Who Buys Fire Damaged Houses in Providence

Why This Question Works Better Than Price

Comparing offers on a fire-damaged Providence house is comparing four numbers built on four different amounts of information, and the number tells you nothing about which.

On balloon-framed stock, fire travels inside continuous wall cavities and can keep burning there after the visible flames are out. So the gap between what a photograph shows and what is actually there is wider here than in almost any housing in the country. The full position is on our page covering the walls and the lead.

Is Opening a Wall Really Necessary?

The Buyer Who Has Looked

Their number is built on something and it holds. They will tell you what they found, which is information you can take to every other buyer, and they will price the lead position rather than discovering it.

These buyers also tend to ask where the fire started before they ask how bad it looks, because on this stock origin predicts extent. A basement fire and a contained kitchen fire in the same building are entirely different propositions.

The Buyer Who Has Read the Fire Report

The middle ground and perfectly respectable. The report gives the origin, and on balloon framing the origin narrows the range considerably even without opening anything.

Their number is a defensible estimate rather than a fact, and they will usually say so. That candour is worth more than a higher figure from somebody who has not read anything.

The Buyer Who Has Seen Photographs

The commonest, and their number is a guess in a predictable direction. Faced with unknown concealed damage a cautious buyer prices the worst case, and an incautious one prices the best case and revises in week three.

The question that catches it: what did you assume about the wall cavities. Any answer is fine; no answer means the assumption is unstated, which means it can move.

The Buyer Who Has Not Asked About Lead

Separate from the framing and just as consequential on a rental. Pre-1978 rental dwellings sit inside the Rhode Island certificate regime, repairs disturbing lead-based paint require EPA-certified firms and certified renovators, and a fire ends the practical validity of any existing clearance.

The question that catches it: what did you allow for lead-safe work practices. A buyer active on this stock answers immediately; one from out of state usually has not carried the line at all.

Contract Assigners

Some parties sign to buy and sell the contract on before closing. On a property whose true condition is unestablished that arrangement fails late more often than most, because the eventual purchaser inherits an unknown nobody priced.

The question that catches it: which entity will appear on the deed. A principal buyer gives you a name you can search.

The Records Worth Pulling

The fire report. The origin, in writing. The single most useful document you have and most owners have not requested it.

The assessor's record. The build year, which decides whether the pre-1978 regime applies and hints at the framing.

The land evidence records. Held municipally. Search a buyer's exact entity as grantee to see what they have actually bought.

Any lead certificate on file. If the property has been a rental, there may be a certificate and inspection history worth having.

One Thing Worth Declining

Any buyer proposing to close up, board over or "make safe" the interior before closing. Once the cavities are covered, the evidence of what the fire reached is gone and you can no longer prove the favourable case to anyone.

Securing the building against weather and entry from outside is different and is worth doing. Covering the inside is not.

Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not

We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Ask us what we assumed about the cavities and the answer should be specific.

We are frequently not the right answer here. Where an inspection shows the fire stayed put and the frame is sound, this stock is desirable and a rehabber will pay closer to finished value than we can. Where the property is a two or three family in a strong neighbourhood, an owner doing the work keeps a margin no cash offer matches. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.

Questions About Buyers