What Is a Direct Home Buyer and Are They a Good Option for Sellers?

Selling a home may bring good things, like the chance for new beginnings and monetary proceeds, however, depending on the circumstances, the stress and amount of work needed to complete the sale may be an unwanted burden for some homeowners. Either due to personal difficulty or a house in a significant state of disrepair, some homeowners might seek a faster or easier path to closing day.

That’s where direct home buyers can enter the picture. These individuals or companies will buy your home for cash — albeit typically for less than you would fetch on the open market — in exchange for the convenience of a smoother and quicker sale process.

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Although there’s a lot to consider before deciding to sell your home to a direct home buyer, experienced North Carolina real estate agent Alyson Gulassa who serves the Ginger Vereen Peters brokerage team in Raleigh-Durham, says the biggest misconception about selling to a direct home buyer is whether you can still use an agent.

“When you operate with a house buying company, you can choose to have representation in many cases,” Gulassa says. “I think that is something that potential sellers don’t always realize.”

Having representation or not is no small matter. Even though direct home buyers promise convenience, they ultimately act in the company’s best interest, not your own. Furthermore, although there are many legitimate companies operating in the market, disreputable companies also exist, so it’s good to have someone experienced and on your side.

What are direct home buyers?

Direct home buyers are individuals or companies who buy houses directly from homeowners and pay with cash. There can be variations in how they operate, but they seek to turn a profit by buying low and selling (or renting) high. Unlike a traditional home buyer who wants to call the property home, the direct home buyer doesn’t care about the house itself, just its profitability.

So, those ugly window coverings or light fixtures won’t have much of an impact on the home’s appeal for a direct home buyer compared to a family who wants to get settled in ASAP. Not only does this mean that sellers don’t have to bother with making repairs or upgrades, selling to a direct home buyer means an overall faster, simpler process since they’ll be paying with cash versus the typical mortgage-backed buyer.

The time savings can be helpful for those who need to move on the fly or get money in the bank quickly. While it takes about 44 days on average for a traditional buyer’s mortgage-backed offer to close, with a direct home buyer, closing can happen within a month or even two weeks. Gulassa says she’s seen a sale to a direct home buyer wrap up in as little as seven days.

Another top benefit of direct home buyers is that they’ll purchase homes “as is.” The caveat to this is that they may reduce their initial offer after tallying up the repair to-do list.

from HomeLight Blog https://www.homelight.com/blog/direct-home-buyers/