What we stand for.
Most people call us at a hard moment — a house they cannot carry any longer, a payment that got away from them, a parent's place nobody knows what to do with. How we handle that call is the whole business.
A family business built on faith.
A false balance is abomination to the LORD: but a just weight is his delight.
Proverbs 11:1 (KJV)
We are a family-owned company, and our Christian faith is the reason we do this the way we do. It is not a marketing line and it is not something we keep in a drawer for Sundays.
An honest scale is a small thing. Nobody applauds you for it and no one is watching most of the time. That is exactly why it matters. Buying houses for cash runs on the same temptation every time — shade a number, stay quiet about something the seller has not thought to ask, let a person believe whatever happens to be convenient for us. We are not willing to build a business on that, because we believe we answer for it.
And the people on the other side of that number are usually somewhere difficult: behind on a mortgage, settling an estate, holding a rental that stopped paying for itself years ago. Treating a person in that spot as a problem to be worked is the normal thing in this industry. We think it is the wrong thing. That is how we handle every call we get, from anyone, whatever they believe or do not believe — our faith tells us how to conduct ourselves, not who we are willing to do business with.
What that actually looks like.
Values are cheap to write down. These are the four we can be held to — on the phone, at the walkthrough, and at the closing table — and you are welcome to hold us to them.
An honest number
We tell you what we can actually pay and how we got there, not the figure most likely to get a signature. If something changes after the walkthrough, you hear why before you hear a new number.
Straight answers
Including when the answer is no, and including when the answer is that you would do better listing it. If your house is not a fit, we say so that day instead of leaving you waiting on a call that is not coming.
No pressure
You can walk away at any point before signing, and we will not chase you or keep calling. Nobody should be talked into selling their house in one sitting.
We do what we said
The number we agreed and the date we agreed are the number and the date. If we cannot hold to it, you hear it early, not at the closing table.
Being honest with you includes
being honest about us.
Plenty of companies that buy houses stay vague about which side of the table they sit on. We would rather tell you exactly where we sit, because a disclosure buried in paperwork is not the same as saying it out loud.
When we buy, we are a principal. We buy houses for our own account and in our own interest, and we may assign the purchase agreement to an investor on our buyers list, who may close in our place. In that role we are not your agent or broker, we owe you no fiduciary duty, our interests and yours are not the same, and you should have your own attorney read anything before you sign it.
There is one exception and we would rather say it than let you find it. The people here are licensed in Ohio, so if listing is the better answer for you, the listing can be handled through the brokerage those licenses sit under — and on that sale the duties are owed to you by the brokerage, not by us. Which means the same people who would buy your house cheaply are also the people you would list it with to sell it dearly. Those pull in opposite directions. We would rather you weighed our advice knowing that, got a second opinion, and understood you can list with any brokerage in Ohio.
Here is the part most cash buyers leave out. We buy at a price that leaves room for us to make money — by assigning the contract to a buyer on our list, or by paying for the repairs ourselves and selling the finished house. A cash offer is lower than a retail price, and it is lower on purpose. That is what pays for closing in two weeks on a house you do not have to fix, clean out, show, or list.
So an honest number does not mean the highest number anybody on earth could pay you. It means the real number we can pay, said plainly, with the arithmetic behind it, early enough that you can weigh it against listing the house and decide which one you actually want. When listing it is the better outcome, we say that too.
None of this conflicts with a just weight. It is what a just weight requires. You cannot deal straight with someone while staying vague about what you are and what you stand to make.
Talk to us and see.
The fastest way to judge any of this is to put us on the phone. Tell us the address, hear the number, and decide nothing that day.