How to Sell Your House Fast to the “We Buy Houses” Guys, Safely (First in a Series)

       By George Beardsley 

       If the current chaos in housing and the economy all of a sudden has you seeing little yellow signs and big billboards that say, “We Will Buy Your House” you probably need to sell a house fast and may be wondering who are these guys behind the signs and can they really do anything to help.

     The signs have been around for probably three decades, but like everything else, you only see the things that are of immediate importance to you.  While anyone can buy and sell houses in the United States most people only buy and sell the house they live in or expect to live in. 

      Buying houses without the expectation of living in them—as a business, really started to take off about 30 years ago when a number of seminar speakers crossed the county selling training in buying and selling homes for profit.

     Like any business, you can expect a number of the people who buy houses to be skilled, honest professionals and others not so skilled and some—that you would want to avoid.

     The bottom line is that some of these people can in fact help you sell a house quickly, sometimes in a few days, and solve problems.  Others, I have found, will not even answer the phone or call you back, if you call and leave a message.  Strange as it may seem, I have found that this reluctance to follow up on a lead happens in a number of areas in sales.        

     So the first thing I would suggest in selecting a House Buyer to deal with is call several, see who answers the phone, and see who comes out to your house and arrives when they agreed to arrive.  Not high tech, but a good start.

      Who am I to tell you how to sort through these guys?  I happen to be one of them and have been doing creative real estate for two decades in Florida, was previously a stock broker and financial reporter for the Chicago Tribune.  It is sort of like going to a hacker to find out how to make your computer operation safe.

     And as one of them, let me assure you there are good, competent people, who are able to raise the money it takes to buy and are knowledgeable of the way real estate works where you live.

      There are also, and always, waves of new people who are learning how to buy houses and some of the people who need to sell a house fast will be helping these newcomers learn the trade.

     In addition to seeing if they answer the phone and actually arrive at the time agreed for an appointment, I would want to know how long the person has been buying houses and how well they do it.  In the second installment of this series, we will look at methods of checking them out and in the third article we will be looking at phrases in the contract they offer you that you may want to avoid.

      One of the biggest plusses that the best of these guys and gals will bring to the table to help you is that they have been taught that there are a number of ways to sell a house, methods that have been used in commercial real estate for years but that are rarely used in residential real estate.

      I learned the use of these creative methods the hard way twenty some years ago when I lived on the East Coast of Florida and unbeknownst to me had bought a house in an area where a garbage burning incinerator was planned.  It was to be built about a mile from where my house was and when I was ready to sell the house to move to the Tampa Bay area, I could not sell.

     Everyone knew of the plans when I was ready to sell and no one wanted any of the houses in my area.  I finally left the house with a real estate agent and moved while bearing the cost of two homes.

       While a lot of real estate agents do not like creative real estate, my agent was knowledgeable and suggested a way to sell my house.  We were scarred, but after thinking about it we sold and it worked out fine.

     There was a risk in what I did then and a risk in any creative answer to a real estate sales problem, but my experience was what  eventually sent me into the We Buy Houses business and in the next several articles we will tell you how it may help you and discuss the risks.

Don’t You Dare Sell Your House Fast to that Professional

                                           Until You Check Him Out (Second in a Series)

                            By George Beardsley
 

        Imploding housing prices coupled to a mortgage mess are propelling more people to consider selling their houses to the professional home buyers whose advertisements you now see everywhere you look.

       While they promise a fast sale and you can get on with your life, you’ve got to be asking just how safe it this?

     In the first article in this series we suggested that for a minimum, find out if they return phone calls and actually show up for the appointment on time.  If they can’t do something that simple, figure they will screw up buying your house as well.  But there is more.

       And four simple searches on google.com will tell you a lot more about whether you want to deal with this guy (or gal) or not.

       First, just do a simple Google search of the person’s name with some geographic limiters, such as “‘George Beardsley’ Pasco house.” We suggest you put the name of the home buyer in quotes to reduce the number of responses about other people.  In addition to the location (Pasco County) we also added the word house to further limit the search.

       This will give you an idea of how active the person is, at least on the internet, the type of business they are doing and maybe complaints or compliments from other viewers.

      Next Google the local newspaper, visit the archives and search for the person’s name.  You may find a host of both positive and negative items that will help you decide if you want to deal with him or her.

       Now Google the name of the county and the words clerk of court and you will find two areas where you can really mine for the pay dirt.

      “Public records” will contain a list of all the properties bought and sold in the county.  Although many investors use corporations and trusts to hide their ownership of property you will probably find numerous entries under the Professional Home U Buyer’s name.  Look for the earlier entries to get some idea of how long they have been buying houses.  The longer they have been at it, the more likely they are to be able to actually help.

         This is not to say that a brand new person will not be of help, but it is comforting to know that the person who is looking to buy your house has done it before and hopefully for years and years.

         Now go to the county records for the civil court and see how often the person has been the defendant in a law suit.  Zero would be a good number, but in this climate of civil law suits most anyone who has been in business for any length of time may have been the defendant at one time or another.  You do not want to see a pattern of being sued and you will want to ask about why he was sued and the outcome if he was sued.

        None of this will be conclusive.  But, if you are armed with this information before the person is scheduled to arrive at your house, you can learn a lot.  First, does he arrive on time?  Then, is he upset that you have done your home work and checked him out?   I assure you he has checked out your house and a real pro will expect you to have done your home work as well.  Can he answer all the questions you have as a result of your research and does he have a good explanation for all of the information you bombard him with?  If so, then you want to go to the next step and check out his contract terms, which we discuss in the next installment.