The Truth About 'We Buy Houses' Offers (And How Much You’re Leaving Behind)

From robocalls to postcards and letters by the dozen, companies offering to buy your home as-is, cash, are doing everything they can to pick up as many homes as possible to keep wall street happy.

One thing is for sure: These companies don't exist to do you a favor, or operate as charitable organizations, no matter how much they try to appear as real estate heroes here to save you from "greedy realtor commissions". Their single focus is to make sure their investors are pleased, at any possible cost.

We've done the math, so you don't have to. It's important to note that no two deals are the same, and our research is based on soliciting offers for Broker Joe's new home through several "we buy homes cash" companies, including arguably the largest, OpenDoor. This is not a "slam piece" on any company in particular (please don't sue us), but we think you'll be surprised at the cost of selling your home to companies that make their marketing focus our "realtor commissions." Although we're not sharing Joe's exact information, we've dropped the numbers to an easy $500,000 for the sake of this post.

As you continue, please remember - using these companies will save you "Realtor's Pesky 6% Commissions" (hint: commissions are negotiable, and there is no average).

Right out the door (pun intended), our cash offer was about 85% of the home's value. Starting with these companies, you're already at $425,000 - a number that, with a list price of $500,000, is offensive to even the most hurried of sellers. Our commission rules have changed, making sellers liable only for the listing agents commission - although many sellers will earmark a buyer's agent commission, we've only included the listing side. Using a 3% listing commission, we are already below their 5% service fee.

While repairs are completely negotiable and vary from deal to deal, these companies will perform an inspection and deduct a percentage off of their offer price for repairs. Since we didn't get into that inspection stage, we researched the average deduction and it was at or around 3.5% of he offer price.

Keeping track? As a seller, you've already lost about 23% of your market price just to "avoid 6% commissions". But we're not done yet! We didn't put it on the chart above, but some companies include an additional 1-3% "holding fee" to cover their expenses from the time they close on purchasing your home until they close on the sale of it.

The Benchmark Difference

With Benchmark, we create custom solutions that fit every possible scenario. While a majority of our transactions sell on the open market, yielding the highest offers and ultimately profit, we also partner with local mom and pop investors who buy homes as-is, for cash, but offer better prices and terms, and don't answer to Wall Street masters.

If you're a seller who needs to sell your property to an investor with no questions asked, for cash, in the quickest timeframe possible, give us a call at (760)514-2089. Unlike these companies, we shop your home around to multiple investors (if that's the road you're determined to go down) that will offer you more than the largest 'cash buyer' companies, and we'll be able to represent you just like any other client, ensuring that you're getting the best possible terms no matter what condition your home is in.