How we actually buy a house

You set the date, not us. The written offer comes within a day of the visit. After that, the only things standing between you and closing are a clear title and whatever notice period your state requires.

Here is what actually takes the time. A title search turns up anything recorded against the property: an old mortgage nobody released, a contractor's lien, unpaid taxes, a sibling still on the deed from an estate that never fully settled. Most of those get cleared at closing out of the proceeds rather than by you in advance, but they have to be found first, and that is usually a week or two.

People who need the money pick a date a fortnight out. People who have not found somewhere to live yet pick one months out. The number is the same either way, so take the time if you have it.

Where this goes slowly: a probate that has not been opened, or a co-owner who has not agreed to sell. Neither makes us walk away, and both add weeks no buyer can compress. Tell us on the first call and we will be straight about the timeline.

Yes, and I know how that sounds, because every company in this business says it. So here is what it means concretely rather than as a slogan.

Nothing to sign to see the number. No charge for the visit. No visit booked unless you ask for one, and you can get most of the way through a conversation with us on the phone without anybody coming to the house. Nothing you tell us is sold on to a lead broker.

When the offer arrives it is yours. Take it to an agent and ask them to beat it, which is a sensible thing to do and costs you nothing. Show it to a family member. Sit on it for a month. Bin it.

The thing actually worth watching for is not a fee. It is a contract with a long inspection period in it, because that is what lets a buyer tie your house up and then renegotiate. Ask any company how long their inspection window is and what happens to the price at the end of it.

You will see how the number was built, which is the only real protection against being lowballed by anyone. Three figures: what the house is worth once repaired, what those repairs cost, and what we keep. Argue with any of them. People do, and sometimes they are right and the number moves.

The after-repair value is not our opinion. It comes from what comparable houses near yours actually sold for recently, and you can look those up yourself on any listing site. If you think we have used the wrong comparables, say so, because that is the figure everything else hangs off.

The repair estimate is where most disagreements land. We price what the house needs to go back on the market and sell, not what it needs to be perfect. If a contractor has been through recently, show us the quote.

Now the part most companies leave off a website. A cash offer is not a retail price and never will be. Anyone promising you retail in cash is setting up a re-trade three weeks from now, when an inspection gives them a reason to come back lower. What you are buying from us is speed, certainty and never picking up a toolbox, and our number says so honestly instead of starting high and shrinking.

If the house is in good shape and you have three months, an agent will very likely net you more. We will tell you that on the call.

No. Take what you want and leave the rest, furniture and all. The condition is already in the number, so leaving the broken fridge does not cost you twice.

People apologise to us about the state of a house most weeks and they never need to. We have bought houses with the power cut off, with a roof that had been leaking two winters, with thirty years of a parent's belongings still in the rooms, and with tenants who had not paid in months still living in them. None of that is unusual.

No cleaning, staging, mowing, painting, skip hire or showings. No inspection to pass either, because we are not borrowing against the house, and that is the single biggest difference from a traditional sale: a lender refuses to finance a property with a bad roof or an unpermitted addition, which is exactly the house most people are trying to sell.

Two practical things. Take anything irreplaceable before closing, because after it the contents are ours and we clear them. And if something in the house needs handling carefully rather than skipping, say so and it will be.

Not at all. We buy occupied houses and you do not have to evict anybody for us. It becomes our problem at closing, which beats you spending six months and legal fees clearing it out first.

What we need is simple: whether there is a written lease and when it ends, what the rent is and whether it is being paid, whether there is a deposit and where it is held, and whether anything is already filed at court. None of those answers disqualifies a house. They change what we are buying, so they belong in the conversation early rather than at the closing table.

A lease generally survives a sale, so we take the property subject to it and the tenants keep their rights. That is the point for a landlord who wants out without being the person who evicted somebody. If the tenants are in arrears we still buy; we price it knowing.

What not to do is start an eviction to make the house easier to sell to us. It costs money, takes months, and does not improve the offer.

You should be asking. Here are the four questions that separate the real buyers from the rest. Ask us, then ask the next company, and compare what you get back.

• Are you buying it yourself, or selling my contract on? If the contract is assignable, the person at the table may not be the person on the phone. We buy it ourselves.
• Is the offer in writing, itemised? A number said aloud can move. Ours is on paper with the arithmetic beside it.
• What happens to the price after your inspection? This is where most re-trades happen. Ours does not change.
• Where is your office and who am I dealing with? 386 Main Street, Middletown, Connecticut, and you will be dealing with Walt or Mary.

Then check independently. Look at the Google profile, the Better Business Bureau listing, and whether the company has an address that is a place rather than a mailbox. Any company that will not answer those four questions in writing has told you something.