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.
Four questions that settle it
Ask for proof of funds and watch what happens. A buyer with money treats this as routine. Everyone else produces a reason.
Ask whether they will close themselves or assign the contract to somebody else. Assignment is legal, common, and fine when disclosed. The problem is discovering it at the closing table.
Ask whether the number can change after an inspection. An offer that can be revised downward once you have stopped talking to other buyers is not really an offer, it is an option on your house.
Ask whether you can use your own attorney. In New York both sides use one. A buyer who wants to supply yours is solving a problem you should ask about.
The red flags, in order of seriousness
The list, roughly worst first: a number before a viewing, pressure to sign before you can get a second opinion, a request for money from you, hesitation over proof of funds, and vagueness about who is really buying.
One of these alone does not prove anything. Several together describe a buyer who is counting on you not to ask. The answer is always the same: slow down, put your questions in writing, and have your attorney look before you sign.
The process, so you know when it is off-script
Somebody visits the house. In New York both sides instruct attorneys, and yours reviews the contract before you sign anything. A deposit is held in your attorney's escrow account, not handed to the buyer. Title is searched, which is where liens, judgments and open permits surface. Then you close, on a date in the contract.
What should not happen anywhere in that sequence: a renegotiation because of something an inspection found, a new party appearing as the purchaser, or a request for money from your side. If any of those occur, that is the point to stop and call your attorney rather than the buyer.
Applying the same test to us
The same questions, answered for us. Proof of funds: yes, on request. The number: it holds from offer to closing, because we price the condition up front. Your attorney: your own, always.
Assignment: ask us directly whether we will close on your house ourselves, and you will get a plain answer about your specific property rather than a slogan.
And when an Amityville seller would net more by listing, we tell them. It loses us some deals. It is still the right advice for a real share of the people who call.
Why local knowledge changes the number
A five-bedroom on Sunshine Lane. A house on Washington Avenue. Both in Amityville, bought and paid for by us.
Amityville is roughly 9,500 people in Suffolk County, ZIP 11701, and the housing stock is mostly colonial, victorian, cape cod. Around Broadway and the Triangle, most of it is old enough that the mechanicals are on their second or third life. The Amityville stop pulls buyers who commute, which supports the good houses and does very little for the ones that need a roof. We have been buying across Suffolk County for 15+ years. We know what the Amityville Union Free School District does to a resale price, which blocks still have oil tanks in the ground, and what a house like yours is actually worth here.
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. Amityville 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.