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Comment by stanleydrew | Hacker News Reader

This is a reasonable take, but I think it's also reasonable to suggest that if current system execution is too expensive then perhaps a new regulation could make it cheaper.

Of course there are perhaps unintended side effects from new regulation, but "this is already a crime, we don't need anything new" isn't prima facie a sufficient argument.

If a lot of a similar type of crime is going unpunished, there may be a reason other than "enforcement agencies are lazy", and perhaps a new law can help.

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They are essentially a market maker for housing. You can sell your house to them _today_. It's necessary that they pay you substantially under market. If you want a good price, it'll take you 6 months to sell your house. You're paying a premium for immediate execution.

Once you punish the fraud and crime, there's no problem left IMO. There's multiple of these companies competing and you should price shop before selling to one.

There’s a general problem with low friction transactions being used to exploit people with diminished capacity, particularly when intermediaries are involved (another common one in UK is signing them up for multiple phone contracts) and there may be some regulatory innovation possible in this area. Punishment after the fact is not sufficient if it doesn’t adequately prevent this population being exploited.

What is someone who owns a house but has reduced mental capacity supposed to do? The house is worth $500k, someone offers them $300k, the person doesn't have the mental capacity to shop around... I'm just not sure what the right solution here is. I'm afraid it would be even worse if they weren't allowed to sell.

I think the important part is that both parties go into the transaction with full information and a genuine meeting of the minds, which is obviously not the case in this market.

I use eBay's "Buy It Now" functionality all the time, in preference to the "Wait 7 days and deal with snipers" auctions. I fully know that I'm trading low-price for low-friction.

That laserdisc player is only jokingly a life changing transaction.

I see no reason to excuse fraud and deception, those are not convenient low friction services.

I see no reason to ignore how there is supposed to be a take-backs provision which they are merely getting around, producing exactly the outcome those provisions were created to prevent.

The real problem is that mortgages aren't as good as cash when buying a house. If someone needs to sell quick or if there are issues with the house they have to rely on these discount buyers. The protections that slow down the mortgage process have their use but it's one of those situations where the cure is worse than the disease.

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