In the bay area there seems to be some companies that do this. Every time I turn on the radio there is an ad for "John buys bay area houses".
I think they do exactly what you say, give a quick cheap offer, then do some fixing and sell the normal way for a profit.
Basically, if you can convince someone to sell for x% less than the real price today, you can make x% - some costs. Of course this has huge variability, but the company I noticed do it in one market they probably know extremely well so they can make good bets.
I inquired about selling to a few in a different region. They all expected you to pay for repairs they identify. That's far too open ended of an agreement for me. Perhaps it was limited to structural issues, but that wasn't clearly outlined. I also assume they complete their own repairs using their own staff. I expect that gives them the opportunity to quote me at $1000 for a repair while their cost is lower.
In a red hot market, I opted to let the market decide the price and terms.
I think they do exactly what you say, give a quick cheap offer, then do some fixing and sell the normal way for a profit.
Basically, if you can convince someone to sell for x% less than the real price today, you can make x% - some costs. Of course this has huge variability, but the company I noticed do it in one market they probably know extremely well so they can make good bets.