Sell a Fire-Damaged House in the Bay Area

A house fire is one of the most disorienting things that can happen to a family. In a few hours you lose belongings, photographs, a sense of where home is, and you inherit a months-long fight with your insurer over scope, depreciation, and replacement cost. The structure itself becomes a separate problem. It is unlivable, often uninsurable going forward, and selling it through normal channels is almost impossible because conventional lenders will not lend on a fire-damaged property.

We buy fire-damaged Bay Area homes regularly. From small kitchen fires that turned into total losses because the firefighters had to flood the house, to full-structure burnouts where only the foundation and a chimney are left standing. The Bay Area wildfire season has made this more common over the last decade. We have closed on properties in the East Bay hills, the Wine Country, the Santa Cruz Mountains foothills, and the urban East Bay where a single-unit kitchen fire spread.

Here is what makes selling fire-damaged property to us different from listing it.

No lender involved. A fire-damaged home cannot be financed by a typical FHA, VA, or conventional buyer. That eliminates 90% of the retail buyer pool before you start. We are cash, so the financing problem is not our problem.

No insurance gymnastics on your end. You can sell us the property and assign the insurance claim, sell us the property after you settle the claim, or sell with the claim still open. We have done all three. We work with public adjusters and insurance counsel regularly and can advise on what each path looks like financially. We are not insurance professionals, so for the actual claim strategy you talk to your adjuster or attorney. But we can tell you what each scenario typically yields at our purchase side.

We handle the demolition and rebuild. You are not responsible for tearing down what is left, hauling debris, or restoring the lot. After we close, that is our work.

We close on your timeline. Some fire sellers want to be done in three weeks because they are renting and the insurance Additional Living Expense coverage is running out. Some want six months while they finalize the claim and find a new permanent home. Both are fine.

The hardest part of these transactions is rarely the real estate. It is the family deciding whether to rebuild or move on. If you are still deciding, call us anyway. We can give you a number for the as-is sale, you can compare it to what a rebuild plus the rebuilt home's value would look like, and you can make an informed decision. We have walked away from fire-property sales because the owner decided to rebuild after seeing the math. We have also closed quickly for families who realized rebuilding the same home in the same location was not what they wanted anymore.

Call or text 415-800-1415, or fill out the form below. We will set up a walk of the property as soon as it is safe to enter, and have a written offer the same day.