We buy houses!

all kinds. As a business with a line of credit and a bank connection, the buyer can live on some of the proceeds while seeking the lowest buy price and then flipping it at a profit. Ive seen some of the HQs of these guys around Central and N Pennsylvania. Most of the homes of the buyers look like trash heaps. Its almost like some hillbillies came up with a scam. Course you know that the price one gets wont be even close to "market"

scary.

Flippers is what they are! Morgan received a hand written card in the mail about a month ago, signed by a woman in Tampa offering to buy his house, he called his agent friend. Just a scam, they may actually buy your home but for a very low price so they can turn around and flip it.

Sounds a lot like "Male ENhancement" using ENZYTE. Bullshit and fraud comes in many forms.
Years ago, my mom hired a gypsy to do some roofing on one of her properties. The guy got much of the money and split. We fortunately had some connections in Reading Pa that were able to find the guy and "Negotiate" returning my moms money and they colletced a "finders fee" as an extra amount. This gypsy guy never attempted to prey on the elderly in this part of the township again.

No gypsies were hurt during the negotiation process. "Wetting his pants was as far as it went"

I used to do contract remodel and roof. One of my regulars was a man from India. He put out signs like that. I repaired many rental and sales homes for him. In the early days, I witnessed him giving tenants three days to vacate and then moving in with a deputy and setting their belongings outside - once the three days ended. After a few years, somebody apparently sued him and collected, because he quit touching their stuff, altogether. One of his schemes was selling a house for what seemed a most reasonable price. But the interest and payment schedule would be such that it would be impossible to pay it off in a lifetime. He appeared on a radio real estate show once. He appeared to be about to reveal his technique, when the host interrupted him, saying, "We don't do that. It's illegal." This man would buy me lunch, to have a place to sit and talk business. We always had Wendy's. He occasionally mentioned outside business, such as a time he was being asked to invest a quarter million dollars in a movie. My wife asked him, one time, how many houses he owned. His answer: "You wouldn't get it out of me."

wow - I wouldn't have guessed how interesting this is - you guys know all sorts don't you - reminds me of the song I have friends in low places.

Just seems odd that some one would actually respond to a hand written sign that looks like a 5 year old had written it to sell their house.

I knew someone who dabbled in this.

Basically, they'd get a call from someone facing foreclosure. The person would get to walk away from the property without having to go through the foreclosure process, and the buyer would pick up a cheap (very cheap) property.

It's a bit shady, in my book, because the person could likely get more out of the house if they went to a normal real estate agent. But the people were generally desperate and/or in a hurry to get something arranged.

I figured this would be the type that would call such places - people desperate.

We want to sell our place, but we are not desperate. Just caught my eye especially seeing a hand written poster board sign. Like a yard sale.

Pretty much what was already said, but I know someone with a nice sign. He watches for foreclosures and then sticks up one of his signs right across from a house were the people are headed for eviction. He totally low balls the price and has the connections to negotiate with the bank to arrange a short sale. He then fixes the home up enough to become a rental (sometimes renting to the same people who sold him the place). The rental covers the mortgage plus usually a little more. He then waits for the market to improve enough so he can sell a house for about 20% above what he paid. I know he recently skipped the rental part and bought a little ill-kept Arts & Craft bungalow for $59,000, invested about $30,000 and a lot of his own time which included removing piles of crap from the yard, fumigating the place and exposing painted over antique tiles around the fireplace and kitchen. He then flipped it for $180,000 within 8 months. As far as I know he is not doing any of the illegal stuff. He would consider a homemade sign for amateurs.

Well the thing is - you can make a much more professional sign just on the computer.....

Funny - we have a house we like that if we sell ours, we would consider putting an offer in - almost across the street there was a house for sale - it was a foreclosed property (not too many in the town we are looking at) - in any case, a couple of months ago, I see this house for sale on the same street of the house we are interested in. It is 25 or 30k more - I look at it - gee this address sounds familiar - I did a little research - it was the foreclosed home - all renovated. Looks much nicer now. It was bought almost 100k than what it is now on the market for.

If we sell - I may take a look at it.