Every month I get calls from homeowners who tried working with a brand new Real Estate investor. This investor made a lot of promises but in the end the deal didn’t close. As you can imagine this creates a big problem for the homeowner. That is when they call me looking for help.
Since many investors can’t get loans to buy houses they just try to make a quick buck by selling the house before they buy it. They just want to be the middle man. They do not have the ability nor the intentions of closing on the houses they put under contract. It sounds crazy but it actually happens. This is called an assignment of contract. In a nutshell, one person gets a house under contract and then sells the contact to another investor.
I can tell you right now that you don’t want to be in the middle of a deal like that. You can end up dealing with a person who is not able to buy your house. They put up very little earnest money (or non at all) and are willing to walk away if they can’t find another investor to sell it to.
So how do you know which company to work with? You have got to make sure that you are selling your house to an established, reputable company. You need to make sure that they have the funds available to close and that they do indeed plan to close on the house themselves.
Here are some things to keep in mind:
1. Deal only with local companies. This makes checking up on a company much easier. I personally would never deal with someone who wasn’t local.
2. Ask for and call references. A good company should have plenty of satisfied customers. I can give you a list of references a mile long.
3. Check with the Better Business Bureau. Just because someone has a ‘we buy Amarillo houses’ ad doesn’t mean that they are a real company.
4. Insist on using a local title company.
5. Meet the person face to face if possible. There are too many scams out there. Meeting face to face makes it much harder to be scammed.
6. Ask lots of questions. Don’t take anything for granted.
7. Have a local attorney review the contract if anything looks suspicious.
8. Don’t work with anyone who wants to put a sign in your yard and sell your house to someone else. That is just ridiculous. If you were going to do that you should have just called a Realtor!
It is important to remember that not all Real Estate Investors are bad. When we write a contract on a house, we intend on closing that deal. We have the funds available to buy it. Sometimes we even advise people to do something besides selling us their house. We have to live and work here in this community with the same people we help. We are very much a local company. People can stop by our office for a cup of coffee anytime. But the bottom line is that our deals close on time. We do what we say we’ll do. That’s why we are still in business. We can give you dozens of references.
If you have a house to sell in Amarillo or Canyon, give us a call. We would be happy to make you an offer. You can call us at 806-359-7653. You can also visit us online at Amarillo Real Estate Investors.