Selling a house in Massachusetts comes with paperwork that sellers in other states never see. A Title 5 inspection if you’re on septic. A smoke and carbon monoxide certificate from your fire department. Deed excise stamps at the registry. Below are the questions Massachusetts homeowners ask us most. If yours isn’t here, call us and ask it.
Will you be listing my house on the MLS or actually buying it?
We’re not agents, and we don’t list houses. Here at Bluefin Property Buyers, we’re professional home buyers. We buy houses across Massachusetts that meet our criteria, and we don’t use bank financing, so there’s no question about our ability to close.
Every closing happens at an attorney’s office, which is how it’s done in Massachusetts, and we use firms we’ve worked with for years. After we buy, we may repair the house and resell it to another homeowner, or keep it as a rental.
How are you different from a real estate agent?
Real estate agents list properties and hope that someone will buy them. The agent shows the property to prospective buyers if there are any. The average time to sell in many markets right now is about three months. The agent then takes a percentage of the sale price if they find a buyer. Oftentimes, the agent’s commission is 5 to 6% of the sale price of your house. On a $715,000 house, you’ll pay between $36,000 and $43,000 in commissions to an agent.
An agent sale also puts the Massachusetts prep work on you. That means the Title 5 inspection if the house is on septic, the smoke and carbon monoxide certificate from your fire department, and whatever the buyer’s inspector turns up.
Agents provide a great service for those who can wait three months or more to sell and who don’t mind giving up some of that sale price to pay for the commissions. That’s where we’re different. We’re not agents, we’re home buyers.
Looking for this to be broken down further? Here’s a comparison chart to give an overview:
| Selling With A Massachusetts Agent | SOLD To Bluefin Property Buyers | |
|---|---|---|
| Commissions / Fees: | Up to 6%, paid by you, the seller | None |
| Who Pays Closing Costs? | 2% on average is paid by you, the seller | We pay all costs. |
| Inspection & Financing Contingency*: | Yes, sales can fall through. | None needed |
| Appraisal Needed: | Yes, the sale is often subject to appraisal. | No, we make cash offers. |
| Average Days Until Sold: | +/- 91 Days | We can provide an offer within 24 hours. |
| Number of Showings: | It Depends | 1 (Just Us) |
| Closing Date: | 30-60+/- days after accepting the buyer’s offer | The date of YOUR CHOICE. |
| Who Pays For Repairs? | Negotiated during the inspection period | We pay for all repairs. |
Do you pay fair prices for properties?
We buy many houses below market value. We do that so we can repair them and resell at a profit, and we’d rather say so plainly. What you get from us is certainty and speed.
Here’s where that trade tends to make sense in Massachusetts. If your septic fails its Title 5, a full upgrade runs well into five figures. The state credit covers 60% of design and construction costs, capped at $4,000 a year and $18,000 in total, so the rest of that bill is yours. We price a failed system into our offer and buy the house as it sits. You don’t inspect it, you don’t repair it, and you don’t spend two years finding out what it cost.
Our no-obligation pricing commitment means you don’t have to move forward with the offer we give you. It’s still worth knowing the number.
How do you determine the price to offer on my house?
We’re an open book, and the process is straightforward. We look at the location, what repairs the house needs, the condition it’s in today, and what comparable houses nearby have sold for recently.
Then we account for the Massachusetts costs that come with the sale. Deed excise stamps run $4.56 per thousand across most of the state, which is $3,260 on a $715,000 sale, and $6.48 per thousand in Barnstable County. If the house is on septic, we price the Title 5 result in, pass or fail.
Put together, that gives us a price that works for us and works for you too. You’ll get an honest ballpark on the first call and a written cash offer after we walk the house.
Are there any fees or commissions to work with you?
None. That’s the clearest difference between selling to us and listing with an agent, where 5 to 6% of the sale price comes out of your pocket.
We pay the closing costs too. On a listed sale you’d be looking at the agent’s commission, the deed excise stamps at the registry, and the attorney’s fees on your side. We’ll make you an offer, and if it’s a fit, we buy the house with nothing taken off the number we agreed on.
We make our money later, after we’ve paid for repairs and resold the house. That risk is ours. Once we buy, the property and its payments stop being yours to carry, and you walk away with cash.
Is there any obligation when I submit my information?
There is zero obligation. Tell us a bit about the property, we’ll look at it, and we may set up a call to learn more. Then we make you an all-cash offer.
From there it’s your decision. If you take it, the closing happens at an attorney’s office, so a licensed Massachusetts attorney handles the title work and the paperwork. If you don’t take it, nothing happens and the number is yours to keep.
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