Do Quick House Buying Companies Do What They Say?
John Harrison reveals his insights on quick house buying schemes
John Harrison reveals his insights on quick house buying schemes
A relatively new phenomenon in the property market is the ‘we buy cash’ quick fix, house buying companies who target those already on the market, normally with a professional looking flyer. But do they actually do that?
I am sure some will, though the offer received will undoubtedly be significantly under market value to keep their business model fluid. Many however, will be disingenuous with no intention of providing you with the quick sale you were promised.
There have been a couple of cases recently where houses we have been selling have been targeted, and being none-the-wiser, the sellers have decided to give it a go. The first one was actually sold subject to contract at £305,000 though there was a chain and one or two minor, though workable sticking points which needed ironing out prior to getting a completion date. The seller didn’t want to hang around so went for a £300,000 ‘cash offer’ from one of these companies. The client contacted us six months later to ask if we’d take them back. No sale ever materialised and they were by this stage advertising their property at £250,000 on Rightmove. To this day we don’t know what happened but you can be sure of one thing. It wasn’t quick and it certainly wasn’t a fix to their solution. It ended up costing the client over £50,000.
A second case was a lovely young couple in the Lune Valley. It was a separation and they needed to get going quickly. We had someone interested but one of these companies had made them an ‘offer’ which they had decided to accept. Within minutes the ‘buyer’ was at their house taking photographs and hounding us to remove our advert from our website. Very very strange. We did that to be helpful and later that day the house reappeared on Rightmove under a different agency £30,000 more than it's realistic market value and it's previous sale price. What this firm had done was offer the client their price and then marketed it themselves £30,000 higher to try and find a buyer for it themselves. They had no intention of buying it - they were holding it, hawking it around to others and if they got a bite would have made a tidy profit out of their work at absolutely zero risk to themselves. Doesn’t sound great does it?
Sadly this is the norm and the old adage that if something looks too good to be true it probably is, really holds true here. If you want to sell quickly ask your agent about the best route to doing that and do it in a normal manner testing the whole market. If it’s attractive enough you’ll find a buyer quickly anyway and you’ll have an agent who can do the required due diligence for you to make sure you’re not going to have your time wasted.
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