A real person, a real company, and fifteen years pointed at one problem.

Full stack

Borrowing a term from software: a full-stack developer builds the interface and the system behind it, and sees problems someone who knows only one half will miss. Real estate has the same structure, and most practitioners live on one layer of it.

I've worked at every one of those layers, which is the only reason I can afford to specialize as narrowly as I do.

I ask more questions than anyone expects

Who the heirs are, and whether any have died since. Whether an administration was ever opened or the family has been running on an affidavit. What is owed, to whom, and in what priority. What is actually scheduled, and what the real deadline is.

That's the diagnosis, and it takes longer than anyone expects. It is also the part most buyers skip entirely — which is why so many of them make an offer, discover the problem weeks later, and disappear.

What comes out of it varies. Often it's a quick and simple buyout of a partial interest — you sell me your share of the house and the problems and other people associated with it become mine. Sometimes it's a direct purchase on a short timeline, which is what people usually assume they want. Sometimes a slower path that resolves the title defect first and produces a materially better number, which is more often what they should want. Sometimes the answer is that selling is the wrong move, and I say so.

The rules I work by

• I tell you what I think your options are — including the ones that don't involve me. Sometimes the right move is a loan modification, or a realtor, or doing nothing at all. If that's your situation, I'd rather say so than waste your time and mine. Foreclosure sale dates are real deadlines and I'll be straight about them — but I won't invent any others to hurry you along.
• I explain how I got to my number. I buy at a discount — that's the business, and I won't pretend otherwise. What I will do is explain where the number comes from: what's owed, what it will cost and how long it will take to clear, and what the risk is that it never clears at all. My broker license gives me access to real market data, so I'm working from what comparable properties actually sold for rather than something I made up. Ask me anything about it — you will never get a figure from me with no reasoning behind it.
• I'm a buyer, never your agent — and I'll say so up front. I'm a licensed Texas real estate broker, but Gulf Alpha is not a brokerage and I don't list houses. I buy for my own account, which means I represent myself and you owe me no commission or fee. If what you need is someone to put your house on the market, that's a different job and I'll tell you to go find a listing agent.
• I pay for an hour with your attorney, and it's in the offer. Your lawyer, of your choosing. I write it into my offers rather than saying it on the phone, so you can hold me to it. If you'd rather not go find one, I can point you to a firm that handles this every day — and I'll say plainly that I work with them, so for the question of whether selling to me is actually a good idea, use your own counsel and I'll credit you the same hour. The information gap here is real and it runs in my favor: I do this every day and you may be doing it once. If they tell you I've got something wrong, you found that out on my money.
• If I sign a contract, I close it. I never assign a contract to another buyer — I close myself, or I double close. And I don't tie a property up intending to work out later whether it's worth doing. If a deal is narrow, or I doubt I can make the margin I need, I pass at the start. There is far more of this work than I can take on, which is what makes passing affordable — a buyer who needs every deal is a buyer who signs first and thinks second.
• A title company and an attorney work every purchase I make. Not as a courtesy — I need a clear title commitment myself before I can do anything with a property, so the paperwork being right is my own problem first. On a whole property the title company also runs the closing and you can call them to verify anything. On a partial interest the deed can transfer directly, because title companies generally won't insure a fraction of a property — but it's still notarized and recorded with the county, and I'll bring the title company into that closing too if you'd rather.