You’ll see the signs along the road, especially in neighborhoods where sales are slow. Ewa Beach, Waianae, Palolo and elsewhere. The ads say they’ll buy your house in a week for cash. Sounds good, what’s the catch?
#1 – If they actually buy your house, they’ll do so at a huge discount.
#2 – Most of the time, they don’t we buy houses anyways. If they see a potential for a profit, they’ll have you assign your property to them. Then they negotiate with the lender to reduce the mortgage balance. Finally, they sell the home and make a profit off of your hardship.
#3 – They often have problems negotiating with lenders and getting the mortgage balance reduced is not a slam dunk. So you’re out of a house, they take title to it, the mortgage is in your name and it’s going delinquent.
Does that sound like a deal? I think not. Your credit is getting messed up while somebody else tries to make money off of it.
Why do they do it? There are franchises that supposedly teach people how to “buy” distressed houses and then sell them quickly and make a buck. Just about anybody can do it, you probably need to have some cash up front and good credit.
Are they pros? No. They got an idea how to make some money and are giving it a try. Having seen some of them in action, my impression is some of these people have rich parents that funded their new business.