Typical Scams for “We Buy House Companies”
Unfortunately the internet and the specific industry of cash home buying companies is fraught between legitimate, licensed cash real estate buyers and criminals who see an opportunity. You may have already read some of the basic ripoffs scams and reviews online when searching online.
The thing to remember there are legitimate ethical home buyers that can purchase your residence and everything is perfectly fine. As long as you use common sense and your basic “scam radar” you will not become a victim.
1. Offshore foreign homebuyers: If you start reading emails that look to be from a foreign person, entity or company you need to proceed with caution. The typical scam is to offer to buy your house for cash and send a check. Then they decide to either pull out of negotiations or they need some cash back for a multitude of reasons they procure. If the check bounces (and this can take longer than your bank claims) whatever you have sent is now lost to a scam. I know of one person this happened to. She is a Los Angeles artist and sold a painting online, she was sent $10.000 as a 50% down payment and then told to send a “portion” to the “shipping company”. She sent $4500 to a fake website the seller sent her to that looked like a “art shipping company”. The $10.000 check she received bounced and she was responsible for the payment, and a bounced check fee to boot! The same concept applies to the #1 we buy houses scam, the “bouncing check scam”
2. Identity theft: When you need to sell your house fast you may be rushing into a situation where you are sending sensitive information because you have just been offered a “fantastic cash purchase deal”! Handing out your sensitive banking information, social security number and other documents don’t need to be sent online. If you are talking to a real estate investor face to face you have a better chance of avoiding identity theft.
3. And so because you need to sell fast you talk to a home buyer that want to visit your property. Who are you really inviting over? Someone who is going to case the joint, or worse? What if you invite a real estate buyer over and they get aggressive or belligerent?Know who you are dealing with, talk to the investor on the phone. Are they licensed? How long? Can they provide a bank statement (from a local bank you know)? Can you get a feel of ” what type of person is this?
4. You are given a “fantastic all cash offer” sight unseen! If it seems to good to be real it has the potential to be a scam and even a faint whiff of something is off is reason to move on. Anything that seems ” off” like they cannot visit the house in person, they cannot provide credentials, are all part of finding the real home buyer companies from the scams.
5. A prospective property buyer starts hassling you all hours of the day and night. The thing is wherever there is money, there are going to be people who want it bad! Real estate investing personality types range from the “good” and straightforward to the sociopath that “needs my money now”. Its just not good business and there are so many other cash for houses companies that actually have the reverse idea and want to help the seller.
6. The point to this is, there are plenty of local licensed real estate investors and companies that buy houses for real. Go local and find “cash house buyers near me” and avoid the heartache, lost time and worst of all lost funds!
