All cash investment buyers seek deep discounts

Q. I had rental property for 25 years, but I'm getting tired of it. With a rental house just now vacant and needing some fix up, I want to unload it.

When I Google "sell house" I get 25,800 numbers that will buy immediately for cash. Can I trust them?

A. You could probably trust many of them, but you need to understand what's involved.

People who buy as-is for cash cannot offer you market value. Their business involves purchasing at wholesale and hoping to sell later at retail. Till that's done, their money will be tied up, producing no income. Meantime, they'll have expenses for property taxes, insurance premiums, renovations, heat and light, lawn maintenance or snow removal - well, I don't have to tell you. Those are the costs you have now and want to get away from.

Your buyers will also allow a margin for unanticipated problems and include something for profit - why else would they buy in the first place? You can see that you'll be offered a substantial discount from what the property might bring on the open market.

You'll have to decide if that route is worth it to you, in return for the luxury of getting rid of the place promptly with no hassle. If so, I'll bet you can find all-cash buyers in your own town. That way, you could do a bit of local investigating before you tied the property up in a binding contract.

Q. This is in response to your answer to the man who wanted to make his daughter co-owner of his house. In Missouri there are so many properties that have been in families for generations with informal agreements after an owner dies. As a result, these properties are difficult to sell. Many people are recommending the use of a beneficiary deed to transfer property when an owner dies. The deed should be registered, and, as I understand it, all that's needed to get ownership transferred is a death certificate.

A. That's a helpful suggestion, but only about half the states use beneficiary deeds. The rest don't. Over the years I've learned to be careful because newspapers carry this column in many different states and on the Internet.

Q. I enjoy your column, which I think I get weekly. I'm 63 and moved here the end of May, and stayed with a friend (48) and his mom (age withheld) for three weeks while getting everything reorganized. My motor home caught fire on the way here, so the home I'd planned to live in was messed up.

I slept on their short couch (I'm 6'5") and because of depression from losing the majority of my property, I ate maybe 10 meals with them and did not snack out of the refridge. I bought a big box of tea bags and five pounds of sugar, and the mom made gallons of iced tea. I did take her son out to eat several times and brought back pizza once.

Her son said she wanted my 10-foot trailer that I'd paid $250 for, that he said was worth $450, so I gave it to her in lieu of paying for electricity I used. I foolishly asked if I could inherit it if she predeceased me. That was a mistake. Her son is still holding that comment over my head.

One day, she saw a want ad in the newspaper for a house, which I bought a week later.

Now the son is demanding $56 per night for the couch, $5 per meal for 18 meals, $3 per gallon for 19 gallons of sweet tea, and insists she is due a finder's fee for finding the want ad. Since I was invited to come here and they did not specify charges in advance, what is a fair donation toward someone who put me up for three weeks?

And as far as Realtor fees go, I told him I believed the Realtor paid the finders fee and finding an advertisement in the newspaper and knowing nothing else about the property is not really what counts as doing the finding.

I think he's trying to justify the value of comic books that he may have removed from my storage room. They were all old comics worth between $5 to $10 each. He left the newer ones that are practically worth nothing, since everybody collects nowadays.

A. In every state I know about, it's against the law for an unlicensed person to be paid for real estate services. If you still regard the son as your friend, you might pleasantly suggest going together to small claims court to hear what a judge would say about all this. I don't think you'd have much to worry about.

• Edith Lank will respond to questions sent to her at 240 Hemingway Drive, Rochester, N.Y. 14620 (include a stamped return envelope), or readers may email her through askedith.com.

© 2014, Creators Syndicate Inc.