A local buyer, not a call centre.

Why we started this

Hinge Properties did not start as a business plan. It started with a foreclosure in Los Angeles — a first house that needed updating and taught us what that work actually costs. Our background is supply chain management, a career spent on what things really cost and how long they really take, and there has always been a foot in real estate alongside it. Some of it is simply liking the work: there is a particular satisfaction in taking a house that has been let go and putting it right.

We live in this market now and we buy in it. The view we have come to hold is that there is no such thing as a bad market — there is only what you do with a property, and whether you over-extended yourself getting into it. That is why we price carefully, show you the working, and say so when listing would serve you better. A deal that only works if everything goes right is not a deal we want to make, and it is not one you should want us making on your house.

How we hold ourselves

• The number does not change after you commit

  The most common complaint about this industry is a price that gets renegotiated down once the seller is emotionally committed. We price off the walkthrough. Barring something genuinely hidden — an undisclosed structural issue, a lien nobody knew about — the number we put in writing is the number at closing.

• You are told which kind of buyer we are being

  Most of what we contract we buy with our own funds and renovate ourselves, which is why we can commit to a date and hold it. Occasionally a property suits another investor better and we assign the contract instead — and when that is the plan you are told before you sign, in writing, and the price you agreed does not move. What we will not do is decide that quietly and let you find out at the closing table.

• We will tell you when to list instead

  If your house is in good shape and you are not under time pressure, an agent will almost certainly net you more. We say so. A deal we talk you out of costs us nothing compared to a reputation in a market this small.

• You see the working

  Every offer comes with the comparable sales and the repair estimate behind it. If you think we have the repairs wrong, push back — we have adjusted plenty of times.