Terms of Service

What this agreement covers

These terms are an agreement between you and OWC RE (Owner Will Carry Real Estate), the operator of owcre.com. By using the site — browsing listings, saving a draft, registering an account or posting a property — you agree to them. If you do not agree, please do not use the site.

The site serves buyers and sellers in the United States and Canada. These terms describe what we do, what we ask of you, and where responsibility sits. They reflect the site as it works today; anything not live yet is marked as such, and this page will be updated when it launches.

What OWC RE is, and what it is not

OWC RE is an advertising platform and a set of calculation tools. We introduce owners who are willing to carry financing to buyers looking for it, and we help both sides model a deal.

We are not a lender, a mortgage broker, a real estate broker or agent, an escrow or title company, an attorney, an appraiser, an inspector, or a warranty provider. We do not take possession of any property, set or negotiate terms, screen or approve buyers, fund or service a loan, hold earnest money, or close a transaction. We are not a party to any deal between a buyer and a seller.

Every transaction is made directly between the parties. Before you sign anything, have the contract, the deed, the note, the tax treatment and the property condition reviewed by licensed professionals of your own choosing in the state or province where the property sits.

Your account

• You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter a contract to hold an account or post a listing.
• Give us a real email address and keep your details up to date. That address is how we reach you about your account.
• One account per person or business. Keep your password private and tell us promptly if you think someone else has used your account — you are responsible for activity carried out under it.
• Choose buyer or seller when you register. A buyer membership unlocks buyer features; sellers can list without one.
• If you act for an owner, a partnership, an LLC or a trust, confirm you are authorised to list on their behalf.

Listings you post

• You keep ownership of everything you post. You grant us permission to display, store, format and distribute it on the site and in its search results.
• You confirm you have the right to advertise the property and that the information is accurate and current — price, down payment, interest rate, amortisation, balloon date, monthly expenses, rental income, vacancy, taxes and photos.
• Only list property you are entitled to sell, and never list someone else's property or someone else's photographs.
• Do not put your email address or phone number inside the description text. When publishing goes live, the description is public, and anything written there can be copied and used by anyone who reads it.
• You can withdraw a listing at any time. We can decline, pause or remove any listing, and can ask you to correct information we think is wrong or misleading.

Fair housing

You must not use the site to state, imply or act on a preference, limitation or discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, familial status, marital status, disability, national origin, ancestry, or any other characteristic protected where the property is located.

That applies to headlines, descriptions, photo captions, requirements such as "no children" or "adults only", and to the way you screen or respond to enquiries. Listings that do this will be removed and the account behind them may be closed.

What you must not do

• Copy, scrape or systematically download listings, photos or contact details from the site, by robot, script or any other automated means.
• Harvest email addresses or phone numbers to send marketing, solicitations or solicitations-for-investment.
• Post false, deceptive or stale listings, bait prices, or terms no real seller would honour.
• Use the site to promote a different business, funnel traffic elsewhere, or run a scheme that raises money from buyers.
• Interfere with the site's security, probe it for weaknesses, or upload anything designed to damage or intercept it.
• Impersonate another person or business, or use our name, logo or marks without written permission.

Fees, membership and billing

• Seller listings — Basic is free. Deluxe is $4.99 and Featured is $6.99 USD per listing every 30 days. Both paid listing plans renew automatically every 30 days until canceled by the customer. Basic allows one photo; Deluxe and Featured allow up to eight.
• Buyer membership — $9.99 per month after a 14-day free trial, or $89.91 per year. Both renew automatically until you cancel.
• Cancel a trial before it ends and you are not charged. Cancel a paid plan and access runs to the end of the period you already paid for.
• Prices may change. If they do, the new price is shown before you are charged, and existing paid periods are not repriced mid-term.
• Paid seller listings use Stripe Checkout after administrator approval. Starting a draft does not charge you. Your listing becomes live only after payment is verified. Cancel automatic renewal from your listing's Payment & cancellation page; paid placement continues through the period already paid for. Buyer membership checkout is not available yet.

Paid placement

Deluxe and Featured are paid upgrades. A Featured listing can appear on the homepage and in regional placement, and paid listings can be shown ahead of free ones in search results.

So a listing's position may reflect what the seller paid, not only how well it matches your filters. We say that plainly here so nobody mistakes rank for merit.

Calculators and estimates

The monthly payment, ownership cost, cap rate, total interest, amortisation schedule and property tax estimate are arithmetic run on the numbers you enter, plus an estimated county tax rate where you use that lookup.

They are estimates for information only. They are not a loan quote, a pre-approval, a commitment to lend, an appraisal, a tax opinion, or legal or investment advice. A real seller-financed note may charge differently, prepay differently, and carry fees these figures do not include.

The county tax figure is an estimate drawn from public survey data for the county, not an assessment. It can be wrong for a particular parcel. Verify the real rate and the real bill with the county tax authority before you rely on it.

You can override the estimated tax figure with your own number, and you should.

Demonstration listings

The properties shown on the site today are demonstrations we wrote so the pages could be seen working. They are not real homes or businesses for sale, and no owner behind them is offering financing.

When real publishing goes live, listings will come from sellers and this section will be updated.

Drafts and photos stay on your device

Your listing wizard draft and any photos you add are saved in your own browser on the device you used. They are not uploaded to our servers, because publishing is not connected yet.

That means they are not backed up by us. Clearing this site's data, using a private window, or moving to another device or browser will lose them, and a draft started on one device will not appear on another.

Outside services

Parts of the site run through services we do not own: Google for the Google sign-in button, the U.S. Census Bureau for the address and county tax lookups, and Zippopotam.us for the postal-code city lookup. Their own terms and privacy policies apply to the parts they handle, and we are not responsible for how they operate.

Stripe processes paid listing subscriptions and payment details under its own terms and privacy policy. Your card-statement name is OWCRE.COM. Transactional email is not connected yet.

Our content

The site's design, code, wording, logos and layout belong to OWC RE. You may use the site for your own buying or selling; you may not republish, resell or imitate it without written permission.

Stopping, suspending and closing

You can stop using the site at any time and ask us to close your account and delete the record of it.

We can warn, pause, suspend or close an account, and remove listings, where these terms are broken, where activity puts other users or the site at risk, or where we are asked to by someone with a genuine legal right over the content.

The parts of these terms that are meant to last — ownership of content, disclaimers, limits of liability — keep applying after an account closes.

No warranty

The site is provided as it is and as it is available. We do not promise that listings are accurate, complete or still available; that a seller will actually carry financing on the terms advertised; that a buyer is qualified; or that the site will run without interruption or error.

Nothing here is a promise that a deal will happen, and nothing here replaces your own due diligence or your own professionals.

Limits of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, OWC RE is not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, or for lost profits, lost data, or lost opportunity, arising out of your use of the site, out of a listing you saw on it, or out of a transaction with another user.

To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability for any claim arising from your use of the site is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim. Where the law does not allow a limit, we limit our responsibility to the smallest extent it permits.

If you cause a problem

If you post a listing you had no right to post, break these terms, or use the site in a way that gets us a claim, you will cover the reasonable costs and legal fees that come out of it.

Changes to these terms

When these terms change we revise the date at the top of the page and call out anything material — for example the day payments start, or the day listings become public — rather than burying it. Your continued use of the site after a change means you accept it.

Governing law and disputes

If something goes wrong, please write to us first; most problems are small and get solved by one honest email.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of __________, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules, and the parties submit to its courts, except that either side may still bring a claim in small-claims court where allowed.

Contact us

Questions about these terms, a listing you believe is false, or a fair housing concern: email terms@owcre.com and we will follow up.