Major repairs
No. You do not need a contractor bid, a cleanup, or repairs before we look. Roof, foundation, fire, water, mold, code cases, belongings, and vacant houses are all on this page. The offer prices the work in.
Roof, foundation, fire, water, mold, a code case, a house full of belongings, or a vacant house that has started to fail. You do not need a contractor bid before we will look. One house often has more than one of these. This page is the decision. The links below are the deeper notes on each problem.
Mon–Fri 8:00–17:00 CT (America/Chicago). Saturday and Sunday closed.
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In Kansas City
“Major” means you would have to spend real money, or real months, before an ordinary buyer would take the keys. It is rarely one neat item. A leak becomes a ceiling stain and then mold. A foundation crack shows up as a door that sticks. A vacant house in a cold month can lose its pipes. A fire leaves smoke in the structure, not just on the paint.
Structure: foundation, roof, fire, and water. Safety: mold, wiring, and whether the utilities are even on. Paper: code notices, open permits, and any insurance claim. Occupancy: vacant, tenant, or a house still full of belongings. Money sits beside those: the mortgage, the taxes, and other liens.
If you already have a report, send it. It helps us see what someone else measured. It is not required. We are not charging you for an inspection, and we are not asking you to pay an engineer so we can have a number.
A code notice, an open permit, or a dangerous-building case does not have to be cleared before the conversation. It does have to be disclosed. The code-violations page is where that paper is explained. We still walk the house. The notice changes the work, and the work changes the offer.
Tell us, and tell your insurer, before anyone signs away a claim. An open claim does not by itself stop a sale. Who is paid, and for which damage, is a question for the policy and the title company. We will not guess a payout, and we will not write one into a story.
A retail buyer’s inspector will write up the same problems and then ask for a credit or a walk-away. You will have hosted showings in a house that is hard to insure and hard to finance. That path can still pay more if you fix the house first, or if you list it as-is and accept that it may sit. It is a poor path when you do not have the money to fix it and you do not have the months to wait.
Water, an open roof, and a vacant house tend to get worse, not stable. There is no single monthly number that fits every house. If you already know you will not fund the repairs, waiting is how the next offer gets smaller.
Each problem below has its own page so this one does not pretend to be a fire manual and a foundation manual at the same time. If two of them are true, stay here and say both.
Open the page that matches the house. If you cannot pick one, you do not have to. Tell us all of them. The offer is still one number.
Your choices
The cash number is what we can pay with the repairs still in the house. Fixing it and listing it can leave you with more if you can pay for the work and carry the house. We will tell you that. We will not talk you into a cash sale that is the wrong tool.
The retail path
This is how you chase the highest price. You hire the contractors and you pay the bills while they work.
No repair bill, still a listing
You skip the contractor. You do not skip showings, inspections, or a buyer who wants a discount.
What Saving KC does
One walkthrough. The repairs are inside the number. You can still get your own bids and compare.
Only if you might actually fix it
Waiting makes sense when you are pricing the work and you might do it.
A number you can read
Photos help. A cleaned house does not. We will look, write a number, and you can compare it to fixing the house yourself.
What we actually do
We price the condition we can see. We are not an insurance adjuster, and we are not the city inspector.
Photos help. A stack of bids is optional. “The basement took water and the furnace is dead” is enough to schedule a look.
A walkthrough is about 15 to 30 minutes. Do not clean. Do not patch. Leave what you plan to leave. We are there to see the work, not to judge the housekeeping.
After the visit you get a written number, usually within 24 hours. It shows the work we are pricing and what we can pay. It does not say what a repaired house would list for.
Fire plus a roof, mold plus a vacant house, foundation plus a code notice. You do not need a separate buyer for each line. You also do not pull permits before we talk.
Mr. Jennings in Shawnee had repairs and updates factored into the offer, along with a reverse mortgage. Signing to close was about 22 days. Stephen Mills had repairs plus three years of delinquent taxes and closed in 28 days. Neither page publishes a sale price or a repair bid. Do not treat those day counts as your quote.
The money and the stuff
You trade the repair project for a lower price. The settlement statement shows whether that trade leaves you a check.
There is no contractor draw, no permit fee due to us, and no list of work you must finish before closing.
The mortgage, taxes, and other recorded liens are paid from the sale if the price covers them. Major damage plus a large loan can leave little or nothing. We will show you that before you sign.
If you reject the offer, you do not owe us a repair bill or a visit fee. Take the number to a contractor or a listing agent and compare.
Do not assign a claim because someone asked in the kitchen. If a claim is open, it has to be written into the deal on purpose, with your insurer’s rules in mind. If it is not in the contract, it is not part of the price.
Take what you want. A house full of belongings can stay. If someone still lives there, the tired-landlord page is the occupancy half of the same sale.
Ernest Dodson is a Missouri-licensed real estate salesperson with Platinum Realty LLC, license #2023026433. Saving KC Homebuyers LLC buys real estate as a principal. We may assign the purchase contract to another buyer, and we tell you when we do.
Questions
These answers are about this situation. They are not legal advice. The company list is on the FAQ page.
Photos help. A cleaned house does not. We will look, write a number, and you can compare it to fixing the house yourself.
Mon–Fri 8:00–17:00 CT (America/Chicago). Saturday and Sunday closed.