‘Stop sending me letters to buy my house — it’s not for sale’

Here’s a big promise: “My guarantee is to treat you as if I were buying my own mother’s house.”

I don’t plan to find out if the sender of a pink postcard with that pledge would make good on it. My old Everett house is not for sale.

“My name is Craig and I want to buy your house,” said the card in what looks like but isn’t hand-scrawled printing. Never mind what appear to be black-ink scribbles, it’s a mass-produced message. The return address is a Seattle post office box.

Nearly every day, I find these pitches in my mailbox: “As-Is” or “No Commission!” or “Fast Cash.” Once, this handwritten offer was taped to my door: “I stopped by to see if you would be interested in possibly talking about selling your house to me?”

I get it, the housing market is hot. The Zillow website claims the estimated worth of my house, which we bought in 1984 for $77,500, is $465,752. In my neighborhood, I’ll often see a “Sold” sign go up within a week of a home being listed.

Admittedly, my vintage 1909 house looks like a bargain. It needs a new roof and other help, but I’m not selling. With a stack of “$$Cash$$ for Your Property” messages, I just wanted to learn about home-buying businesses.

“In Snohomish County last year, we probably purchased 40 houses,” said Nick Weaver, manager of Bellevue-based Buck Buys Houses LLC.

I’ve gotten several mailings from Buck Buys Houses. “It’s a service of simplicity — a guaranteed sale,” Weaver said. Acknowledging that “most people who do this tend to get a bad rap,” he is proud of the company’s A-plus Better Business Bureau rating.

The assumption might be that those who sell to home-buying outfits can’t afford repairs. Weaver said that’s not always the case.

A seller might need to move in a hurry. They might have money to fix a house, but quickly finding a legitimate contractor isn’t easy. There’s convenience also. “Maybe they don’t want a bunch of people walking through, or photos online,” Weaver said, adding that a quick closing can happen in five days.

Not so fast, said Barb Lamoureux, a broker whose Lamoureux Real Estate Inc. has been a longtime Everett business. “Everybody I know has gotten those letters,” she said.

Lamoureux said homeowners can generally do better than going with a buy-for-cash business, without appraisals or inspections. “They’re going to discount it hugely,” she said. You won’t pay a commission, “but they’ll get it as cheap as they can.”

She works with sellers who can’t afford repairs. “Half of our business are seniors. All their money is in their house,” Lamoureux said. Her firm has a “wear-and-tear account.” A seller may borrow $20,000 to $50,000 for repairs, then pay it back at closing. She suggests at least talking with a real estate agent, even if considering a quick-cash sale to a home-buying business.

Have you seen those “We Buy Ugly Houses” signs?

“We are a franchise company in 45 states and 150 cities across the country,” said David Hicks, CEO of HomeVestors of America, Inc. Headquartered in Dallas, HomeVestors is a privately owned company that sells We Buy Ugly Houses franchises, from Miami to Seattle.

“If somebody’s got a house in pristine condition, they sell through a Realtor,” Hicks said. Most real estate agents, he said, “don’t want to sell the houses we buy.”

“They’ve got cats. They smell. They have repair issues,” Hicks said. “We buy the hoarder house. We’re taking a problem off their hands.”

Hicks said 80 percent of We Buy Ugly Houses purchases were built before 1980, and are smaller than 1,400 square feet. Typically, a subcontractor is hired to fix up a house, which is then sold by a local real estate agent. “We don’t do an inspection when we buy it, but it has to pass inspection when we sell it,” Hicks said.

Weaver said cash offers vary widely, depending on a home’s condition and other factors. Using an example of buying for $250,000 and selling for $400,000, he said the difference is certainly not all profit for Buck Buys Houses. There are repair costs, interest on loans needed for purchase and remodeling, and expenses related to inspections and home sales.

Lack of inventory is a problem these days. “There’s a lot of competition now we’re up against,” Weaver said.

Buck Buys Houses identifies itself in mailings. Some home-buying ventures don’t.

A co-worker, who lives in Marysville, received an urgent-looking card that says “Final Notice” and lists a deadline of “7 days.” It has the same phone number as a sunny yellow “We Pay Cash” card I got in Everett. Mine has a smiley face and is signed “God Bless, Alex.”

The company isn’t listed on the card, but it turns out to be LCK Properties LLC, based in Bellingham. The firm’s Facebook page shows photos and videos of home-selling customers outside a title company in Everett. There’s also this posted comment — not from me: “Stop sending me letters to buy my house it’s not for sale.” No one from LCK Properties returned calls after I left messages identifying myself as a newspaper writer.

Lamoureux once wrote a real estate newsletter addressing rosy promises. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is,” she said.

Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460; jmuhlstein@herald net.com.