We listed my house for sale and had a cash offer from a buyer. He only offered a $10 earnest deposit and can’t show proof of funds yet. This was obviously a red flag. Looking further into it, he’s with a group of home buyers who flips homes. It seems like he it just the person who finds the homes and markets them to the actual cash buyers. We responded by saying we need more of a deposit ($6,000) and he came back with $100 and stated it would be coming out of his own pocket and likely wouldn’t be the one buying the home.

What is going on here? I’ve never heard of this type of thing before. If this is what he does for a living, he should know you can’t offer someone $10 to take their house off the market. Are there really home buying groups that do this? I obviously don’t want to accept an offer based on $100 and a promise to pay with no proof of funds. That’s a huge risk. I also don’t want to walk away from cash if it turns out there are flippers who buy homes this way. Can anyone fill me in?

Topics: real estate, homes, selling, houses, home buying, realtor, house flipper