One: We Guess Wrong About Commissions
We can read the Act and we cannot predict a particular commission on a particular building. Whether a proposed scope draws a certificate of appropriateness, a notice to proceed or a denial is a judgement made by people applying rehabilitation standards to a specific resource.
When we get that wrong we get it wrong in the cautious direction, which means our offer carries a contingency for a process we have assumed will be harder than it turns out to be. The framework is on our page covering the certificate and the neglect.
What Should I Do About That?
Two: We Over-Discount Winter Damage We Cannot See
A house that has stood open through two or three Michigan winters has usually suffered freeze and thaw damage to a charred structure, and from photographs we cannot tell how far it has gone.
So we assume it has gone far. That assumption is a real deduction in every figure we produce on an older open building, and it is frequently larger than the truth.
The fix is a structural engineer. A report saying what the timber will still do removes the deduction. On a house that has been through winters, that document changes our number more than any conversation will.
Three: We Are Slow on Files That Have a Process Attached
An ordinary cash purchase closes quickly. A purchase where a commission's position needs establishing does not, and we would rather say that than promise a date we will then move.
If speed is the thing you actually need, a property outside a district or with no live process will get it from us and one inside a district may not. That is a reason to ask us for a realistic date at the start rather than an optimistic one.
Is That Not Just an Excuse for Delay?
Four: We Undervalue Houses We Have Not Stood In Front Of
Grand Rapids varies street by street rather than neighbourhood by neighbourhood, and a figure produced from an address and photographs reflects an average that may not describe your block at all.
We visit before making a final offer for that reason. Where an initial written figure looks low to you and you know the street, say so, because you are frequently right and the correction is ours to make.
What Follows From All Four
Each of these makes our number lower than the truth rather than higher, and each has the same remedy: information you can get and we cannot.
The commission's staff on scope. An engineer on the structure. An agent with no interest in the outcome on what the finished house is worth on your actual street. An owner holding those three things is negotiating from a stronger position than any amount of pushing back on a figure would produce.
Where We Are Reliable
What the work costs, because we commission it repeatedly rather than estimating it occasionally. Whether a building is in a district, because that is a matter of record. What is on the permit history. And whether a listing would beat us, which we will say in writing when it would.
The Ordinary Disclosures
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Nothing is charged to you at any stage, including if you decline. We are not brokers, not public adjusters, not contractors and not lawyers.
We buy fire-damaged residential property across Grand Rapids, Kent County and West Michigan, in any condition, including buildings inside historic districts and buildings that have stood open for years. Beyond this region we would be the wrong buyer.
Where to Start
Find out whether you are in a district, and ask about securing the building. Then read what to do before winter on our page about how the process actually runs, and the sorting question on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart.