Hey Berks County, I want to tell you today about a seller we just helped to make about $25,000 more on her property than what another cash buyer was willing to pay her in Berks county, PA, and just to give you some tips on how to choose a legitimate cash buyer when you’re looking to sell your house in Berks county, Pennsylvania.
My name’s April Crossley and I own Berks County House Buyers. We are a cash house buying company based in Berks county, Pennsylvania. We’ve been helping homeowners and buying houses in Berks County for over 12 years now. We’ve been around a long time. We also own rental properties in the area. We organize a large real estate group in the area. So we have a lot of connections and are able to go the extra mile to help homeowners when they have a house that they need to move cash.
So first, I just want to let you know that when you contact a cash home buyer in Berks County, there’s certain reasons typically that people in Berks County want to sell their home cash versus selling it on the market with a real estate agent. But an honest cash buyer will always be upfront and tell you, you will get the most amount of money for your home on the market with a real estate agent. They will be completely transparent about that. They should also be able to have an agent they work with that can give you a value for what you could get if you would sell your home on the market with a real estate agent.
When people come to us to buy their property cash, typically it’s because they’re in an urgent situation where they need to move quickly. They don’t have time to list it on the market, or the house is in need of repair and they don’t want to take the time or don’t have the money to fix up the house and they just need to liquidate and sell.
The case of the homeowner that we got her $25,000 more than another cash buyer, her situation was, her husband had passed away and there was a loan on the house that she did not know about and that loan was going into foreclosure. So she needed to sell as quickly as possible so that the bank wouldn’t take the house back. She’s been living in Berks County for a long time. She lives in this house with her family. She needed to sell so that she could get out from under this loan.
So what happened was, when she was looking to sell her house for cash in Berks County, she went to the internet and started Googling cash house buying companies. So she comes across a company that does everything online. She fills out all her information online. She hops on the phone and talks to them and they offered her, I believe $60,000 for the property.
Now, when she called us and we got in contact with her, she didn’t tell us anything about signing a contract with this cash buying company in Berks county. She just said, “I talked to these people. They said they could give me $60,000. But yes, you can come out and look at it. I’m open to other offers.” I immediately said to her, “$60,000 is not enough money for this property.” As soon as we went out and looked at it, someone from our team goes out, takes a brief walkthrough, we take a look at the property and we let you know usually within 24 to 48 hours what we can pay cash for your home in Berks County. As soon as I saw the pictures, I thought, “This is worth way more than $60,000. Even to someone buying it cash, I don’t feel they’re giving you a fair offer.”
It turns out that someone in her family signed an online contract on her behalf, on the internet for this house for $60,000. So the other cash buyer reached out to us and said, “You can’t have agreement with her because we made her an offer. She agreed to it. So we drew up an agreement with her and she signed it.” This other cash buyer called us and said, “You cannot have an agreement with her. We already have an agreement with her.” This is like… Basically he was saying like, we’re not doing right by the seller because we’re confusing her.
So first, I said, “Apologies. I did not know that you had a written agreement with her, or we never would’ve even went and looked at her house.” She didn’t even know she signed an agreement. So somewhere there’s a hiccup. Well, it turns out this other cash buyer recorded the phone conversation, did a screenshot and recorded her signing his contract. So he sent all that to us. And I said to him, “Okay, did you put earnest money down?”
So you know as homeowner if you’re looking to sell your home cash in Berks County, the contract is only binding when the buyer puts earnest money down. They don’t give you the earnest money as the homeowner. They give that earnest money to the title company or the attorney that they’re closing with.
So they had not taken any money to the title company. So we took money to the title company, not knowing what this homeowner was going to do. She was still telling us she had no idea she signed an agreement with another cash house buying company. The cash house buying company that she sold to ended up harassing her, or that she signed an agreement with was harassing her, calling her constantly, relentlessly yelling at her on the phone, just completely unprofessional, completely unprofessional.
So we ended up having to stick up for her. And this other cash buyer was saying to us like, “You should back away. You shouldn’t have an agreement with her. You should just let her sell to me.” And in my mind, if he would’ve put earnest money down and the contract was binding, she would’ve had to cancel the contract with the other cash buyer prior to us putting the house under agreement.
But going into it, we didn’t know she had this other agreement. So I said to him, “Well, your agreement’s not binding because you don’t have an earnest money deposit.” And then the other cash buyer proceeded to yell at us via text and tell us how we’re not doing right by the seller and we shouldn’t do this and it’s not good with business practice. And I was baffled the entire time because we offered her $30,000 more than what the first cash buyer offered her. $30,000 is a big difference when you’re in foreclosure and you have a lie against your property.
So when we went to settle and we did the title search and the title company in Berks County saw how much the lien was for, that lien gets paid off at settlement by the title company. So when they paid off the lien, she got to take home $31,000. Okay? After all was said and done, that was her check. If she would’ve sold to the first cash buyer, she would’ve taken home $6,000. $6,000, that’s all she would’ve taken from selling her home cash in Berks County.
So there’s a big difference between selling to any cash buyer out there and selling to a reputable cash buyer who’s been working in Berks County for a long time. We really take pride in what we do in helping homeowners make the decision that’s best for them. Not best for us. We’re very transparent about the market value. What we can get you for the home cash and what all of your options are for selling. So if you’re thinking of selling a home cash in Berks County, feel free to give us a call (610) 816-6205, or you can check out our website, berksdirectcashbuyers.com and we’d be happy to do a free, no obligation consultation with you.