The Queen of Cash, is King Game, just may be Flyhomes. If you bought, sold, or forlornly submitted your rent check to your landlord, yet another month during a long, and unfruitful quest for a home of your own, you may have been outbid by a cash buyer. Boston has long been a city where perspective buyers beg their real estate agents to show a property to them first, before it hits the market, talk nice to the selling broker to curry favor, write a glowing letter to include with the bid that talks about raising your unborn children in the home, or starting a women-owned business that is going to change the world, or proclaiming a psychic had a vision of you living in this very house, interviewing Michelle Obama. Stranger things have happened.

I learned about Cash Buyers at the tail end of my search for my third home. I had been outsmarted eight consecutive times. Eight times, ouch. I was not happy. While I was carrying on about cash buyers, and lamenting the fact that I wasn’t born royal, I discovered something very important, not every cash buyer actually has the cash to buy a home. “How could that make them a cash buyer, I asked?” ” Isn’t that the very definition of one? ” I asked my broker Alan. It turns out that it is not. The allure of “cash” to a perspective buyer can be a number of things including; speed to closing, and/or an assurance that you aren’t going to run into trouble securing your financing, which is grounds for the deal to fall through, with no financial ramifications to the potential buyer. In other words, as long as they attempted to get at least one bank to lend them the money, and failed, they will receive their 5% deposit back, and the seller will be left with nothing, but a suspicious “Back on the Market” designation that may taint their ability to get another solid offer.

I’m pretty competitive. I was born that way. I hated the idea of being outdone. It’s not as if I can’t accept a loss here and there, I’m evolved, but eight times. That’s ridiculous. Alan had an answer, and he just may have waited long enough into my humiliation cycle to spring it on me, to know that I would do anything, almost anything, things that were pretty risky, to get a deal to stick. This second type of cash buyer, I could be. It required me to waive my financing contingency. Refer to the previous paragraph where I told you that if you make an effort to secure financing (through a single lender), and it falls through, you get all your money back. That’s the part – I could waive that contingency. By relinquishing my right to get my 5% deposit back, I could own the title, Cash Buyer, and so could you. I warn you, it is not for the faint of heart, and not every seller will go for it, but there are plenty out there that hope your financing will fall through, and they’ll have their home, and your money (this isn’t exactly true, but mostly it is).

Not to long ago, in the midst of the Covid house buying craze that has turned the suburbs into a casino for high-rollers, I learned that there might be a better way. Six years ago an innovative company opened its virtual doors – Flyhomes will for a fee, be the cash buyer for you. Well isn’t that just the smartest thing you ever did hear? Founded by Tushar Garg and Stephen Lane in Seattle, Washington, in 2015. They launched here in Boston in 2019 – suspiciously great timing. One more great thing about cash offers, more often than not they aren’t the highest offer. They average 3% below market. You just may walk on air after your closing – also known as flying.