Our seller was leaving the country. She and her new partner were moving to Nicaragua — and the near-term plan involved backpacking through the jungle, which is not a plan that accommodates a Wisconsin house sale falling through behind you.
She wanted the house troubles gone before she went, and there were a fair few of them.
The property needed a roof. It needed HVAC. And it needed an entirely new septic system, which in a private-septic property is not a repair so much as an earthworks project. On top of that the kitchen and bathrooms were due for upgrades, and the house carried severe pet and smoke odour throughout.
She had competing offers. On paper some of them looked fine. The difference was in what they were conditional on.
We made the cleanest offer on the table. No inspection contingency, no appraisal contingency, no financing commitment to wait on — and actual cash proof of funds, which mattered a great deal to her, because it meant the money was real and already ours rather than subject to somebody else's approval.
That is the whole trade. She could have chased a slightly better headline number and spent the weeks before an international move wondering whether her buyer's inspector was going to blow the deal up. Instead she had a date, a signed contract with nothing hanging off it, and proof the funds existed.
We bought it exactly as it stood — the roof, the HVAC, the septic, the odour, the dated kitchen and baths, all of it ours from closing.
She closed ahead of her departure and left the country without a house, a listing or a pending sale behind her.
If you are weighing routes, our side-by-side comparison of selling options lays out the numbers honestly, and cash buyer vs. realtor in Milwaukee goes deeper.
An international move raises the stakes on every part of a sale:
We buy from sellers who are relocating, who need a sale that is certain to close, who are selling as-is, and who own rental property — across Dane County and the wider region.
Our market is Milwaukee and the nine counties around it — Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Jefferson and Dane. That includes Wauwatosa, West Allis, Greenfield, Franklin, Oak Creek, South Milwaukee, Waukesha, Brookfield, New Berlin, Menomonee Falls, Mequon and West Bend. See every area on our locations page, or read how the process works.
Yes. This one needed a complete new system, and that was priced into our offer rather than treated as a condition of it. Replacing a septic system before selling is one of the least recoverable things you can spend money on, and it takes weeks you probably don't have if you are moving.
It means our offer is not conditional on an inspection result, on an appraisal coming in at a particular figure, or on a lender agreeing to fund. We inspect the property ourselves before we make the offer, and the number we give you is the number we intend to close at.
Always. It is a document showing the money genuinely exists and is available. It costs a real buyer nothing to send. On this sale it was one of the deciding factors, because the seller needed to know the funds weren't dependent on someone else's approval.
No. Severe odour is remediation work, and it is work we take on. It is one of the more common reasons a house struggles on the open market — buyers turn around at the door — and one of the least sensible things for a departing seller to pay to fix.
Yes. Our service area covers Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Jefferson and Dane counties, which is how a Stoughton property fits. If you are unsure whether you're inside it, just call and ask.
Either works. Remote and mail-away closings are routine, and your title company can arrange one. We would still suggest closing before you fly, with a couple of weeks in hand, so that anything unexpected has room to be sorted while you are still reachable.
They are already accounted for. We priced the property knowing the roof and HVAC needed replacing, so a further failure between contract and closing does not reopen the negotiation from our side.
We aim to have an offer within about 24 hours of seeing the property, and once title is clear a closing can happen in roughly a week. If your date is further out, we hold it — the timeline is set by what you need, not by us.
