Real estate company offers quick cash, but locks you into a 40-year commitment – WSOC TV

Many people are looking for extra money.

A real estate company offers landlords quick cash – thousands of dollars in some cases – without interest or fees and you don’t even have to pay it back.

MV Realty calls it the “Homeowner Benefits Program”. The company will give you up to $5,000.

All you have to do is sign the contract, saying that if and when you are going to sell your home, it must go through MV Realty for the next 40 years. If you hire another real estate agent during these four decades, you must pay a penalty to MV Realty: 3% of the value of your house.

And if you die, the person who inherits your house is also related.

MV Realty would not do an on-camera interview, saying “short sound bites may not provide the clarity the issue deserves.”

So he emailed a statement, saying that it’s all there in the contract and that the company always makes sure that landlords understand what they’re signing, that MV Realty passes it on in ‘plain English’ as ​​well as in legalese and even gives one to clients. – summary page which also mentions the 40-year commitment. Also, people have three days to withdraw from the agreement after signing.

The company changed its website in the last month. It now mentions the 40-year commitment in large print at the top.

“I felt like I was taking advantage of people,” said a woman who says she worked as a telemarketer for MV Realty.

“We had to make at least 450 outgoing calls a day,” she said.

MV Realty said, yes, that “is part of the job description and is typical of a telemarketing role.”

“They were using a number spoofer for their phone, outgoing phone calls. It would spoof any area code you want,” the former telemarketer said. MV Realty also admits this, saying spoofing is standard technology.

And the former telemarketer says MV Realty targeted people with low incomes or behind on bills. The company says that’s not true and calls it “totally unfounded”.

A former American airwoman, Patricia Bandy, told Stoogenke she was looking for a small, short-term loan and got online. She thinks that’s how MV Realty found her. She says they offered her $900.

Bandy says she signed the contract.

“I received the contract. I read it. I understood that I had to go through MV Realty [to sell her home],” she said. “I didn’t realize 40, no.”

Bandy says that about a year later her father passed away and she decided to follow her dream: to move somewhere with lots of land. She found six acres in Winston-Salem that she loved.

She says she tried to sell her house with MV Realty, but ended up hiring someone else.

“They sent me an initial letter stating that we were bound by contract to use them and that by not using them we were in breach of contract,” she said.

Bandy says MV Realty asked him to pay that 3% penalty for hiring another real estate agent. “It was $14,000 and a few changes,” she said. “That’s an incredible amount of money, especially when you’re a working, middle-class American.”

She says MV Realty filed court documents – similar to a lien – until she paid, which basically meant she couldn’t sell the property, which meant she couldn’t buy the one. that she wanted. “It was a matter of timing. We could have taken this to court. We could have won. But, if we had, we would have lost the whole reason we started this process,” she said. declared.

So Bandy says she paid the $14,000. “I’m angry. I’m angry. I don’t like being taken advantage of. I work hard for the money I have. I have a family to support. And what they basically did was is trying to prevent us from having our share of what we consider to be the American dream,” she said.

MV Realty disagrees. He told Stoogenke that he was very quick to help sell Bandy’s house and even found him a buyer. The company says it did not have the legal status to cut ties.

Several states are investigating the practices of MV Realty: Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. Massachusetts says the company is also on its radar.

Whichever company you do business with:

• Read the fine print.
• If you have questions, ask someone you trust.
• If you need a small loan, there may be better options for you. Here are suggestions from three well-known companies for you to compare: Credit Karma, LendingTree, and WalletHub.

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