I hate to respond to arguments made in bad faith, but this is so ignorant that I simply have to.
If you read the article, and the excellent primary reporting it links to, you'll see that these companies are swindling people for significantly less than they would get from the open market. These people could hire a realtor and retain 95% of the value of their home. However, scams like "We buy ugly houses" blanket areas in advertisements so these folks never even get to find their market value - instead, selling for 50% or less of it. They're intentionally targeting folks who are least-likely or least-capable of protecting themselves with due diligence.
I've witnessed this myself. An elderly man under full-time care, in another state, inherited a property in my neighborhood. A "franchisee" of one of these places got him to sign over the "right to buy" for a fraction of what it would have sold for in a single day on zillow or similar. I was interested in buying it, but I didn't want to end up owning something that way, so I reached out to the man directly to link him to the (much higher) estimated value.
I never received a response from him: just from a "caretaker" who, I imagine, was being enriched somehow by the deal. I doubt the actual owner was ever informed.
It's incredibly predatory and there's a whole industry of "how to" get into it (it being "wholesaling," or unregulated real estate brokerage):
There's a libertarian idealization of predatory behavior. Apparently, when we don't restrain predators they get better and better, and more and more people become predators, and that's how we build civilization. Also those who don't become predators are getting what they deserve.
I am not a libertarian FYI. The question is not whether predatory businesses are good or bad, the question is, so long as their advertising is not deceptive, who do you or the government think you are to take options away from people and profits from business owners? Everything from junkfoods to lotteries are "predatory" because poor people who can do better choose them by this logic.
I am simply challenging you to educate people or invent a competition that is better and can advertise better. What you call predatory is a fair business practice given the responsibility of spending your money after being well informed is the consumer's responsibility while the business simply needs to not deceive or coerce consumers.
No, that's such a strawman. If they defrauded people lock them up. You very well know that is not what this discussion is about. And you dare suggest it is I who argued in bad faith!
How are they defrauding and scamming if they're honest? You made your counter-argument about something else so you don't have to address my argument. Bad faith.
> These people could hire a realtor and retain 95% of the value of their home.
And it would take longer. If my parents house was dilapidated and I had moved away years ago, I would do something like this not to deal with the hassle.
If I had to relocate quickly and didn’t want to sink money into a mortgage waiting for a house to sell, I might use something like OpenDoor knowing I could get more if I made the house ready for sale and use an agent.
I recently sold our old house without a realtor. It's the 5th house I've sold, the first one where I did FSBO, and it was the fastest to close.
If you presented the same people with: I can get you $150k today or I can get you $300k in 45 days, it's pretty ridiculous to suggest that any reasonable person would choose the former. There are plenty of means to get short-term loans of tens of thousands of dollars, as a homeowner, without setting fire to half the value of your largest asset when you're 65 or older.
Wth are you talking about? That's capitalism! Everything is worth what people are willing to pay for it. If you have a house that can sell for 300k but you sell for the first person that comes along for 200k whose fault is that?
You people blame these companies instead of blaming the reason people are ignorant. It's their wealth to protect or squander. Is lottery predatory, I bet you think so, payday loans? Car title loans? Casinos? Welcome to capitalism! People lose money because of their ignorance all the time.
I will give you a personal example since you gave me one. Many moons ago, I needed money for an emergency and took out pay day loans, they asked for only basic info and they were fast. i am sure banks would haggle you and give you a better loan anyways but I needed it fast and lost a lot of money because if it. And guess what? i am grateful for those companies that people like you are trying to shut down.
If you think your peers are ignorant then educate them!
I will give you another example, I sold a car I paid in total 10k+ on for a few hundred dollars from a "we buy junk cars" company, just the metal alone could have gotten me more money but I just needed it gone ASAP and I am so glad I did that.
You wanna take away my choices to stoke your freaking ego about how nice and caring of a person you are? Go do that elsewhere! Leave my freedom to make bad decisions alone. Neither you nor the government are my fucking nanny!
If I had a house that needs to close fast even at a huge loss I wanna find the first company I see advertised on a billboard or google results and get liquidity immediately! My wealth. mine! Period.
It feels good I bet to pretend to be the savior of the uneducated poor from the evil greedy corporations, but in my perspective you are the virtue signaling hero wannabe's taking what little freedom we have away.
Millions of americans love predatory businesses, this is a democracy not a technocracy or meritocracy, which means we the people get to have whatever shitty situations we want and your role to affect change is to communicate and engage in debates (I wonder how many won't even participate in this thread seeing me downvoted to max lol) not in silly outrage and virtue signaling, so you can change our minds (and I give you credit for at least replying and trying to do just that).
I don't like deceptive businesses, I just want predatory ones for when I want to be preyed upon. If they promised the best prices that would be a different story but their only claim is that they will give you cash for your crappy house.
It is amazing how many red tapes and regulations and bullshit I have to jump through just trying to exist in this supposedly free society. please stop making things shitter so you can feel like you helped people that aren't asking for your help.
If you read the article, and the excellent primary reporting it links to, you'll see that these companies are swindling people for significantly less than they would get from the open market. These people could hire a realtor and retain 95% of the value of their home. However, scams like "We buy ugly houses" blanket areas in advertisements so these folks never even get to find their market value - instead, selling for 50% or less of it. They're intentionally targeting folks who are least-likely or least-capable of protecting themselves with due diligence.
I've witnessed this myself. An elderly man under full-time care, in another state, inherited a property in my neighborhood. A "franchisee" of one of these places got him to sign over the "right to buy" for a fraction of what it would have sold for in a single day on zillow or similar. I was interested in buying it, but I didn't want to end up owning something that way, so I reached out to the man directly to link him to the (much higher) estimated value.
I never received a response from him: just from a "caretaker" who, I imagine, was being enriched somehow by the deal. I doubt the actual owner was ever informed.
It's incredibly predatory and there's a whole industry of "how to" get into it (it being "wholesaling," or unregulated real estate brokerage):
https://www.fortunebuilders.com/absentee-owner-lists/