Here's yet another clever gimmick by one of the country's most prolific "rapid resellers" of decrepit homes. The franchiser HomeVestors of America Inc., a Dallas company responsible for those loud "We Buy Ugly Houses.com" billboards, is sponsoring an Ugliest House of the Year contest -- among its own properties, that is. The 10 "finalists" in its nationwide inventory include this North Philadelphia student-rental house near Temple University, owned by HomeVestors franchisee Nick Cifaldi of Cifaldi Property Investments L.L.C. (Nasty, yes. But our choice was the shack in Phoenix.)
Ugly, in fact, is HomeVestors' stock in trade. The company quotes Cifaldi as proudly sayng: "The property was a complete dump. We replaced everything from the floors, walls, roof, windows, beams and heater. You could literally see through to the basement." HomeVestors' business model seems to be based on the particular ability, as the company's CEO has been quoted as saying, to buy stressed homes for two-thirds of what they would be worth in good condition, then quickly spruce up and sell them. Hence the term "rapid resellers."
Cifaldi of Philadelphia already seems to be a cottage celebrity for HomeVestors, having been featured in an article about rapid resellers by The Daily News and a less-than-glowing piece in the New York Times last year. The Times noted that some traditional brokers are miffed at this kind of business, but it also reports fnding a dearth of actual consumer complaints about them.
