Austin Hellickson

I built this site so a seller could see both ways of selling before picking one.

The postcard offering to buy your house quickly describes one path. The agent asking for your listing describes the other. Each has a reason to leave out the half it doesn’t sell.

When you ask me about selling, you get both paths in writing. On one side, a listing plan: a price range built from sales of similar homes near you, a short list of what to fix and what to leave alone, and a net sheet showing what you’d keep. On the other side, if you want it, a cash offer request to investor buyers in the Homexa® network. Then the two go on one page and you choose.

About the name

“Sold or I Buy” is shorthand, and I want to be plain about what it means. I don’t buy your house. The “buy” side is an independent investor who may or may not make an offer after looking at it. Any offer, and its price, is that buyer’s decision. I represent you in either case, and my job is the same on both paths: get you the best terms available and make sure you understand every one of them.

What I do

My title is Managing Broker with LPT Realty. In Washington that is a separate license from the standard broker license, and it takes more experience and coursework to earn. My office is on Fryar Avenue in Sumner, which puts most of Pierce County and the south end of King County within a reasonable drive.

I’m also part of Homexa®, a network of 300+ agents across 25 states. It is how the cash offer side of this site works: investor buyers connected to agents in the network can review a home and decide whether to make an offer. It also helps when you are moving out of state and need a good agent at the other end.

When I come to see a house, I’m looking at it the way a buyer’s inspector and an investor will: the age of the roof and the water heater, the crawl space, the panel, the windows, the grade around the foundation. Then I look at it the way a buyer walking in on a Saturday will, which is a different list entirely. Both views go into the plan, because both sides of the comparison depend on them.

How I’d like to work with you

Plainly. If the numbers say you should list, I’ll tell you. If a cash offer makes more sense for your situation, I’ll tell you that too. And if neither makes sense right now, waiting is a legitimate answer and I’ll say so.

You’ll get a price range with the reasoning behind it, and you set the price. I’ll go through every line of every offer with you, including the ones that look boring, like the earnest money deadline and the possession date. I won’t tell you a house is worth more than the comparable sales support just to win the listing. An inflated price usually costs a seller weeks on the market, and then money.

What I’ll ask of you

Tell me what you know about the house, including the parts you’d rather not mention. The water in the crawl space every February, or the addition a previous owner built without a permit. Most Washington sellers fill out a seller disclosure statement under RCW 64.06, which asks about exactly these things. Every one of them is easier to handle when we plan for it than when a buyer’s inspector finds it in week two.

Tell me your real timing, too. A seller who has to start a new job in Spokane on the first of the month has a different best option than one thinking about downsizing sometime next year, even if their houses are identical.

Where I work

Mostly Pierce and King counties: Sumner, Puyallup, Bonney Lake, Lake Tapps, Orting, Tacoma, Lakewood, Gig Harbor, Auburn, Kent, Enumclaw and the towns between them. If your home is somewhere else in Washington, call me anyway. I’ll either help or point you to someone who can.

Austin