The three kinds of company contacting you
Lead brokers sell your information. You fill in an address, no offer materializes, and within a day six companies are calling. Nothing was ever going to be bought.
Contract flippers sign a contract with you and then market that contract to actual buyers at a higher price. The gap is their fee. The practice is legal and disclosed properly it is fine, but it introduces a party you never met and a renegotiation risk if they cannot find anyone.
Actual buyers close with their own money. Fewer of the messages reaching Plainview homeowners come from this third group than most people assume, which is the whole reason this question gets asked.
How to test any offer in five minutes
Ask for proof of funds. Someone with the money sends a statement or a letter without a second thought. Hesitation is the most useful answer you can get.
Ask who will close. Will this company buy the house itself, or might it assign the contract to someone else? Either can be legitimate. Being vague about it is not.
Ask whether the price can drop after an inspection. A number that is high on day one and lower once you are committed is a well-worn tactic.
Ask whether you can use your own attorney. In New York you will have one regardless. A buyer who wants to choose yours, or says you do not need one, has told you plenty.
What should end the conversation
A firm figure before anyone has seen the house. Plainview houses cannot be priced from tax records and a satellite image, so a number delivered that way is an opening line, not an offer.
A deadline built to rush you. Genuine offers do not expire overnight, and a time limit that exists to stop you checking elsewhere tells you what the offer is worth.
Any request for money from you. A buyer has no legitimate reason to charge a seller a fee, a deposit or an application cost.
And any suggestion that you can do without your own attorney.
The process, so you know when it is off-script
Viewing, written offer, attorney review, signed contract, deposit in escrow, title search, closing. In Nassau County that is the entire process, and it is meant to be simple.
Knowing it is useful because anything outside it stands out. Skipping the attorney, a deposit held by the buyer, or a new price after signing are all departures from a process that exists to protect you as the seller.
Applying the same test to us
We will send proof of funds when you ask, and you should ask. Our written figure is the figure at closing; we price the condition before we make the offer, so an inspection does not change it. You use your own attorney, and if you need one we will suggest names rather than provide one.
On assignment: we buy houses, renovate them and sell them on. Ask us whether we will be the one closing on your house and you will get a straight answer for your specific property rather than a slogan.
We buy in Nassau and Suffolk only, and when listing your Plainview house would serve you better, we say so. That happens more often than you might expect.
What you do not pay
Each of the following comes with a retail listing of a house, and none of it comes with ours.
- Agent commission
- $48,500 at 5% of the Plainview median none
- Seller closing costs
- About $19,400 on a $970,000 sale. We can cover these. none
- Repairs to make it listable
- Whatever the house needs, paid up front none
- Cleanout and removal
- Dumpsters or haulers by the load, ahead of any viewing none
- Carrying costs while it waits
- Taxes, insurance and utilities while you spend 73 to 88 days finding a buyer and waiting for their loan none
What happens to your details when you fill in a form
On a lead broker's site, it is sold. Often to several buyers at once, which is why a single form submission can produce calls from six companies within a day. Some of those sites are built to look exactly like a buyer's site and never make an offer at all.
Before you enter an address anywhere, it is worth reading what the privacy policy says about sharing, and noting whether there is one. A company that will not tell you what it does with your details has answered the question. This applies to us as much as to anyone, and ours says we do not sell your information.
What it means when a contract gets sold on
An assignment clause lets the buyer transfer the contract to somebody else before closing. The person who signs with you is not necessarily the person who completes, and the difference between what they agreed with you and what they sell the contract for is their fee.
It is legal, and disclosed clearly it can be a perfectly reasonable transaction. Two things make it a problem. One is not being told. The other is that if no end buyer is found, you can reach the closing date with a contract nobody is in a position to complete, having taken the house off the market for weeks.
Ask whether the contract is assignable, ask whether they intend to assign it, and have your attorney read the clause.
If you have already signed something
See an attorney, and do it before the next conversation with whoever you signed with rather than after.
People in this position often feel foolish and stay quiet for a while, which is the worst available option because most of what can be done gets harder with time. Bring every piece of paper, including anything handed to you at the door and any text messages. Your attorney will tell you where you actually stand, and it is frequently better than you fear.
Common questions
Are all the companies texting me about my house scams?
No, though a lot of them are not buyers. The largest group is selling your contact details rather than buying property, and a second group intends to sign a contract and sell that contract to somebody else. Real buyers exist in the mix. The four questions above separate them quickly.
Should a cash buyer ever ask me for money?
No. Never, for any reason. There is no legitimate fee, deposit or application payment that a buyer collects from a seller.
They offered more than everyone else. Is that good?
Treat a conspicuously high offer with more care, not less. A number well above the others is sometimes real and is often a way to secure the contract and take other buyers out of the picture, after which it is reduced. Ask whether the figure is binding and whether it can change after an inspection, and get the answer in writing.
Do I really need my own attorney?
In New York, yes, and use your own rather than one suggested by the buyer. It is the single most effective protection available to you, and it is standard practice on both sides of every residential sale in the state.