[FireBeyond]

Hah, yup. "And all for the fantastic price of [~25% below market]!" I got one of those calls. The VM left said that "I could have the money in my account in as little as a week! We could pay as much as (emphasis mine) $485,000 for your home!"

Weird. Taking it with a requisite grain of salt, Redfin's median home value for my home is $660,000. Even my county's valuation for property tax is in the mid 500s.

[austin-cheney]

They are sometimes offering to buy my house at market value in cash without looking at the property. Other times they want to know the condition of the property and send an appraiser out to evaluate for repairs and updates. If they were to offer anything below market rate its because they are accounting for costs of maintenance and repairs that I don't bother with since I have no plans to put the property on the market.

I suspect this is geographically bound. I bet in some areas corporations assess some properties are not worth the effort, no matter their condition, unless they can get the property at a severely depreciated price well below market value. In my area it appears I could make some money without any effort if I were willing to move.

[lazide]

It’s sight unseen, and true ‘spot’ price for something in that situation. Which could be anything from a hoarder to a granny that keeps everything spotless and perfectly maintained, and is having cash flow issues.

If you can sell it on the normal market, it takes awhile but you’ll almost certainly get a higher price. Working as expected.

[FireBeyond]

"as much as" implies that it's not going to be truly sight unseen and that that is going to be what granny's perfectly maintained home will get.

Randomly, I looked up the US state capitals (since I live in one) for market appreciation, or depreciation. My state is in the top ten, still seeing >3% YoY appreciation as of last month.