Need to sell your house fast? This company is legit. Listen!

Ben Souchek, owner of Home Downsizing Solutions Home Buyers came in to the
studio to talk about the difference between legitimate Home Buyers and the scams
that are out there.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, It's Lucy Chapman and here'smore. I got a really important here's
more for you. You know,you've heard me talk about Home Downsizing Solutions
and Ben Socheck. You hear metalking about that on kfab. What is
this? You know, when Iendorse a product or a company, I
truly believe in it, and HomeDownsizing Solutions home Buyers is something that I

(00:22):
absolutely believe in this company. SoI had Ben comment, Ben here and
we're going to talk about that.You're not quite clear on what exactly Ben
does. That's why he's here.So pull up a chair, sit down,
because we've got Ben Socheck, founderand owner of Home Downsizing Solutions home
Buyers in studio. Ben Welcome,Hi, Lucy, thank you for having
me today. Certainly want to beable to provide listeners great information about home

(00:46):
buying companies in general, and especiallymy company, Home Downsizing Solutions home Buyers,
and kind of dispel the miss discussthe elephants in the room, so
to speak, of understandably why aperson may have a little hesitation calling it
company like mine and really looking fora real estate professional that they can know
and trust to understand the differences betweenthe different types of real estate agents and

(01:11):
companies that are out there. Reallyhappy to hear you say that, because
I know that you and I havehad conversations. I love the whole concept
of this. And you've been inthe Omaha Lincoln area for twenty five years.
You're in Nebraska, guy. Icertainly am originate from south central Nebraska,
actually, and when I first startedin this business, I was still
living on my family farm. Iwould drive into Lincoln in Omaha every week,

(01:34):
meet with sellers, look at houses, and that's what I did in
the early days. And so I'vebeen doing this a long time. You're
correct. And you told me justa little bit ago, because we're going
to go over your story, youtold me just a little bit ago that
in the beginning you were kind ofsurprised at some of the stuff that you
encountered. Absolutely. Again, oneof the things with me, I think

(01:57):
that people will find is I'm verytransparent with everything that I do. So
there's really nothing that you or alistener, someone that's interested in my service
or interested in selling a house ingeneral, can't ask me because I'm happy
to explain everything to them. Yes, as we talked about being upfront with

(02:17):
you and the listeners. For thefirst ten years of as you mentioned,
now more than twenty five years ofbeing in business as a home buyer,
I really didn't know why a homeseller would sell to my company. I
looked at houses, I made offers, and I bought houses, but I
also had the question in the backof my mind, which is, why

(02:38):
does this person or why doesn't thisperson just lists their house with an agent
and selling it in a traditional manner. When the real estate market, along
with the rest of the economy,corrected in two thousand and eight, after
that, I had more and moreseniors in their families calling me the wanted

(02:59):
to sell a house, and becausethey typically had no or very little debt,
they actually could sell their house ifthey wanted to. And with the
way the market was back then,I would talk to numerous sellers who had
listed their house with an agent,some more than once, but the house
didn't sell, so they called meas another alternative to sell their house.

(03:22):
And although we're in a much differentmarket now, the reasons that a seller
would sell to a home buyer reallyhaven't changed all that much. Sellers would
typically tell me that they had spokento one or more real estate agents,
was told that they needed to fixthis, fix that, etc. To
list their house, but they reallydidn't want to do those things. They

(03:46):
just wanted to sell their house andmake the transition to a new home,
apartment or apartment community. And foryears, one of the first things I
asked a seller is why wouldn't youjust list your house with an agent,
because I, as a home buyer, wanted to get that question out of
the way, because if they haven'tthought about that, then I want to

(04:09):
talk to them about that. Andof course they always typically have a response
or reason or reasons that they don'twant to sell in a traditional manner.
So it's really really not a surprisethat they've already thought of options, typically

(04:29):
before they even call me. Andthis isn't about real estate agent's bad.
It's about the individual fit that isgoing to be right for each person that
is selling their house. Absolutely,and that's also another reason why I've had
my real estate license for I thinkabout fifteen years at this point, because
I want to give sellers an option. If I were just an agent,

(04:53):
which I've heard agents do, theywill tell a seller, you really need
to just list your house and we'llget the most money for it. We
will expose it to the market,and so that's really the best way to
sell a house. On the otherextreme, you have a home buyer that
doesn't have the real estate license,and they will tell a person, of
course, the easiest way to sella house is have me buy your house.

(05:14):
But neither one will explain the benefitsor the negatives of the other option.
They will just push their own option. And so one of the things
that I like about my company iswe can offer multiple options to sellers.
I don't have to push a personin one direction or the other. I
simply attempt to educate a person asto what options are available to them,

(05:36):
and depending on their situation, letthem choose what is the best solution for
them. People who already have itin their head wants to make money off
of me, and so how doyou combat that initial what they're calling you?
So they already have kind of theidea that this is what they want
to do, but there still mightbe some skepticism there. Most of the

(06:00):
times a seller will have looked atthey're different options, or especially years ago,
they will have talked to one ormore real estate agents about selling their
house because that's the way most peoplehave always been trained, I guess,
is to call a real estate agentand see what they will do. And
what I heard sellers tell me allthe time, or numerous times, is

(06:24):
that the agent wanted the seller toagain, fix this, fix that,
do numerous things at their house tobe able to list the house in a
traditional manner, and the sellers justdidn't want to do that, or couldn't
afford to do that, or didn'twant to live in a construction zone in
order to do that. And oneof the common things also is I think

(06:45):
from an agent's perspective, they willalways say, well, you can get
more for your house if you dothis, this, and this and sell
it in a traditional manner by puttingit on the market. And what I
don't think a lot of agents realizeis that not all sellers care necessarily about
just the money. There's more tothe benefits that a company like mine offer

(07:09):
that are of value to a seller, especially if they've been in their house
for a long time. Then justtrying to squeeze every dime from the house.
Again, a lot of people thatcall me just want to sell the
house, and they're not necessarily concernedabout top dollar. Matter of fact,
again, numerous sellers have told methey probably could get more money if they

(07:31):
listed their house and sell it ina traditional manner. That's not their primary
concern in those situations. Well,what do you mean there's somebody out there
that doesn't want to make sure they'regetting top dollar? Ben? That just
doesn't even make sense. Can youexplain that a little bit more? Absolutely?
There are numerous reasons. Again,these were the sellers, hundreds of
sellers that I've worked with over theyears that really taught me why the benefits

(07:57):
that I provide are of value.They don't want to do repairs and updates
to a house. It's pretty common, probably for myself included. If you
live in a house and it's comfortable, then why put a bunch of money
into a new kitchen, new bathrooms, you know, unless you have a
roof that starting to leak and youhave to do something. It's pretty common,

(08:18):
I think, to just want toenjoy your house and not have to
spend a lot of money to makeother people happy. Oh my gosh,
that's exactly right. How many ofus have got in our house ready to
sell and you've made them these beautifulhomes. You look around and say,
well, I want to live here. You've put so much effort and money
in it. And then it's like, well, now I don't want to

(08:39):
leave. Correct And I've heard thatnumerous times too. Is a person will
say, well, the agent toldme I need to do this, this,
and this in order to sell thehouse. And if I did this,
this and that, I just willstay here. And so that's certainly
an option. And if a personwants to maybe age in place, maybe
that is a better solution. Butif a person wants to sell the house,
may they don't care about spending themoney that it's going to cost,

(09:03):
and not just the money, butthe headaches in doing that. I don't
think a lot of people realize whatit takes to do a rehab on a
house if they haven't done something forthirty or forty, especially thirty or forty
years, even if a person hasn'tdone anything for ten or fifteen. Most
buyers, traditional buyers will go outand look at new houses or newly updated

(09:26):
houses. And if your house isn'tupdated to that present, diy look that
everybody sees on TV shows or innew houses. If you go through new
house construction, you're going to beconsidered as having a dated house. It's
not just the green shag carpeting that'sstill there. That's still good. I

(09:46):
love the green shag. Leave it, I'll buy it. That's right.
Then. You know, I've heardthat numerous times. I'm getting an education
right now on rehabbing the property.My company can recently purchased a cos in
downtown Lincoln and a historic building indowntown Lincoln, and our goal is to
turn it into a corporate rental,a monthly corporate rental. It's only two

(10:09):
blocks from the university, so youknow, maybe we can attract someone that
is working at the university or downtownLincoln. And it's incredible to me the
time it takes. Everything takes twiceas long as you think is going to
and for a small two bedroom condo, the costs are just extremely expensive compared

(10:30):
to what I remember just a fewyears ago. You have general contractors charging
anywhere from fifty two hundred dollars anhour. You have plumbers charging one hundred
dollars an hour plus, drywall companiescharging one hundred dollars an hour, plus
electricians charging one hundred dollars an hourplus. And then the condo has a
very small kitchen, and just toreplace kitchen cabinets in that very small kitchen

(10:54):
is over five thousand. An appliancepackage is over five thousand dollars. And
so I don't think a lot ofpeople realize just the cost of rehabbing a
house. And if you get intoan average three bedroom, two bath house,
ranch house or split entry house inOmaha here, it could very easily
just redoing the kitchen and bathroom bea twenty to twenty five thousand dollars project.

(11:18):
And so yes, the question comesup, Okay, do I put
this chunk of money even if Ihave it? Do I put this chunk
of money into the house in aneffort to get top dollar or do I
understand? Okay, I'm going toreduce what my expectations are for the house
by X number of dollars and nothave to worry about contacting and interviewing multiple
contractors, getting multiple bids, thenhaving to live in that construction zone for

(11:43):
probably twice as long as you're expectingit to take, and being able to
monitor the contractor in the work that'sbeing done to ensure that you're getting what
you're paying for. So all ofthose things come into play when you're doing
an update and rehab on a housein order just to get a sellable condition
to then move. Okay, soBen, tell me about these scams.

(12:05):
And I know I've mentioned this before. You're not going to find home downsizing
solutions home buyers on a cardboard signon the side of the road. That's
not how you operate. Tell meabout those guys who do. And that's
a very viable question and understandable.If I were in the shoes of someone
that was looking to sell a houseagain, maybe needed some updates, repairs,

(12:26):
and I was looking for an easyway to sell a house, I
would certainly be concerned about all ofthe ads, and especially online. It's
if you type in sell my housefor cash online, you're going to be
inundated with things and options available toyou. And so it's a very valid
question to say, you know,are these companies scams out there? And

(12:46):
in my view, some certainly are. One of the terms the industry uses
that I'd be very careful of iswhat are called wholesalers. Wholesalers are individuals
or companies that state that they willbuy your house. They advertise that they
will buy your house, but theyactually typically have no intend or financial ability

(13:07):
to actually buy your house. Oncethey get a contract to purchase a house,
they look for a real buyer tosell the contract to and close on
the transaction. But because they haveno financial risks, they can often overpromise
what they can pay for a house, and if they cannot find an end
buyer, it leaves the seller ina very difficult position, or the wholesaler

(13:28):
comes back to the seller and triesto jam that price down to a number
they can actually maybe find a buyerfor to make that transaction work. Another
problem is typically there's a companies thatdo not look at your house before they
make an offer, And when theymake an offer without looking at the house
and the seller signs an agreement,then they do an inspection and likely that

(13:52):
price that they said they're going topay you is going to come down because
they're going to state that there wereproblems or issues with the house that they
were not away of when they madethat offer and signed the agreement. Another
thing to look at is whether youwant to close quickly or not. Is
to make sure that a real homebuyer will have the ability to close and

(14:13):
purchase your property within seven days orless, basically as soon as a title
company can check title and prepare closingpaperwork, which again, a good company
is going to have a good titlecompany that can do that with just within
several days basically. And in mycompany's case, we purchased houses in literally
as little as twenty four hours fromthe time that we had an agreement on

(14:37):
the house, and again that's mainlybecause we have a great title company.
Okay, so Ben, what aresome characteristics of a good home buying company.
Some of the characteristics that I wouldalways tell a person to look for
is as I mentioned earlier, Ithink the home buying company should also have
a real estate license. Because ofstate restrictions and kind of the hoops and

(15:00):
things you need to jump through toget a real estate license, I think
that gives a person more credibility tohave that license and to be held to
a higher standard. So certainly,I know every day when I meet with
sellers, if they don't like me, if I've tried to defraud them or
do something that's not on the upand up, they can go to the
real Estate Commission and report me.Again. While I try and be as

(15:22):
transparent as I can, I don'tknow that a seller would know that a
person or company has a person ontheir staff that has a real estate license.
Necessarily. Again, in my case, I tell them upfront, I
tell them that I have a realestate license, that I need to disclose
that to them. But my purposeis there to buy the house, not
to list their house. But Ithink that gives me a better opportunity to

(15:46):
explain the benefits of listing with anagent as well as a downside of that,
and the benefits of a home buyingcompany and downsides of doing that,
and in other characteristics I would sayis as mentioned with wholesalers, is to
actually have the financial ability to buythe house. When there are companies that

(16:08):
are out there that say they canbuy houses, but they really can't.
They don't have the financial ability toyou want to make sure that they can.
And I encourage sellers to call theTITL or closing company that the home
buyer says will close the transaction toconfirm that they actually can buy the house
and that the title company is notjust holding an agreement waiting for the end

(16:30):
buyer to come in and close onthat transaction. And I also, in
my case, I encourage a sellerto call that title in closing company to
ensure the purchase agreement contains the specificinformation or language that the seller is agreeing
to or understands about the agreement,so that the agreement isn't just something that

(16:55):
the home buyer hopes that the sellerdoesn't read everything the whole, you know,
the small print, and is justtrying to get something through there that
their home seller really doesn't understand.And so that's why I always encourage them
to call the title company to havethe title company explain those things in Layman's
term, so that there are nomisunderstandings by the time we get to the

(17:15):
closing table and the seller says,well, I didn't know I was agreeing
to sell you the car for adollar Also that's in the garage or something
like that. Again, being transparentI think is very important. There's a
lot of companies out there that Iknow just because I've listened in on their
training programs and things like that.The so called real estate gurus that are

(17:36):
out there teaching people how to buyhouses for nothing down that will teach their
students ways to make sure that theseller or try and make sure that the
seller will sign an agreement right whenthey're there. And that's one thing that
I've never done. I mean,I certainly asked if they would like to
move forward to sell their house ifthey're interested, but I certainly never force

(17:59):
them or core them in doing that, and there are certainly some companies that
will do that out there. Iwould also say the same thing about real
estate agents is you know, ifyou're a seller that doesn't feel comfortable with
the agreement and paperwork that you're beingpresented with, there's no reason that you
should feel pressured into doing something immediately, Well walk out the door if you

(18:19):
don't like what you see, absolutelyand that Another characteristic is transparency. You've
heard me mention that multiple times already, and I really believe in education and
transparency. I think a legitimate homebuying company should share market information with a
seller so that they can be aseducated as possible. And in my case,

(18:41):
I always typically show the seller's comparableinformation for their area. Because I'm
an agent, I have information fromthe multiple listing service that I can share
with them for actual sales other comparablesthat are listed presently, and they're asking
prices and that information so that theyunderstand exactly what the market's doing in their
area. I want them to seethe gross selling price that houses are sold

(19:03):
for and the condition of those houses. I also want to provide a realistic
expectation of all the transaction costs tosell a house. One of my concerns
about agents is that realize when anagent says that they can sell a house
for two hundred thousand dollars, forexample, that's a gross number and not
the net amount that a seller willput in their pocket. The total amount

(19:26):
of transaction costs and what a sellerwill net from the sale of a house
will vary and is dependent upon anumber of factors. In average markets,
transaction costs will typically amount to tento fifteen percent of the gross selling price
of the house, not including anyrepairs or updates that need to be made.
When you give an estimate that youcan buy that house for, that's

(19:48):
going to be what you're going tooffer for that house, what you're going
to pay for that house. Correct. I think when when sellers are used
to hearing gross numbers, when theyhear someone like me present an offer,
and it's a net offer. Ithink it understandable. I guess can be
somewhat shocking that it seems like it'smuch lower as far as a value online
sometimes or even hear about from agents, but they don't realize I don't think

(20:14):
a lot of times, just thedifference between a gross selling price and the
net amount that they're going to walkaway with in their pocket when everything is
said and done with, let's talkabout home downsizing. Home buyers, the
home downsizing Solutions part of your company, because this is a big thing that
you offer. It's not separate,it's the same, but it's all together.
You can do all of these thingsat the same time. What is

(20:37):
home downsizing? I came up withthe term or the brand a company name
of Home Downsizing Solutions because with workingwith seniors and their families, that was
kind of a general term that Ithought applied to going from a house that
a person had been into for decades, usually usually larger than what they wanted

(21:00):
or what they needed anymore, andwe're downsizing to a smaller home or apartment
or apartment community. And so Ithought home Downsizing Solutions would be a good
term to use to help with thatentire transition and not necessarily just buying the
house or the real estate aspect ofthe transition. But in my company doesn't

(21:23):
necessarily provide these specific resources, butwe do have companies that we work with
that can help with coming in andidentifying the things that you want to take
with you, helping create a floorplan of where you want to go to
if you have a place picked outand you know that what the rooms are
going to be, but you needto create a floor plan in order to

(21:44):
see what can be moved and whatcan't be So we can assist with finding
those resources to help with the movingservices, the packing services, the organizing
services actually making that transition to thenew home, as well as working with
a senior place agents to locate thenew home. So I try and provide,
I guess you might say, kindof a concierge type service, so

(22:07):
that if a person is starting frompoint A knowing that they want to get
to point B but don't know howto get there, then we will do
everything that we can to help themwith that and to identify the resources and
the other companies to make that allhappen as smoothly and has less stress.
As we can with that transition.So you've got a couple or a single

(22:30):
person, they're trying to downsize,they want to move into a retirement community.
They've got all of their kids,their grandkids around and all they want
to do is sell their house andthey don't need any other help. That's
fine. But you have somebody whodoes need a little bit of help,
maybe just a couple of resources,that's fine too. This is all just
an option that you provide if wanted. So when we talk about home downsizing,

(22:55):
it is home downsizing because you're gettingout of that house that is much
more house than you need for thisstage of life and moving into a house
or a retirement community that is moresuitable to you, and that might be
all you need. Everything else istaken care of, but you don't want
to deal with any of it.You want to get it done. You
want to get it done fast,and you want to get it done legitimately
with somebody that you can trust.Then Home Downsizing Solutions home buyers, that's

(23:21):
the place where you want to getstarted. Ben, Is there another characteristic
that can really differentiate you from otherhome buying companies? I think one of
the general topics or the general subjectsthat I've worked hard for over twenty five
years to be a good home buyingcompany and not one of those companies that
a person points to and whenever yougo to someplace and when I tell them

(23:42):
what I do for a living,they say, oh, are you one
of those companies? And I workhard not to be one of those companies
out there, but one of thegood companies that are out there. And
I guess in general, I've triedto do things to be a very credible
and trustworthy company that I don't knowthat other companies have worked as hard as

(24:03):
what I have with doing that.In my company's case, I've had an
A plus rating with the Better BusinessBureau of for more than twenty six years.
I have twenty six plus years worthof testimonials from previous sellers that I
can provide any time a person wantsto see those to read through those,
because quite frankly, what other peoplehave said about my company is much better

(24:23):
than what I can say about mycompany. I have numerous five star Google
reviews. As I mentioned earlier,I have a real estate license as well
as an sries as a nation,which stands for a senior real estate specialist,
so I can understand the needs ofseniors and their families making that transition

(24:44):
more so than even most real estateagents can understand. That my company is
an approved local cash home buyer forEXP Realties Express Offers program, and they
only accept certain companies that have provedthat they can be a for XP Realty
as a brokerage, because of courseEXP Realty or any brokerage does not want

(25:07):
to endorse or allow just anyone tobe one of their cash home buyers for
their Express Offers program. For anyreal estate professional you're considering working with,
again, do they have authority orcredibility? And in my case, I've
written books, I have articles andpublications my podcast. I'm a monthly guest
on the nationally syndicated radio show SeniorCare Live out of Kansas City. I

(25:30):
provide the daily home Downsizing Minute onKFAB and I am a local host for
American Dream TV, which is kindof a local national TV show, but
they have local shows that we havefor Omaha in this situation, and so
I'm a local host for that showand am also my company is an industry

(25:51):
partner with the National Association of Seniormove Managers so again, I've tried to
do everything that I can to serveseniors and their families and be a good
company, a good resource for them. When I was in high school,
which is some years ago now,or just after high school, when I
was in the Navy, I didsix years after high school in the Navy,

(26:14):
and during that time reading financial books, reading about real estate, reading
about the benefits of being involved inreal estate and ownership of real estate and
all the benefits that came with that. That really intrigued me to be involved
in that, which led me tolearning about how to buy houses. That
got me into the first ten yearswhere quite frankly, I didn't know why

(26:37):
people would sell to my company,but I knew that I was fortunate to
have resources private investors to fund myactivities for those first years, so that
when I met with a seller andsaid I can buy your house for cash,
I actually had the ability to dothat right away. And I knew
that set myself apart twenty five plusyears ago at this point, much less

(26:59):
now, and in two thousand andeight, when the market corrected and then
I had more seniors and their familiescoming to me, that's I guess what
kind of instilled in me. Itwasn't just something that I liked doing and
I could make a living on myterms from it, which I enjoyed doing,
but that I was also providing aservice that a lot of people really

(27:22):
appreciated and found value in, eventhough I didn't know it was there immediately.
Well, Ben, why would somebodywant to sell their house to a
home buyer company rather than just sellit on their own? A great question
and something that about everybody asked methat that I talked to is why would
I want to sell a house toa home buying company? And again,

(27:44):
in the name of transparency, whatI tell every homeowner that I meet with
is that if the benefits that mycompany offers are of enough value, it
can be a good solution. OtherwiseI'm probably not. Otherwise, maybe a
traditional agent can be a better solutionfor them. And so, you know,
what are home buying company benefits?You know, there's the immediate one,

(28:07):
and probably one of the biggest thingsis no need to do repairs or
updates to a house. So ifyour house is in great condition, maybe
that's not terribly important to you,But to a person who has owned a
house or twenty thirty or more years, and has deferred maintenance or updates to
be competitive with potential buyers. Thiscan be a very valuable benefit. As

(28:27):
I mentioned, contacting multiple contractors,getting bids, ensuring the work is done
well, and living in a constructionzone is not something that every homeowner wants
to deal with. And I've alsohad numerous sellers say, if I do
all that work and put a bunchof money into the house, I just
as well stay. Another benefit isno need to get rid of the stuff

(28:49):
that's in your house that you mighthave accumulated over the years if you don't
want to. What I always tellsellers is to take what you want,
tell what you want, and leavethe rest and will take care of it.
So unlike a traditional sale where youwant the house to show as well
as possible, we don't care whatthe house looks like or the amount of

(29:10):
stuff that's in it. Even hoardingsituations we just don't care about. We
can deal with those. We purchasethose hoarder houses. So if a person
has some stuff, it's not anissue at all. And this eliminates the
need of getting a dumpster or thetime and effort to go through the stuff
that a seller just doesn't care about. Another benefit is no showings, no

(29:32):
getting ready for showings, and noshowings period. I've had a lot of
sellers I've worked with that just don'twant to get and keep their house in
a show ready condition. They don'twant strangers in their house. They don't
want to have to leave their houseevery time an agent wants to show the
house, and maybe someone in thehouse hold has health issues that just doesn't

(29:52):
allow them to leave the house,and so it's really not an option to
even do that if they wanted to. Another benefit is no whole house inspections
or appraisals. Most traditional buyers willunderstandably always want a whole house inspection,
and since most buyers need to geta loan from a traditional lender, they

(30:14):
will need an appraisal. In almostall but the very hot markets, these
items notoriously will turn up deficiencies thatgive the buyer opportunities to renegotiate the purchase
price. In my company's case,we buy the house completely as is,
so unless a structural issue has beendiscussed with the seller during the initial walkthrough
or signing a purchase agreement, theprice doesn't change. Another benefit that people

(30:38):
a lot of people that we workwith really like is to move when you
want almost anyway. I don't knowthat many home buying companies provide this service,
but with my company, we canclose and buy a house, but
let the seller remain in the housefor up to ninety days or more.
We have worked with many situations wherethe seller had to catch twenty two where
they could either move into a newliving arrangement right away but didn't want to

(31:02):
leave a vacant house, or theywanted to sell but their new home or
apartment wasn't ready for them to moveinto. So by buying their house and
letting them transition to their new homerapartment on their terms, we eliminated those
issues. By being able to buya house before having to move, Sellers
are also able to eliminate the needof a bridge loan if they needed funds
from their house to move into anew living arrangement. We have also had

(31:26):
situations where we have purchased a houseand let the seller keep possession until they
were able to have a local resourcehave an estate sale so they could monetize
whatever stuff they could. Then wetook care of any of the stuff that
didn't sell, so that the selleror a state sale company didn't have the
time or expense to dispose of thoseitems that were unwanted. And a recent

(31:51):
thing that we have implemented or offeredanyway is to sell your house and stay
as long as you want. Soif you love your home but don't want
to worry about maintenance or repairs,we now provide an option for that.
We can buy a house and allowthe seller to rent the property as long
as they want. We can evencome in make updates or repairs to age
in place and create the home environmentthat they want to be in. And

(32:15):
one last benefit that we provide thatI alluded to earlier is to provide concierge
services. I think a good homebuying company will learn and understand the logistical
needs of the seller. In mycompany's case, we have provided or introduced
sellers to services such as senior placementagents, senior move managers, moving companies,
or other resources that made the transitionto a new home less stressful.

(32:38):
Ben you have given us so muchinformation today. What do home buying companies
actually pay for houses? That's agreat question, and yes, that's a
question that I get pretty much everysingle time when I meet with the seller,
or even when I don't meet withthe seller, because there are certainly
perceptions out there I think, rightor wrong, that cash home buying companies
only pay load dollar amounts for houses, or try and steal houses from people,

(33:04):
or don't pay anything for a person'sequity. You can kind of go
through the list of those, butI certainly get that question a lot or
what percentage of market value do youdo the companies pay for houses? And
this could be an entire thirty minutepodcast probably itself, but I'll try and
provide as short but accurate of ananswers I can here with this. It's

(33:25):
common for real estate gurus to teachthe new students to make offers of seventy
to seventy five percent of market valueand subtract repairs from that number, just
as a way for I guess,a standardized way to teach students about that.
But for a good home buying company, this really is not all that
accurate, and it's a very simplisticway to look at that question. And

(33:47):
it'd be comparable to say, allreal estate agents charge seven percent to sell
a house, which of course isnot accurate either, and at least with
my company, it just depends.It depends what time of the year that
a person is looking to se becauseholding costs are typically higher in the winter
time. It depends on the comparablesI can find to determine value or potential
value of an area or subdivision.It depends if there are just cosmetic and

(34:10):
stuff issues to deal with, orif there are structural or potential structural issues
that need to be dealt with.And another way to state the above is
for my company anyway, it dependson risk. If I perceive more risk
to buying a house, my offeris going to be lower than if I
perceive less risk. When a realestate agent lists a house, they have

(34:31):
no financial risk. When a wholesalermakes an offer on a house, they
have no financial risk either. Whenmy company buys a house, we actually
close and we fund the purchase,we have a lot of financial risk.
If my calculations are wrong, orif there are issues with the house that
I wasn't able to determine before purchasingthe house, which has happened multiple times,

(34:52):
I can't go back to a sellerand renegotiate. I have all the
risk at that point. I knowthat when I'm speaking with a seller,
I have to be competitive with myoffer or they have multiple other options to
choose from. If I wasn't competitiveor provide value to potential clients, I
wouldn't be in business after twenty fiveplus years. As I mentioned earlier,

(35:13):
our cash offers are usually less thanwhat a person may be able to receive
that they list their house. However, if the benefits that my company provides
are of value to a seller,then this can still be a great solution
to sell a house. In mycompany's case, we provide multiple types of
offers for seller. Just one optionis if a seller doesn't need all of
the funds from the sale of ahouse immediately, we can pay a much

(35:36):
higher than retail price by making paymentsto the seller and turning the equity in
the house into an income stream.Or another way to look at our different
options are the easier it is tobuy a house, the more we can
pay. Because everyone's situation is uniqueand one size doesn't fit all, we
offer those multiple different solutions to people. Ben Socheck of Home Downsizing, Slip

(36:00):
and Home Buyers, I appreciate youbeing in here so much. How can
people get in touch with you?People can call my office toll free eight
five five two nine one five zerozero five or just go to home doownsizing
dot com and I'd be happy toanswer any questions that a person has,
discuss all of our options or anyoptions that we can provide, and discuss

(36:22):
their unique situation, because every onesituation is unique. This isn't a one
size fits all type programmer company,and so be happy to discuss what you
would like to have happen, whatyou need to have happened for you or
your family, and be of valueto you. Ben So check home Downsizing
Solutions home buyers. Thank you somuch for being here today. Thank you

(36:43):
for having me Lucy