Do ‘Fast House Sale’ deals work?

Being in the online property media industry you see a lot of coverage and advertising for ‘quick sale’ or Fast House Sale schemes but I realised recently I’d had no direct dealings with them and had always put them down as being a bit dodgy.

Talking to an estate agent friend at a national estate agency chain a few years ago he told me that he has contacts with serial cash buyers who will snap up a property that the seller is willing to sell at a discount for a fast sale – perhaps if they can’t afford mortgage payments or deperately need to liquidate their capital. This is often done outside his remit with his employer who never even sees the property on the books and I’m lead to believe is not uncommon practice among some estate agents.

Many Landlord groups offer advice on buying Below Market Value (BMV) properties as part of their investment strategy – a recent thread on the property forum Singing Pig discusses how to aquire property at BMV. Obviously property can be viewed as below market value for a variety of reasons, but the most common is a distressed sale where the owner is in a position where he must sell quickly and doesn’t have the luxury to advertise and await the perfect buyer at the best price.

The main routes to finding BMV property are:

Auctions
Specialist BMV firms
Estate Agents
Property Finders
Your own research

So how do the ‘Fast Sale’ businesses work?

Some examples that I looked at today are below, but a google search will bring up many companies hungry to ‘sell your house fast’.

www.quickcashforproperties.co.uk
www.aquicksale.co.uk
www.propertyrescue.co.uk
www.cash-sale-today.co.uk
www.choices.co.uk
www.nationalhomebuyers.co.uk

The pitch is that you are desperate to sell your house, whether for divorce, debt, emigration reasons, and the Fast House Sale companies have a database of willing cash buyers sitting in the wings waiting to snap up a bargain.

Fast Sales services are ‘free’ to the seller and don’t require the services of an estate agent or a Home Information Pack so the seller will save on fees in that respect – all contributing to the BMV price.

So is it a useful service to match people in dire need with willing buyers, or is it a practice that falls into the grey area of socially acceptable behaviour?

Your comments please…

Footnote
Please note that although some of the links in this post are paid affiliate links, thebigpropertylist.co.uk is not recommending or endorsing any action or service mentioned above.

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