In light of the foregoing...

...this scam is only going to grow.

You must have seen the billboards, or even fliers stapled to telephone poles: We Buy Houses. These are the bottom-feeders of the real estate speculation world, preying on people who are in deep dookie and about to be foreclosed on. These folks would respond, "Hey, we're just trying to make a buck." Yeah, Jack, in a way sufficiently sleazy that it makes legislatures want to legislate, and that makes life hard for the rest of us.

As an experiment, I sent one of these outfits the specs on a couple of lots I wanted to sell. They sent me an offer (with a boatload of conditions) in a letter that tried to convince me how magnanimous their bid was. I ignored them. A month later they had the audacity to send me a nasty letter saying that, since I had not responded, they were withdrawing their offer. I continued to ignore them. Six months later I received another letter from them saying that even though I was still ignoring them, they were renewing their offer. Sorry boys, that train had already left the station. I'd already sold the lots for over two-and-a-half times what they had offered.

Bottom feeders indeed.