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The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

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Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#91

Post by Clubber »

nekitamo wrote: post #76
bhouston wrote: post #75

They are a discount buyer, so it is generally a bad deal to use them and you basically shouldn't unless you have no other option. It is similar to getting a pay day loan, or selling stuff to pawn shop or keeping a balance on your VISA. You are going to get a bad deal. I don't really know what to do about it. How can you ensure people are educated enough to know that a discount buyer is a buyer who will under pay for…

Legislating away discount buyers would be like legislating away payday lenders. The only thing accomplished would be to leave a hole in the market which will be filled by shady loan sharks.

Each state has usury laws, but there are of course loopholes and exclusions.

https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-state-interest-rates-and-usu...

In 1980, due to high inflation, the federal government passed a special law that allowed national banks to ignore state usury limits and pegged the rate of interest at a certain number of points above the federal reserve discount rate. In addition, specially chartered organizations like small loan companies and installment plan sellers, such as car financing companies, have their own rules.

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#92

Post by eyelidlessness »

devmor wrote: post #83
nekitamo wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislating away discount buyers would be like legislating away payday lenders. The only thing accomplished would be to leave a hole in the market which will be filled by shady loan sharks.

This will be a fairly contentious opinion, but I believe if there exists a class of business that is recognizably harmful to that level, which we only keep around so as to prevent criminal alternatives, then such businesses should be replaced by government run services. In fact, I personally believe this scenario is likely the most essential use for government run services.

I don’t agree with your secondary point, but I agree so much with your primary point that my inner monologue was screaming “just say government, it’s okay, you’re correct and we all know this is where this is heading” as I was reading it.

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#94

Post by [deleted] »

carryongabby wrote: post #72
houseinthesky wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

GP stated what is, broadly-speaking, a fact - an artifact of policies that were integral to the development of the modern American housing stock (and how families are able to access it) as we know it. It succinctly conveys the American side in a discussion comparing the relative state of housing in America and Australia. It's on-topic and, while blunt, only "political or ideological" in the sense that some people wil…

[deleted]

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#95

Post by supportengineer »

chasil wrote: post #90

I bought a local house in 2004 that suffered a failed furnace in deep winter (with great damage) for $17k. I put another $10k into it for repairs, and rented it. I started getting postcards around 2012: "I/we want to buy your house." I have a pile of them. None of them offered more than $20k. The home in question is very near Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. I do a two mile walk through campus every day, s…

Why are those homes so cheap?

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#96

Post by pkphilip »

chasil wrote: post #90

I bought a local house in 2004 that suffered a failed furnace in deep winter (with great damage) for $17k. I put another $10k into it for repairs, and rented it. I started getting postcards around 2012: "I/we want to buy your house." I have a pile of them. None of them offered more than $20k. The home in question is very near Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. I do a two mile walk through campus every day, s…

I can't imagine property being so cheap - that too in the US. Here in India where I reside, you wouldn't be able to get even a 100sq.ft of open land for that price.

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#97

Post by [deleted] »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #66
schainks wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a nuclear waste disposal site next to aboriginal villages on Orchid Island off the coast of Taiwan because someone handed a contract to a Chinese-illiterate person and said, "sign this and we will build a cannery and help your local economy, trust us." What do you call volition without symmetrical information? What happens when other people's livelihoods rely on your volition? Should vulnerable people deserv…

No contract has ever been signed with perfectly symmetrical information. So if that's the standard then no human being has ever had volition. If you mean there's some maximum acceptable threshold of asymmetrical information then the obvious rejoinder is who gets to decide what that threshold is? (And, philosophically, how is that decided when any possible deciders, or combination of deciders, are themselves asymmetri…

[deleted]

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#98

Post by stanleydrew »

danielmarkbruce wrote: post #87
bhouston wrote: post #75

They are a discount buyer, so it is generally a bad deal to use them and you basically shouldn't unless you have no other option. It is similar to getting a pay day loan, or selling stuff to pawn shop or keeping a balance on your VISA. You are going to get a bad deal. I don't really know what to do about it. How can you ensure people are educated enough to know that a discount buyer is a buyer who will under pay for…

In the cases mentioned specifically, the buyer has broken a law already (at least two are fraud) or the contract is invalid (lack of mental capacity). This isn't really a story per se. People are doing illegal stuff or stuff that won't hold up in court if challenged. We have a system for it - it works ok, not fantastically. We don't need new regulation for cases like this, we just need better execution on the existin…

This is a reasonable take, but I think it's also reasonable to suggest that if current system execution is too expensive then perhaps a new regulation could make it cheaper.

Of course there are perhaps unintended side effects from new regulation, but "this is already a crime, we don't need anything new" isn't prima facie a sufficient argument.

If a lot of a similar type of crime is going unpunished, there may be a reason other than "enforcement agencies are lazy", and perhaps a new law can help.

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#99

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

pkphilip wrote: post #96
chasil wrote: post #90

I bought a local house in 2004 that suffered a failed furnace in deep winter (with great damage) for $17k. I put another $10k into it for repairs, and rented it. I started getting postcards around 2012: "I/we want to buy your house." I have a pile of them. None of them offered more than $20k. The home in question is very near Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. I do a two mile walk through campus every day, s…

I can't imagine property being so cheap - that too in the US. Here in India where I reside, you wouldn't be able to get even a 100sq.ft of open land for that price.

I had a friend who said that her house cost less than her ex's Harley. I've been in that house: I can believe it!

Re: The Ugly Truth Behind “We Buy Ugly Houses”

#100

Post by PraetorianGourd »

supportengineer wrote: post #95
chasil wrote: post #90

I bought a local house in 2004 that suffered a failed furnace in deep winter (with great damage) for $17k. I put another $10k into it for repairs, and rented it. I started getting postcards around 2012: "I/we want to buy your house." I have a pile of them. None of them offered more than $20k. The home in question is very near Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. I do a two mile walk through campus every day, s…

Why are those homes so cheap?

A mixture of:

1. The home being in a state of disrepair such that most lenders won’t fund a mortgage

2. Being located in a region where the local economy can’t support high home prices

3. Because of the lack of desirability, a lack of speculative investment.

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