politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Can someone prvoide a TL;DR on what a "We buy ugly houses" is for non-US fedizens? The article isn't too detailed about this rather than that they're scamming people with bad deals.
I'm not an expert, but I have family that operates within this industry, unaffiliated with the ugly homes organization.
Tl;dr The idea is that these companies buy homes that have fallen into a state of disrepair, fix them up so that they comply with modern building safety regulations, slap on a new coat of paint, then sell the property for a profit.
Since they don't fully investigate the issues that the home has before making an offer, they make offers that are wildly lower than most valuations would indicate, which leads to the reputation of being scammy. Sometimes there are structural issues that are extremely expensive to resolve and the project is barely profitable, but in other instances there is little repair work required, and they make a big profit. Lowballing every offer ensures that they can't lose, but also means that this is rarely a good option unless you are in serious financial straits.
No, I think that's about it. They pressure people into selling for less than what it's worth.
A lot of advertisements around town on bad signs or handmade ones taped up saying things like:
"We buy houses with CASH, Any Home, Any Condition"
Or
"Cheap House? Need Out? We Buy Bad Homes"
From what I can tell they're usually interested in buying up properties that are neglected or in bad neighborhoods, do the absolute minimum required to re-list or turn into a rental property (bare fucking minimum, and sometimes less). Apparently they're also really predatory according to the article and don't have a lot of scruples.
They offer shit deals to purchase ugly houses