The Variable That Separates the Offers
Zone status. Whether the parcel sits in a mapped fire hazard severity zone, and what follows from that.
It changes the buyer's construction cost, because a mapped parcel requires a Class A roof, ignition-resistant walls, ember-resistant vents and dual-glazed windows that an unmapped one does not. It changes the seller's obligations, because a high or very high zone triggers the defensible space documentation requirement. And it changes what the finished house is worth, because insurability in a mapped zone is materially harder.
Three effects, one lookup. A buyer who has connected all three has a number that survives diligence. A buyer who has treated the zone as a line on a map has a gap in theirs.
Why Does So Much Inland Capital Come From the Coast?
What We Buy
Fire-damaged residential property across Riverside County, in any condition from smoke to bare pad. Structure fires and wildfire losses. Mapped parcels and unmapped ones. Inside city limits and in unincorporated territory. Claims open, settled, denied and uninsured. Owner-occupied, tenanted, vacant and inherited.
Where we decline it is geography. Outside the county and the immediately neighbouring Inland Empire markets we are the wrong buyer and will say so rather than take the enquiry and waste your fortnight.
How the Number Is Built
Finished value of a house on that parcel, less the cost of getting there at the standard the zone requires, less carrying cost, less margin. California charges a documentary transfer tax on the conveyance, which your escrow officer will quote precisely.
The two lines that make our numbers differ from an out-of-area buyer's are the construction standard and the insurability of the finished house. We would rather show you both than have you discover them in week three.
Where Our Interests Diverge From Yours
We are the buyer. Not an adviser, not neutral. We benefit if you accept less and decide quickly.
One place that second point genuinely aligns with your interest is the carrying cost. Insuring a vacant fire-damaged structure in a mapped zone is expensive and sometimes difficult to place at all, so a decision made in six weeks generally serves you better than the same decision in six months. That is true whoever you sell to and true if you do not sell.
Everything else on this site is checkable against a public source and we name them: the state fire marshal's zone viewer, the county assessor, the county recorder, the building department that covers your parcel.
We are also not brokers, not public adjusters, not contractors, not contract assigners and not lawyers.
When a Different Buyer Is the Right One
A lot buyer, on a larger parcel. Where the land supports substantially more than what burned, somebody pricing the dirt will beat us. Parcels here are big enough that this happens more often than in the coastal markets.
A local rehabber, where the fire was contained. Where the slab and framing came through, restoring is their business and they can pay closer to finished value than a buyer pricing a compliant rebuild.
Nobody — repair it. Two situations. Where the repair sits well below finished value, restoring and listing nets more. And on older, modestly valued housing where a full compliant rebuild would cost more than the finished house is worth, the repaired building is the asset and anyone pricing it as a teardown is offering too little.
Why Would You Argue Against Your Own Purchase?
Reaching Us
Send an address through any form on this site. Before you deal with us, ask us the zone question set out on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart, and read what applies where on our page covering fire zones, defensible space and county differences.