If you can’t sell your house with a real estate agent, you are probably asking yourself, “Can I trust We Buy Houses companies?”. If you do a quick Google search, you’ll find there are plenty of people who want to buy your house and they all say FAST and CASH and pretty much the same message on every site.
So, how do you know which We Buy Houses companies you can trust? In this video, we talk through 5 different ways you can determine if a company is trustworthy or not. If you are trying to close quickly, then this we buy houses company better be able to do what they say they can do. Otherwise, you’ve wasted time and money.
Eric Sztanyo from We Buy NKY Houses shares a situation where we can’t buy a home from a customer because the numbers don’t make sense, but that doesn’t stop us from helping the customer.
We gave a suggestion that helped save the customer thousands of dollars, and they called us back in a few weeks thanking us for our help.
So, if you are stuck trying to figure out which we buy houses companies you can trust, watch this video to get 6 tips on knowing who to work with on selling your house.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hi Everyone!
This is Eric Sztanyo from WeBuyNKYHouses.com, and we buy houses fast for cash in the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area. And, in this video, I want to talk to you about this concept of “Can I trust these We Buy Houses companies in Northern Kentucky?”. There’s a lot of them out there. So, how do I know which one to choose?
If you’re selling your house fast for whatever reason – maybe you are trying to avoid foreclosure. Maybe there are too many repairs to make, and you don’t feel like you can list it with a real estate agent. Maybe you have a job in a different city, and you are relocating, which means you need to sell your house fast. Maybe you just inherited a house. Maybe, you are an out of town landlord and you just don’t want to deal with the house any more.
Are All Of The We Buy Houses Companies The Same?
Whatever the reason, you’ve looked online and now realized, “Ok, there are a bunch of these we buy houses companies. How do I know if they are going to do what they say because they all kind of look alike. They all say they are going to close quickly. They all say that they are going to bring cash to the table. Can I trust them, and how do I know who should I trust?”
Great questions!!!
A Story About How We Treat Our Customers at We Buy NKY Houses
So, I want to tell a story about our company. We had a customer come to us a few weeks ago who called us and said they had a couple of houses they wanted to sell to us. And, we thought great! Then, they said that they weren’t asking much for the houses because they were in pretty bad shape. And, we thought, even better! As someone who buys houses for cash, we like hearing that we can buy multiple properties for not a lot of money.
They were very honest with us and went on to say the houses were in really bad shape. One of the houses hadn’t had windows for a year. One of the houses was actually condemned by the city. So, they said, “we’re asking “x” much. Let us know what you can do.”
We said, “ok”, and we went and checked out the houses. The truth was that the houses were in really bad shape – worst than we thought. And because of the area they were in, no matter what we could do to the houses in terms of rehab, they weren’t going to be able to sell for a high enough price for us to get our money back.
We would have been upside down the moment we bought the houses no matter what the price was. If they said, “we’ll sell these houses to you for $1”, we would have still had to say no because of the amount of work that had to be done. There was also work that had to be done from a city code standpoint that would have created additional expenses. In terms of what we could resell the properties for, the numbers just didn’t make sense.
Can I Trust We Buy Houses Companies Lessons
#1 – A We Buy Houses Company Should Be Able To Tell You “No, We Can’t Buy Your House”
Sometimes, the numbers just don’t make sense and in our situation, they didn’t. If you work with our company, we are going to share those numbers with you because we have nothing to hide.
#2 – The Numbers Need To Make Sense For Everyone, Especially YOU!
If you work with us, we’re going to share the numbers with you. If we’re going to buy your house for cash, that number needs to make sense for you. You need to get out of the deal whatever you need for it to work for you. That may mean paying off the mortgage, other debts, and hopefully, if you have equity, some extra cash in your pockets.
Those numbers need to make sense for you! If they don’t, then we don’t have a deal because it has to work for you.
At the same time, it also has to work for us. We have to add up our expenses which will include buying costs, closing costs, rehab costs, the holding costs while we rehab (insurance, utilities, etc.), and room for profit.
We are in business for profit. We’re not afraid to say that. Pretty much everyone we speak to when we are buying houses get that. They understand that we are not a charity. Now, we aren’t going to gouge you to make an outrageous profit, but we need to make a profit that makes sense for us too. Potentially, if we’re not going to do the rehab of the property ourselves, we may sell the property to another investor, and they need to make a profit too. So, there has to be room in the numbers for all of those items.
Now, if there is room for all of those things and the number works for you, then we have an offer that works.
To be quite honest, it doesn’t work out every time, and that’ s OK. We’ll show you the numbers and tell you what we can do. If it works for you, AWESOME, and we will buy your house.
So, when it comes to trusting we buy houses companies, make sure they are willing to walk through those numbers with you. If they are not willing, and they are withholding all of their numbers and how they are getting to where they are getting, that’s probably a red flag in our opinion on if you can trust this company or not.
How We Helped Our Customers Without Buying Their House
Going back to our situation, unfortunately, the seller was a little bummed because they were asking, “what do I do with these properties now? If a cash buyer comes in and says they can’t make a profit with these houses, I probably can’t sell it retail either.” They had a real estate broker come in and the broker told them they would have a hard time getting a buyer as well.
They were kind of stuck, and were thinking, “what can we do?”.
We came back to the sellers and said even though we can’t buy it, we have a suggestion for you because we want to help you regardless of if we buy your house or not.
That brings me to my third recommendation on if you can trust We Buy Houses companies or not:
#3 – The Company Should Be Willing To Help You Even If They Don’t Buy Your House
Our suggestion was that they should donate the houses. We told the seller to call the city or a charity to see what they could do with the houses.
Right of the bat, there are three benefits if you are going to donate a house.
- You stop paying property taxes right away. You’re cutting down your expenses instantly.
- You are probably going to get a tax write-off. If you do it write, you’ll donate the property and write that donation off of your taxes next year.
- Peace of mind. You don’t have to worry about handling these properties any more. That is a constant weight and drip when you are trying to sell a property you don’t want any more. That weight is heavier than most people realize. If you are trying to sell your house, you are familiar with that weight and the burden that comes with it.
This customer thought that was a great idea. A couple of weeks later, they called us back and said that they had talked with the city and were in the process of donating the properties. They were thrilled with that solution and thankful we had suggested it.
That leads us to our next lesson on if you can trust a We Buy Houses company.
#4 – They Should FEEL Like A Company You Can Trust
In your interactions with this company, do they seem like someone you can trust? Are they full of integrity? Are they going to hide things from you or be willing to show you the numbers of the offer?
And as we mentioned before, are they going to help you regardless if they buy your property or not. Do they genuinely have your best interests in mind?
#5 – They Should Have A Brand Presence Or A Public Face
Here’s another lesson in which companies you can trust or not. Is there face out there? As you see from our channel, we are starting to do some videos. We are still a bit early in getting our website up and going, but if a company is afraid to put their face out there, it makes you ask, “are they hiding other things?”.
At We Buy NKY Houses, we’re willing to say, “this is who we are. We’re a LOCAL company. Here’s my family. I’m buying a bassinet today for a baby on the way.” I grew up in Northern Kentucky and so did my wife, and we care very deeply about the community. We’ve spent hundreds and thousands of hours in giving back to our community in different ways and serving in different ministry opportunities. We care genuinely about people.
If you are getting the feeling that a We Buy Houses company only cares about profit and that’s it, then hey, you can sell your house to them. Cash is cash. We just caution you to be careful in making sure that company will do what they say they are going to do. A good test might be asking if you would recommend them to someone else.
#6 – You Need To Be Willing To Recommend This Company And Leave A Positive Review
That’s one more question to ask. If you go through the process and the company has been reliable. They answered my phone calls. They replied to my emails. I would refer them to somebody else who is trying to sell their house. I would leave a strong review for this person because I feel like I can trust this company.
Conclusion
If you need to sell your house fast, there’s nothing worse than not knowing if you can trust the we buy houses companies that are out there.
In terms of our company at We Buy NKY Houses, that means we are going to do what’s best for you regardless of if we buy your house or not.
In some situations, that may even mean, we will recommend you to a real estate agent because we feel you could get more for your house if you list it retail. We have some relationships with local real estate agents who are fantastic at what they do. So, if you’re willing to wait a bit longer to sell your house and do the necessary work to list and show the property, you might be able to get a higher dollar amount out of your house. And if that makes sense for you, we will recommend it.
We’re not afraid to say NO to you or recommend a different solution.
If you are feeling pressure from a company, that’s probably not a good sign. It’s probably a red flag and you might want to work with someone else.
Hopefully, these tips are helpful for you no matter what city you are in. We buy houses in Northern Kentucky in cities like Florence, Fort Thomas, Fort Wright, Newport, Bellevue, Covington, Fort Mitchell, Park Hills, Independence, Edgewood, Hebron, Burlington, Erlanger and all over NKY!
We hope these tips were helpful, and if you need to sell your house fast, call us or fill out the form on our website today.