Anyone ever do a "We want to buy your house" deal?

[Lilburner]

I need to get rid of a house. My parents old house.

The whole time I was trying to sell it on behalf of my mom, any TWO of me, the realtor, or the lawyer, were anxious to sell it at any given time, and the third was holding it up.

Now there are no legal hurdles and it has to go. The listing contract has expired with the realtor, and I've started to notice I get AT LEAST weekly postcards saying "we want to buy your house". It's a dated interior fixer upper but huge with property on an in-demand area, so it would be perfect for that market.

I'm thinking of collecting up all the postcards and letters, and contacting all the people with internet ads and billboards, and such, setting an open house date, and letting them have a bidding war. I could get at least a dozen people this way.

Anyone every use these services?

[ChristianJ]

The market is hot right now. Put it on the market. It will sell for 90-110% of list price, which is more than you will get otherwise.

[Fixit]

I have a friend that does that . The key for we buy houses types is that it must be  that they buy bargains . The saying is you make your money when you buy . He has rentals in 4 states that I know of. What area is the house in and I will pass the info along .

[8greenbeans]

I had an offer on my house in Gwinnett. They offered me $95K for a 4 bed, 2.5 bath, 2-car garage, on 1/3 acre. I still owed $96K so I told them no thanks. I sold it for $135K cash. If I had had $10K to do some siding work and gutter work then I would have either kept it and rented it out for much more or sold it for $170K+. But I didn't, so I didn't. ;-)

[SS-Preppers]

I have researched several companies that do this and I have not found one of them that doesn't just lowball the heck out of you and dump all kinds of fees on top of that.  The only advantage that I see to using someone like this is their ability to close quickly, but the flip side is that you will get a sales price that is substancially below market value and you net sales price will be even worse.

My suggestion is to list it with an Agent "AS IS".......make sure that the listing states that the sale is "AS IS" and then be prepared to get a string of lowball offers........tell the Agent to list it at about 10% above fair market value for it's condition.......then simply wait.....the other option is to list it under the same condition at 15% over market and then cut the price by the extra 5% after 45 days.....it sometimes give the perception that people are getting a "deal".....the listing will show that the price has been reduced and for those that are following the listing with one of the many Real Estate websites, they will get notification that there has been a price drop.  Don't feel like a "jerk" for listing it too high.....everyone is listing their property too high right now.....the scary thing is that many of them are actually getting very close to the asking price......the number of real "deals" is getting very low......you'll be better off to list it 10-15% above and end up taking 5-10% below market value than going with one of the buy direct companies.

[ChristianJ]

I have researched several companies that do this and I have not found one of them that doesn't just lowball the heck out of you and dump all kinds of fees on top of that.

I mean, that's how you make money in an arbitrage business model. You sell things for more than you paid for them.

These deals appeal to a segment of our society that prefers to make fast, cash-in-hand money over maximizing value.

I can't really say much more on the topic because I may or may not have past or current business interests involved.

[Lilburner]

Been researching this some.

The house is an investment property - it needs some work, and it looks like the 70's died in there.

The realtor is going to be showing it to investors and it will be sold "as-is".

I'm not under contract with the realtor, but I know what the house is worth. Both the open market residential value and the depreciated investment value.

I'm hearing to avoid the big companies, but a lot of these people sending me cards are individual investors. Presumably the same kinds of people the realtor will be soliciting.

So I'm going to skip the companies, call all the individuals - a dozen or more, set up an open house, tell them to come out, look around, and make an offer. If I get an offer I want, great - no real estate commission. If I don't, I wasted an afternoon.

So keep your fingers crossed for me!