You are in the market to sell your house and are comparing home buyers. You’ve seen ads on TV, billboards along the highway, articles in the Star, and received multiple cold calls and texts and maybe a few letters or postcards. All feature a different buyer that may or may not be local and may or may not be a good choice to sell your house.

How do you know if any one of these buyers is legit? With the wonders of today’s internet, you can do your homework on just about anything or anyone! Check with credible rating sources to see what other people’s experiences have been, see if they are active on social media, and how their website looks What kind of property do they regularly purchase?

What a Great Home Buyer Looks Like

They Have Access to Quick Cash

Great home buyers will offer you a quick closing; generally in a week to 10 days, sometimes less. They will offer to pay for your property in 100% cash, that’s cash to you at closing, but they may still be getting a loan from a private funding source or may offer terms to suit the situation.

Bad home buyers on the other hand don’t have the cash or the private funding or the knowledge to put the deal together. They will make an after on your home and want 30 to 60 days to close the transaction. This is the time they need to go out and shop your house with other home buyers to find someone that they can sell your house to, immediately after they buy it from you. This in and of itself is not a bad thing, you are getting what you want, your house sold. But the problem arises when they can’t find that end buyer. If they don’t have the cash or a private funding source, they are going to back out of their purchase with you. Or they might ask for more time and they might come up with some reason they need a lower price and as you have been waiting 30 to 60 days, you are kinda stuck.

Great home buyers know what they are doing, they know the value of homes and they know what it costs to fix things. They are going to make you a valid and well-thought-out offer that they are going to be able to back up with cash or private funding. Bad home buyers on the other hand don’t know these things and give you an offer that gets you to sign the contract. Then over time as they can’t perform with the price they offered you, they try to readjust the price, maybe even several times.

Good Buyers Have Great Reviews

A great home buyer will have a lot of reviews, mostly positive. We all know that things happen, and sometimes people make mistakes, so there may be some negative reviews. This shouldn’t sway your decision too much at first, but make sure to read if the home buyer has responded to the reviews. If they did, how did they handle the situation? Do you agree with how they handled it? If you were the seller in that situation, would you have been settled? Also, don’t be afraid to ask around. Have your family or friends ever heard of this buyer?

Where should you look for reviews? We are very partial to Google and Facebook Reviews. Both can not be taken down so you can see the good with the bad. A couple of other places you can also look for reviews are Yelp and the Better Business Bureau. But both for some reason hide a lot of reviews both good and bad if the person or company does not pay their annual fee, so you can’t see the whole story.

Their Personality

Great home buyers have a positive attitude about real estate and they follow through. They will explain things and give you time. Bad ones will be super pushy with a take it now or we won’t buy your house attitude. If you ask them to call you back at a certain time, they will do so consistently. They will talk a good game, and back it up too! Bad home buyers will amp you up and disappoint. They will set appointments with you, and never call you back or never show up. Can you imagine, spending hours tidying up, cleaning the house, and the potential buyer never shows up?

Good References

References are an important part of the business. A great home buyer will have multiple references you can call to see how they do business, and they shouldn’t hesitate to answer any of your questions. If they do, then this may be a sign they are a bad home buyer. Look at their website, does it list reviews? Are they situation-specific, or is it a general, too-good-to-be-true review that makes you question if their employees wrote them? Do they have a presence on social media or other rating websites? What are their followers saying in their comments? Do they have public reviews to read? 

Closing on Your TimeLine

A great home buyer will commit to a relatively quick closing date, anywhere from 2 to 30 days. They will not try to rush you out of the home and stay in contact with the title company. They will have no problem with you running the contract by an attorney.

We like to think that we are good home buyers here at kcmoHomeBuyer. We’ve been buying houses across the KC metro since 2000, we can close on most transactions in a week to 10 days. We know property values and can estimate repair costs fairly well. We rarely have to have a 3rd party inspection except in the cases of items we can’t see like sewer lines and chimney flues

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