By now, everyone’s seen a “We Buy Ugly Houses” sign somewhere at least once. You might’ve even called the advertised phone number to see if you could get a good offer on your house, ugly or not.
The branding is part of HomeVestors of America’s house-flipping operation. Based in Dallas, the company franchises out to enterprising individuals across the country who are looking to get into the real estate game.
A long rebound in home prices following the Great Recession and the tightening of housing supply during the pandemic made for a decent market to jump into, with local franchisees buying fixer-uppers and renovating them for resale.
Unfortunately for HomeVestors of America, one of its franchisees in Texas recently made headlines for allegedly abusing the business model to run a Ponzi scheme, scamming tens of millions of dollars from unsuspecting investors in the D-FW area…