Frequently Asked Questions
Ok – you’ve got some questions for us! That’s completely understandable; most people do because although selling houses directly to Indianapolis cash home buyers is becoming more common in the last fewyears, there are still a lot of people who are unfamiliar with it.
So…here’s a few of the most common questions people ask us and our answers to those questions. If you have a question that isn’t on our list, don’t hesitate to hit up our contact us page or call us, and we’ll be happy to get you the answer you’re looking for.
🟢Q: How is 317 Home Buyers different from other Indianapolis cash house buyers?
🟠A: Well, to begin with our owner is a licensed Real Estate Broker, REALTOR®, member of the Metro Indianapolis Board of Realtors, and member of the National Association of Realtors. He is also a member of the Central Indiana Real Estate Investors Association and the Indiana Real Estate Investors Association. Also, 317 Home Buyers is Better Business Bureau Accredited with an A+ rating. Next, we’re a pretty small company. It’s just the two of us plus our contractors. Darren handles all of the house buying and selling, along with managing the contractors while Tracy handles material selection and design. Although we acknowledge the bigger companies with more employees probably have an edge in the sheer volume of work they can do and people they can reach, we believe our smaller and more personal “feel” is precisely why many people choose us.
🟢Q: Are you a wholesaler or the end buyer?
🟠A: As a Indianapolis cash home buyer, we are the end buyer of your property; meaning we will be the ones who you actually sell your house to, not someone else. We do not wholesale properties and although we do sometimes buy houses from wholesalers whom we know personally and find to be reputable, we know that there are a lot of bad actors in the wholesaling space and we do not want to be associated with them in any way – so again, we do not wholesale any properties.
🟢Q: Wait – I’m not sure what wholesaling is? And what’s the problem with wholesalers?
🟠A: Simply put, wholesaling a property means that an investor enters into a contract with you to purchase your house (often times telling you they will close with cash). Then, they offer to sell the rights to purchase your house to their network of other investors (for a fee, of course), one of whom will become your end buyer. Some of the potential problems with this are:
- You are unable to personally vet the new end buyer to ensure they have the funds to actually close the deal or that any special wishes you may have had for the property or any belongings you’re leaving behind are maintained.
- You will likely end up having multiple showings so the wholesaler’s buyer pool can look at your house in person.
- If you didn’t know any of this was happening because you believed your wholesaler was the end buyer, you’ll end up sitting across from a total stranger at the closing table…and sign your property over to someone you’ve never met.
- Unfortunately many wholesalers have never worked in real estate and have no experience or training other than what they’ve seen on YouTube. The result is they have limited knowledge of house sale prices, renovation costs or other expenses that need to be taken into account when buying a house to flip or rent. They make offers to purchase houses at prices that are completely untenable to professional investors – and then they have to come back to home sellers to ask for multiple price reductions in order to attract a buyer for the contract.
- Additionally these kinds of wholesalers typically don’t have the cash to close the deal themselves. Meaning if you refuse to drop your sales price so they can find a buyer for the contract, then they’ll use one of the loopholes in their contract to simply cancel the contract and move on. And you’ll be left in a lurch with no buyer at all, starting over at square one.
🟢Q: Ok, I’m interested but I’ve heard Indianapolis cash home buyers make lowball offers.
🟠 A: Unfortunately some home sellers do get offended by the offers that cash home buyers make and feel they’re being lowballed. There are many reasons for this including the emotional attachment to the house, lack of knowledge of what it takes to renovate, inaccurate or inflated home value information (thanks Zillow!) and sometimes people have become so used to the condition of their home that they don’t even recognize some of the problems with the house. To formulate our offer, we will analyze the condition of the house as well as the current housing market conditions. Although the offer price may be shocking in some instances, we always make a fair cash offer to purchase your house and never just throw out BS lowball offers. We have nothing to hide in our process and are happy to share the numbers we used in arriving at our offer price including the “after repair value” or what we think we can sell the house for, what we think it will cost to renovate the house and to buy and sell the house. Historically speaking, if we think the offer is just too low and is insulting – we won’t even make an offer and instead will tell you that we probably aren’t the right buyer for your house.
🟢Q: Are you really buying my house with cash?
🟠A: In short, no. It’s illegal in Indiana to submit anything over $10,000 in cash for a real estate transaction. Any funds used to purchase real estate beyond that limit must be in the form of a wire transfer. Since it’s unlikely that your property is only worth $9,999 we can pretty much say we aren’t buying your house with “cash”. However, even if your property is worth less than the limit, we would still wire the money into the title company because most often title companies will enforce a 14 day hold on checks written for real estate purposes in order to be sure the check clears which would ultimately delay your closing.
🟢Q: But wait – everything on your site says “cash offer”, etc? Are you a liar???
🟠A: Not at all. We do wire our own cash to the title company to purchase houses in most instances. Sometimes we also use cash from private lenders as well. The implication of the phrase “cash offer” is that we will never use a traditional bank or credit union as a means of providing funds to purchase your house so we don’t have to deal with the extended timelines or jumping over the hurdles that conventional banking institutions put on lending. Private lenders are, for all intents and purposes, the same as using our own cash to fund the purchase of your house.
🟢Q: Do you charge any fees or commissions?
🟠A: No. When you sell your Indianapolis house to 317 Home Buyers, you pay no fees or commissions to us. Additionally we will pay for all of the typical closing costs too (meaning all of the fees and costs from the Title company). The price that we agree to pay for your house is what you will receive at closing, minus the mortgage and any other liens that are against the house (and some HOA fees that both buyer and seller have to pay).
🟢Q: Is there any obligation when I submit my info?
🟠A: None at all. After you send us some info about your property or house, we’ll take a look at things, and evaluate if it’s a property that we’re interested in buying. If it is then we’ll reach out to set up a call with you to learn more. Sometimes, we can make you an offer to purchase right there on the phone and other times we’ll need to come personally inspect the property before making an offer. Regardless of when you receive your offer, it’s 100% your decision on whether or not you’d like to proceed and sell your house to us. If you like the offer and want to move forward, great! If not, that’s ok too. We understand this isn’t for everyone and we won’t hassle you or harass you if you choose not to move forward with our offer.
🟢Q: If I like your offer and want to sell my house to you, what happens next?
🟠A: It’s simple! We’ll need to sign a Purchase Agreement. Typically it’s easier if we do this electronically but we’ll sign on paper if that’s what works best for you. Once we’ve both signed the Purchase Agreement, we’ll deliver that document and our earnest money deposit to the Title Company along with both your and our contact information, and they’ll get to work. It typically takes them a few days up to a couple of weeks to receive the results of the title search, get your mortgage payoff and prepare all the documents. Once the title work is complete and documents ready to go, we’ll schedule the closing according to what works for you. On the day of closing we’ll meet at the title company, sign the documents and essentially trade cash for keys. Of note, if the situation surrounding the sale of the house is urgent, we can always ask the title company to rush things and we can close very quickly.
🟢Q: Some of this sounds like you’re trying to talk me out of this. Are you nuts? 🙂
🟠A: We’re definitely not trying to talk you out of it but…we’d rather you spent 5 minutes on this page to learn about the process of selling your house and decide that it’s not for you than to waste hours of both of our time in order for you to reach the same decision. If you and I can vet each other right now and realize it’s not a fit – isn’t that a win for both of us? Plus, if you’ve read all this and decide that selling your house for cash is still for you then you’ve got a great bunch of info to get you started in finding a buyer.
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