We Buy Ugly Houses in Tulsa: How the Franchise Model Works

What a franchise model actually means for your sale

HomeVestors has operated since 1996 and its published material describes more than 1,100 independently owned franchises across the country, which between them have bought well over 140,000 houses. It is by some distance the most recognised brand in this industry.

The franchise structure means the national organisation provides the brand, lead generation, valuation tools, financing access and mentoring. The local franchisee, who may run the business full time from an office or part time from home depending on which franchise level they hold, is the party who values your house, makes the offer and completes the purchase.

That is not a criticism, and franchising is a perfectly ordinary way to run a business. It does mean the experience varies between locations in a way it does not with a single operator, which reviewers of the brand consistently note.

The practical consequence: the brand on the sign is national, and the person across your kitchen table is running an independent local business. Both of those things are true at once.

What that changes about the questions you should ask

The questions below are worth asking of any cash buyer including us, but the franchise structure makes a couple of them sharper.

Who exactly is buying? Ask for the name of the entity that will appear on the contract and on the deed, and check it is the same one making the offer.

How long have you operated in Tulsa? Franchises are bought and sold, and somebody may be new to this market even where the brand is not.

Can I see the repair estimate? Any buyer basing an offer on repair cost should be able to show you that cost.

Will the price change after inspection? This is the single most useful question in the industry and the answer separates operators more reliably than anything else.

Which title company, and who chooses it?

Our page on whether cash buyers are legitimate goes through what to check in more depth.

How offers are generally arrived at

Most buyers in this industry, us included, work from a version of the same arithmetic: estimate what the house is worth repaired, subtract the repair cost, subtract holding and resale costs, and subtract a margin. Commentary on the industry commonly describes a rule of thumb around seventy per cent of after-repair value less repairs, though how any individual buyer applies it varies.

Where operators differ is in whether they show you the workings. We publish ours on every page and attach the repair estimate to the offer, so you can check the assumptions rather than accept a total.

You can put any two offers side by side in our net proceeds calculator, which is more useful than comparing headline numbers because it accounts for what each side actually covers.

Where a franchise buyer may be the better choice

A well established local franchisee with years in this market and a good record is a perfectly sound party to sell to, and brand recognition is not nothing when you are trusting somebody with the largest asset you own.

Some franchisees also have access to financing and systems that let them move quickly on properties an independent buyer might have to think about, and the national marketing means they are easy to find.

The right approach is not to choose by brand in either direction. Get two or three written offers, ask all of them the same questions, and compare the answers as well as the numbers.

What we do differently

We are one local business rather than a franchise of a national one, so there is no variation between locations because there is only one location.

We publish the arithmetic behind every offer on this site and attach the repair estimate to the offer document itself. If our repair figure is wrong, a written contractor quote changes the number.

We tell sellers when listing with an agent would net them more, which is on every page of this site including this one. A buyer who will not say that under any circumstances is telling you something.

And we cover a defined area properly. Tulsa and eighteen surrounding towns, each with its own page on this site setting out what the housing there is actually like.