The three kinds of company contacting you
The first kind is a lead broker. They are not buying anything. They collect your details, sometimes with a form promising an instant offer, and sell that information to several buyers. The tell is that the "offer" never arrives as a figure, and you suddenly start hearing from multiple companies at once.
The second kind puts a house under contract at a low number and then sells that contract to somebody else before closing. This is wholesaling. It is legal and it is not automatically bad, but you should know it is happening, because the person you shook hands with is not the person who will close.
The third kind buys with its own funds and closes. That is the only one where the number you are given and the number at closing are the same thing by default.
What to ask before you agree to anything
Four questions do most of the work.
Proof of funds? A real buyer has it and shares it. Excuses are an answer in themselves.
Closing yourselves, or assigning? You are entitled to a plain answer before you sign, whichever it is.
Can the number change after inspection? If it can, treat the offer as provisional, because it is.
My own attorney? Always, in New York. Be wary of anyone steering you to theirs or suggesting you skip it.
The red flags, in order of seriousness
A firm figure before anyone has seen the house. Patchogue houses cannot be priced from tax records and a satellite image, so a number delivered that way is an opening line, not an offer.
A deadline built to rush you. Genuine offers do not expire overnight, and a time limit that exists to stop you checking elsewhere tells you what the offer is worth.
Any request for money from you. A buyer has no legitimate reason to charge a seller a fee, a deposit or an application cost.
And any suggestion that you can do without your own attorney.
What a legitimate Patchogue cash sale actually looks like
A visit to the property, a written offer, your attorney's review, a contract, a deposit into escrow, a title search, and a closing on the agreed date. That is the whole shape of it in Suffolk County, and it is short by design.
The value of knowing the sequence is that you can tell when something is off it. A buyer who wants to skip the attorney, hold the deposit themselves, or revisit the price after the contract is signed is not following the ordinary process, and the ordinary process exists precisely to protect the person selling.
Our own answers to those four questions
Proof of funds: we will send it, and you should ask. The number in our written offer is the number at closing, and we do not reduce it after an inspection, because the condition was priced before we gave it to you. You use your own attorney, always, and if you do not have one we will suggest names rather than supply one.
On assignment: we buy houses, renovate them and sell them. Ask us directly whether we will be the party closing on your house and you will get a straight answer for your specific property rather than a slogan.
We buy in Nassau and Suffolk only. If your Patchogue house is better served by listing it, we will say so, and it happens more often than you would expect from a company whose business is buying.
How selling to us works in Patchogue
- 1
You give us the address
The street address in 11772 and a sentence or two about the condition, by phone or the form. No photos needed, and nothing has to be cleaned or repaired first.
- 2
We come and look at it
One visit, one person, usually under half an hour. On a colonial or cape cod of the age most of Patchogue was built, we are mainly looking at the roof, the boiler and the electric rather than the kitchen.
- 3
You see the number
Within a day you get our offer as one written figure. Get a Suffolk County agent's opinion alongside it if that helps. For a house that could go on the market as it stands, listing may come out ahead, and we will tell you if so.
- 4
Closing happens on your date
If you need it done quickly, it can be. If probate, a tenant or a move means waiting, we wait. What you skip is the 78 to 93 days a Patchogue listing usually spends on finding a buyer and then on that buyer's lender.
Where your information goes
Sometimes it goes to one company. Frequently it is sold on to several, and occasionally it is sold repeatedly over months, which is why homeowners who filled in one form years ago are still getting texts.
The test is simple enough. Look for a privacy policy and read the paragraph about sharing with third parties. A site that promises an instant offer, asks for a phone number before showing you anything, and has no clear policy is collecting rather than buying. Patchogue homeowners get a lot of these.
Assignment, explained properly
The contract you sign contains a clause saying whether it can be transferred. If it can, the buyer can find somebody else to step into their place and take a fee for arranging it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this and a lot of houses trade that way. The risk you carry is completion risk: your sale now depends on a third party being found, and if none is, you have lost the time. A buyer closing with their own funds carries no such dependency. Whichever you are dealing with, you are entitled to know which it is before you sign, and your attorney will tell you what the clause actually says.
What to do if you think you moved too fast
Take it to an attorney today rather than trying to work it out yourself, and take the whole document including anything you signed at the door.
What matters is what the contract says: whether there is a period in which you can withdraw, what the deposit arrangements are, whether it is assignable, and what happens if either side does not complete. Those are specific questions with specific answers, and an hour with an attorney is worth considerably more than any reassurance from the other party.
Do not rely on a verbal assurance that you can get out of it. If it is not in the document, it does not exist.
Common questions
Are all the companies texting me about my house scams?
Most are not scams in a criminal sense. They are lead brokers and contract flippers operating legally, and the problem is usually that nobody explains which one you are dealing with. Ask directly and the picture clears up fast.
Should a cash buyer ever ask me for money?
No. Never, for any reason. There is no legitimate fee, deposit or application payment that a buyer collects from a seller.
They offered more than everyone else. Is that good?
Treat a conspicuously high offer with more care, not less. A number well above the others is sometimes real and is often a way to secure the contract and take other buyers out of the picture, after which it is reduced. Ask whether the figure is binding and whether it can change after an inspection, and get the answer in writing.
Do I really need my own attorney?
In New York, yes, and use your own rather than one suggested by the buyer. It is the single most effective protection available to you, and it is standard practice on both sides of every residential sale in the state.