My husband, Dan, recently looked the Wikipedia definition of Creative Real Estate Investing. It said:
Creative real estate investing is any non-traditional method of buying and selling real estate. Confidence tricks and pyramid schemes in the 20th and 21st century such as Nouveau Riche (real estate investment college) have embraced the term, leading contemporary usage of the term to be synonymous with unscrupulous practices.
Synonymous with unscrupulous practices. Ouch!
This definition buzzed in my head when recently I encountered a fellow real estate agent who voiced her negative opinion of licensee’s who practice creative real estate.
I meet numerous seller’s every week. They call me because I tell them I want to buy their house. There is a reason they call me and not an agent.
David and his family wanted to sell us his mother’s house. I told him he could make more money by listing it on the open market with an agent. He knew. However, his mother’s health was declining and she would soon be transferred from her hospital room to a nursing home. He didn’t have time to list the home. If the home didn’t sell before his mother was transferred her estate would be drained by Medicare to pay for her care. He needed to sell it fast and without any uncertainty from the buyer.
Chuck and his wife have spent the last few years fighting with their home builder after their home’s foundation cracked in several places. They were ready to move on. They didn’t have the money, energy or time to undertake a foundation repair. I was able to give them the security of having a buyer while he completed his negotiations with the home builder, buy the house when he was ready and give him the time he needed to relocate his family.
Some people are desperately trying to avoid foreclosure. Some people have homes in such disrepair that they are embarrassed to have it on the open market. Some people have had agents refuse to list their house until numerous repairs were made. Some people need money for their homes quickly. Some people just simply don’t want to list their house. I’ve helped them all.
As Realtors, we are doing a disservice by refusing to accept the legitimacy of creative real estate options. Are there unscrupulous real estate investors out there? Yes. Absolutely. But, as for me and my team, we believe in being able to provide all options to our sellers while treating them with honesty and integrity. I hope that more Realtors will come to see that there are other options outside of traditional listings to sell a house and start to participate in the creative side of real estate. Maybe then we may see a decline in the unscrupulous, fly by night investors.
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