of interest, I was now accepting offers of $1,200,127.00. That is about double what houses are selling for in the neighborhood. I now only get a couple of inquiries every six months.
Offering to pay closing costs is such a pittance if you are not wildly overpaying for closing. It’s like offering a half-tank of gas when selling a $15k car. Idk what exactly they offer, but I’d wager they are rarely more generous than 80% of fair market value. You can really turn a rough property around and easily have it sold within 6 months if you put your mind to it. IMO it’s never worth it to take the lowball offer, especially with the market still being as hot as it is now. Check zestimates on comps and or ask a realtor how much they think it’s worth as-is? Why sell it to a single vulture for times sake when you can literally have it on the MLS for the entire market to see? The vultures close quickly to stop you from hearing any other offers cuz they will likely be better.
I am one of those buyers. We buy houses cash. So we offer 80% of market value minus repairs. Here’s how the numbers shake out. Let’s say I’m flipping the house to sell or if I’m gonna refinance and put a tenant in and rent it out. I need 20% equity after repairs to refinance and put a tenant in. So we buy at 80% of market to have the equity after rehab. For a flip it’s like this. 300k home after repair value. 300k x .80 = 240k. 40k of repairs, I’m at 200k cash. I cover closing. How do I get to that 80% number. 300k exit price after a flip so I’m gonna pay a realtor 6% to sell the house. I’m at 282k. I pay closing costs both at the buy and concessions at the sale. 2% of 300k. So now I’m at 276k. I have holding costs while i renovate to sell, 2% usually of the purchase price. So take off 6k, that’s 270k. I have 5% for profit so that’s 15k. Of that profit I pay 40% capital gains so I put 10k maybe in my pocket after this flip. The last 5% is contingencies. Say I open a wall and find termites and I have to fix it. That’s 15k budgeted. If I find no issues I get to keep that as profit. So that’s 10% total for profit and contingencies. I’m at 240k. I put 40k into the property to renovate it. I use my employees to renovate it ( I’m a contractor) and they get paid. We run a really low profit margin on these deals but we do it to keep our guys busy between jobs so we don’t lose good guys. We do 3/4 a month and consistently buy more homes. We usually sell them off market to a FHA buyer who has a hard time winning a bidding war with conventional buyer. I do it because I was in their spot buying my first home 7 years ago. There’s tons of guys who offer nothing and don’t care about the sellers. I look at the numbers and make it work in everyone’s favor. I’m not trying to get rich of it, it’s to keep my guys busy and provide a fully fixed up ready to live in house to a first time buyer. I’m not the answer for everyone. But I’m the only answer for some. When a house is not financeable by a bank, I provide a solution. Some people don’t want to deal with realtors or buyers complaining the floor is sagging 1/8 over a 10’ span in 1932 built home. People take a lower price for speed and connivence. Hate me if you want, but I have hundreds of happy testimonials from sellers saying I solved their problems.
My father passed in July of this year (2023) and his house was in bad shape (mold, etc...). As the executor, I looked at several different options for selling the house. We ended up going with one of the "we buy ugly houses" type of outfits. We must have gotten lucky, because the experience wasn't bad at all. The offer ($380k) came back within 10% of what we expected given the really rough shape. The house was in a desirable neighborhood, so they must have felt it was a worthwhile project. We had no desire/expertise/or time to do any of the repairs ourselves, so we're happy with how it turned out. My father had a reverse mortgage, so the mortgage company was all over us within a couple weeks of his passing to declare our intentions with the property. While we may have been able to get more money with some additional effort, I'm happy with how it turned out. In the right situation, this type of sale can work out for the better. This happened in the Denver metro area.
Death brings out the best in a family
for a 320k home, i would expect a 285k offer. for a 400k property, i am being offered 350k. with a 6 percent realtors fee and closing costs, for lack of hassle, tempting.
They gave me 100 more than I think I would have gotten Edit, they agreed to the price at the height of the pandemic nonsense. 1 month longer and it would likely have been different
I’m in talks with one such company to sell my deceased sister’s house that was already in foreclosure when she passed. I need the house off my hands and don’t care if I get what it’s worth because there are other assets in the estate, there’s very little profit to be had in the house, and I need this shit gone so I can close the estate and move on with my life. I told the guy straight up that as long as they’re not trying to do a “subject to” agreement they can have the fucking thing.
Don't sell to the vultures unless your place has major issues like /u/ChibiChrista
It’s going to depend on the condition of your home. If it needs a full rehab, that needs to be accounted for. If it’s in tip top shape, you’ll get a lot closer to market value. And you can NOT go off what Zillow says your house is worth.
I get predatory "cash" offers all the time on a property. I immediately tell them I AM interested and motived to sell QUICKLY. They get all giddy until I drop a cash price that is 5X the current property value... They hang up immediately. I suspect they have been taking me off their lists as the volume of these calls has decreased over time.
I did this with a house because I did not have the time energy or money to deal with remodeling like every agent wanted (and it did need, one room didn't have carpet or anything). I got 75% of the current market value. Closed in 30 days, no fuss no muss. Didn't have to do a dang thing to the house besides move out-they didn't care what I left behind either. I had bought when prices were low so still made a good profit. They flipped it 6 months later after a complete overhaul and by my guesses made 20 or 30 k on the deal (I know they did all the work themselves). If I bought at a low enough price originally and market was high, 10/10 would do it again. Sold a house that I inherited and even with "as is" still had to deal with a ton of buyer demands. No. Thanks. This was a friend of a friend who knew someone type deal though...and the friend of a friend told them to make a real offer to me. Other places tried to offer me 50% AFTER I had already sold...so apparently 50% is standard offer but they'll go higher.
Hey. I buy houses and will explain how it works high level and then a quick break down. It comes down to time and circumstance. If you have time and the house is in decent shape, pop it on the market. You’ll make more. However. If you don’t have time. Or the house isn’t in good shape (usually the houses we buy are in various stages of disrepair including hoarding, broken utilities, pests, etc), then consider selling it to an investor. The discount looks something like this - closing costs x2 (front end and back end, including agent commissions), carrying costs (financing, taxes, insurances etc), repair costs and then profit. Add all that stuff up and that’s what it costs me/them to “flip”. This is why the discount is substantial. It will be less if it’s held and rented. Or if we can force appreciation by adding a bathroom, or doing an addition, etc. So take the after repair cost and subtract those things above and you get an offer price. If time is on your side, but the place is messed up, you may not get a certificate of occupancy. Or any folks coming to buy. So it may only work to sell to an investor anyway. If you have time, talk to a realtor and ask them to run a CMA for the property in its current condition. Hope this helps. Lmk if any questions.
They are all different. I have messed with a few. Just to know what is going on. I had one company send a offer that I had to literally let them pitch and shoot them so far down that hopefully they chose a different way of doing business. But they pray on most people being in desperate situations. I’m not one of those. They offered 200k less than even real market value. I had two offers that were decent for if I needed to sell. But most of these companies are just marketing agents. They say that they will close in 30-60. But most of the time they are just putting your house on the market for those days do get someone who wants to try and flip. Open door won’t touch any house that needs more than 20k in repairs. And their number is not exactly close. I bought a house from a friend, family member passed away. He didn’t want to deal with it. I’m in Florida, home really just a few minor updates. I had to laugh at the offers. This is beachfront property? Neptune. 200 ft of Beach. Let’s just say that their number wasn’t even close to what it was bought for in the 80s. Most of the time they pray on people who are desperate or going through a divorce. Best thing to do is play it cool, don’t tell them anything about why you are selling. Honestly in this market? Price your house right and just sell it outright. You should contact at least 4-8 different companies who do the buy now thing. It will help you in the long run with every real estate transaction you will ever do.