anyone heard of investment property group they say they have a buyer for my house

Running_Horse

You may or may not have paid £1200 up front to Investment Property Group, but many on this discussion have and are now worrying they have been victims of a scam. What you have done is effectively remove your property from the market for six months while you find out. I'm struggling to understand a business model where someone pays many thousands more for a property than they could likely get it on the open market, all in return for £1200. Why would any business do that?

inforeq

ILW wrote: »

It does sound like you may have entered into an agreement whereby if you sell your house by whatever means in the next six months you will have to pay them £1200.00, with no actual commitment from them. If that is the case it is quite a neat little deal for them. They cannot lose only win.

It actually pretty well much sums it up, it is of no hardship to us to wait the 180 days as properties around here are not selling. If the 180 days lapse and they are not forthcoming with the deal then all that is lost is our time and hassle (no monies).

Their side of the committment is that they have this buyer "Mr Brown" and an agreement that he is to buy our house at a certain price by the time period.

inforeq

Running_Horse wrote: »

You may or may not have paid £1200 up front to Investment Property Group, but many on this discussion have and are now worrying they have been victims of a scam. What you have done is effectively remove your property from the market for six months while you find out. I'm struggling to understand a business model where someone pays many thousands more for a property than they could likely get it on the open market, all in return for £1200. Why would any business do that?

Running Horse, we have not been offered more than it would be on the open market, our house was reduced by £15,000 at the agent before we took it off them, the price that has been agreed is more or less what we reduced it to.

ILW

inforeq wrote: »

It actually pretty well much sums it up, it is of no hardship to us to wait the 180 days as properties around here are not selling. If the 180 days lapse and they are not forthcoming with the deal then all that is lost is our time and hassle (no monies).

Their side of the committment is that they have this buyer "Mr Brown" and an agreement that he is to buy our house at a certain price by the time period.

You will probably not lose any money, I believe their modus operandi involves either getting up front fees, or if they cannot do that, hang things out to the point where a desperate seller will then accept a much lower offer and they can just flip the property at a good profit. If you are not in a hurry to sell you should be OK. I would very much doubt that the "buyer" they already have lined up actually exists though.

Oldcynic

inforeq wrote: »

As for the address, I have said previously, all of our paperwork has their address on it.

Is that the Kemp House mail-forwarding address, or their real address in SW19?

Running_Horse

inforeq wrote: »

Running Horse, we have not been offered more than it would be on the open market, our house was reduced by £15,000 at the agent before we took it off them, the price that has been agreed is more or less what we reduced it to.

So any normal buyer would have offered less, a lot less if they knew you were having trouble selling.

Forget Investment Property Group and whether they are a scam for a moment. My name is Mr Brown and I have several million pounds to invest in property. Do I trawl Rightmove and the auctions looking for bargains? Or do I follow up cold call appointments supplied by some start up company with no history whatsoever, making good offers on hard to sell properties? Why would any serious investor pay more for property than they need? They wouldn't.

inforeq

ILW wrote: »

You will probably not lose any money, I believe their modus operandi involves either getting up front fees, or if they cannot do that, hang things out to the point where a desperate seller will then accept a much lower offer and they can just flip the property at a good profit. If you are not in a hurry to sell you should be OK. I would very much doubt that the "buyer" they already have lined up actually exists though.

I can fully appreciate the concerns of the people who have paid up front, they possibly have preyed on their desparation. I thought, (rightly or wrongly) that the signed docs we returned guaranteed the price which Mr Brown was going to pay. If he or IPG do come back at a later date and say they cannot pay that price, are they not then in breach of agreement or contract?

inforeq

Running_Horse wrote: »

So any normal buyer would have offered less, a lot less if they knew you were having trouble selling.

Forget Investment Property Group and whether they are a scam for a moment. My name is Mr Brown and I have several million pounds to invest in property. Do I trawl Rightmove and the auctions looking for bargains? Or do I follow up cold call appointments supplied by some start up company with no history whatsoever, making good offers on hard to sell properties? Why would any serious investor pay more for property than they need? They wouldn't.

with regard to the property being hard to sell - you make my home sound like a hovell Apparantly, with regard to the appointments, all properties which he viewed had been seen via google earth or whatever its called, they were found on gumtree (I know ours and another were on there), a basic evaluation was done via the telephone.

It isnt actually a good offer, its not bad, but not brilliant either. A house has just gone up for sale in our street at the same price as we have received, they do not have a combi-boiler, no conservatory and only part d/glazed.

inforeq

Oldcynic wrote: »

Is that the Kemp House mail-forwarding address, or their real address in SW19?

I am under the impression that Kemp House is a managed building (such as Regis), therefore their telephones are answered by a main switch and the post etc is managed by the same company - the management company could have a differing postcode to Kemp House (just hazzarding a guess).

not_loaded

inforeq wrote: »

It actually pretty well much sums it up, it is of no hardship to us to wait the 180 days as properties around here are not selling. If the 180 days lapse and they are not forthcoming with the deal then all that is lost is our time and hassle (no monies).
Their side of the committment is that they have this buyer "Mr Brown" and an agreement that he is to buy our house at a certain price by the time period.

No. See my post #232 above. (unless you have exchanged contracts by now of course)

inforeq wrote: »

…If he or IPG do come back at a later date and say they cannot pay that price, are they not then in breach of agreement or contract?

No. See my post #232 above.

Running_Horse wrote: »

So Investment Property Group have no history, no satisfied customers, no address, an illiterate website anyone can buy, and use unusual business methods demanding money upfront from desperate people. Wonder why people think they might be a scam.

They apparently have an uneducated (but very satisfied) customer: "Thanks to Mr Jones now of the Investment Property Group my networth value on 5th April 2010 was £36,678,000. Not bad for a private investor with a three year investment stratergy!"

Dunno if Mr Jones knows Mr Brown or not, but for the few weeks that they’ve been in business, nearly £37 million is really going some! Have we missed the boat on this one? I didn’t see it on Martin’s email.

inforeq wrote: »

with regard to the property being hard to sell - you make my home sound like a hovell Apparantly, with regard to the appointments, all properties which he viewed had been seen via google earth or whatever its called, they were found on gumtree (I know ours and another were on there), a basic evaluation was done via the telephone.
It isnt actually a good offer, its not bad, but not brilliant either. A house has just gone up for sale in our street at the same price as we have received, they do not have a combi-boiler, no conservatory and only part d/glazed.

Oh no! The ROTFL icons are coming!