Recently, a letter arrived in the mailbox from “Chris” at a
franchise office of “America’s #1 Home Buyer,” which buys homes for cash, asking
if I have considered selling my property. To quote the letter, “By selling your
house “as is” for cash to us, you won’t need to bother with repairs, cleaning,
or having people traipse through your home for showings.” That’s one way to get out of finding someone
to fix the loose deck rail and the drippy gutter and paint the bulkhead, but it
feels a bit extreme.
 |
| The offending letter. |
For a nanosecond, I wondered how much cash this outfit would
pay for my house. Of course, the result of such a sale would mean having no
place to live, which would be inconvenient. After the
wonderment wore off I was offended and tore the letter in half. I mean, sure,
my house is no palace. It’s on the small side and even my old apartment in
Worcester was bigger in both size and number of rooms. But, really?
The letter, addressed to me and not just generic “homeowner,”
didn’t mention “ugly houses,” but it includes a cartoon cave man and the
phrase is all over their website. Granted, it’s not the best house on the street,
but it’s also not the worst.
That's when the paranoia started to kick in hard. Did
everyone on the street get a letter, or just some of us? Or worse, was it just
my house? Is my info on some prospecting database of broke-down owners of shitty-ass houses? It sure isn’t on
any lists for nice stuff. Nobody is beating a path to my mailbox inviting me to high end jewelry and estate sales or to open CDs or money market accounts. But now I’m getting mail offering to buy my ugly shit house. Dang, they really know how to hurt a gal.
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