There's a builder in my town who offers something called a 'home trade program'. Just like trading cars, they buy your house when you buy theirs. That's not the part in question. They'll pay several thousand more for your house than it's worth if they need to so that you can afford to buy their higher priced homes. I do know that there are legal limits to where you can get cash to put into a house, and that it has to be disclosed (like a gift from a parent or something). And that the builder couldn't just give you $25,000 to use to purchase his house. so is it basically the same thing to pay you $25,000 extra for your house?

The other side of the story is that the houses you buy from them are overpriced about $25,000 (compared to other houses in the neighborhood).
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I have a friend who works for an appraiser. She says that her boss knows that the appraisals that are done only use their houses as comps, and not others in the area that would show lower values. I wanted to go ahead, but my real estate agent said that when people go to re-sell the new home they bought, then they can't get what they paid. I guess if you were given $25,000 more for your house, you didn't really pay an extra $25,000... but it still seems like it somehow.