Compare Clever Real Estate and UpNest

For Sellers

Partner Agents
25%-40%
Referral Fee
Clever Real Estate does not provide real estate services to home sellers. Instead, this company matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for an undisclosed referral fee. Referral fees set by such networks range anywhere between 25%-40% of the entire agent’s commission.

For Sellers

Referred Agents
30%
Referral Fee
UpNest does not provide real estate services to home sellers. Instead, this company matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for a 30% referral fee. UpNest results suffer from pay-to-play bias because the network does not match consumers with agents unwilling to pay 30% of their commission to UpNest.

For Buyers

Partner Agents
25%-40%
Referral Fee
Clever Real Estate does not provide real estate services to home buyers. Instead, this company matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for an undisclosed referral fee. Referral fees set by such networks range anywhere between 25%-40% of the entire agent’s commission.

For Buyers

Referred Agents
30%
Referral Fee
UpNest does not provide real estate services to home buyers. Instead, this company matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for a 30% referral fee. UpNest results suffer from pay-to-play bias because the network does not match consumers with agents unwilling to pay 30% of their commission to UpNest.
Question: What is the difference between Clever Real Estate and UpNest?
Answer: Both Clever Real Estate and UpNest function as a referral fee network that enables broker-to-broker collusion with use of blanket referral agreements.
Compare Clever Real Estate and UpNest for home buying and selling. HomeOpenly is an impartial and an open resource focused on trending real estate services, portals and start-ups.

First published: 17 February 2019
Last updated: 08 September 2021

Buying and Selling with Clever Real Estate

WARNING: Unlawful Kickbacks, Broker-to-Broker Collusion, False Marketing, Wire Fraud, Price Fixing.

Clever Real Estate is a broker-to-broker collusion scheme, where "partner agents" unlawfully agree to pay massive kickbacks to receive your information and engage in market allocation, consumer allocation, false advertising, unlawful kickbacks, wire fraud, and price-fixing practices in violation of, inter alia, 18 U.S.C. § 1346, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, 15 U.S.C. § 1, 15 U.S.C. § 45, 12 U.S.C. § 2607, 12 C.F.R. § 1024.14. As a consumer, you will always significantly overpay for Realtor commissions subject to hidden kickbacks and pay-to-play steering promoted in this scheme.

United States federal antitrust laws prohibit consumer allocation and blanket referral agreements between real estate companies.

Be smart; do not allow your information to be "sold as a lead" to a double-dealing Realtor in exchange for massive commission kickbacks paid from your future home sale, or your future home purchase.


Clever Real Estate is a referral fee network designed to collect fees by matching consumers with local real estate agents willing to pay it. Clever Real Estate operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in Missouri under License #2017042277, but it does not produce any services that are typically offered by real estate agents and does not represent consumers when buying or selling real estate in any State.

When consumers submit information to Clever Real Estate, this information is simply shared in exchange for an undisclosed fee with real estate agents in a process known as a "blind match."

Clever Real Estate Pricing

Clever Real Estate revenue comes from undisclosed referral fees. Referral fees set by such networks range anywhere between 25%-40% of the entire agent’s commission.

Listing Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Sellers

Buyer's Agent Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Buyers

Clever Real Estate Editor's Review:

Clever Real Estate is a referral network that claims it does not endorse, validate, or recommend any legal agreements between homeowners and buyers and real estate professionals, but we find these claims to be false.

Using its website, Clever Real Estate engages in a process known as price fixing because it sets listing rates and rebates for independent real estate professionals using the network.

Clever Real Estate sets a flat listing fee of $3,000 for homes sold under $350,000 and 1% listing fee for homes sold over that amount; for home Buyers Clever Real Estate sets a 1% rebate. For purposes of the present discussion, brokerage fees are always negotiable and no broker should set rates and rebates for other brokers. Each firm should establish its own policy as to its fee structure and charges, amount of commissions, and rebates.

Price fixing is prohibited by federal antitrust legislation. Individual agents must never discuss, or set rates with brokers outside of their own company. By setting rates and rebates for other brokers across the United States, Clever Real Estate operates with a sole purpose to collect referral fees, where such service effectively results in lower quality of service, pay-to-play bias, and a "blind match" with agents willing to participate.

Consumers using this network have zero control over what agents the company shares their information with. Instead of being "sold as leads" consumers looking for a competitive and fair representation can consider negotiating directly with real estate agents, or with help from unbiased consumer-focused online services that do not collect referral fees.

Why Price-Fixing Damages Consumer Experience

Clever Real Estate claims to connect consumers with an agent who will charge $3000 or 1% of the home, and that their "service" is free. First of all, Clever Real Estate is not free, their fees are simply hidden within a referral fee that the agent will pay after the transaction.

More importantly, price-fixing is an uncompetitive practice, and every agent who participates with Clever Real Estate is a participant in the scheme. Saving consumers from having to pay excessive brokerage fees can never be justified with price-fixing, especially in exchange for a financial gain between brokers.

Antitrust laws are essential for real estate professionals. Real estate professionals customarily operate in cooperation and competition with one another, a practice that presents a host of opportunities for antitrust violations. In reality, it is easy to comply with antitrust laws. Agents simply need to be aware of the rules and take care to conduct business lawfully.

Several laws combine to form the core of federal antitrust laws, but the Sherman Act is the primary piece of these regulations. Section 1 of the Sherman Act states: “Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce … is declared to be illegal.” This means that (1) there must at least two parties agreeing to take action, and (2) the agreed-upon action must restrain free trade.

The parties in this case are Clever Real Estate and any broker they refer you to. These two independent parties are carrying out a common course of action by setting fixed commissions with the use of blanket referral agreements for mutual financial gain.

Agents must never agree on commission rates or rebate amounts with any outside party. Agents must take care to avoid even the implication that they have discussed or reached an agreement about their service fees, service offerings, and rates due to any outside influence.

Commission rates should never be fixed through collusion. All commissions and rebates must be set by each real estate agent individually and may only be negotiable between the consumer and the real estate agent.

Further, it is a per se violation of antitrust laws for brokers to set “standard” compensation that will be paid to other brokers. Referral fees amount paid to Clever Real Estate (the money it receives for your information) are "blanket" fee agreements.

Real estate agents (only when they act in full brokerage capacity) may discuss or negotiate the referral fees concerning an individual transaction, but real estate professionals are not allowed to enter into “uniform” or “blanket” agreement on how a commission will be split, or a “standard” referral fee paid. The reason for this is exactly the premise behind the Clever Real Estate business model – brokers (yes, Clever Real Estate is a broker) work to steer consumers toward other brokers in exchange for a pre-arranged referral fees.

From this discussion, it becomes clear that quality and honest real estate professionals establish pricing for their services independently, and without any kickbacks. The truth is, every single agent is different, and every single agent has an individual commission structure.

While Clever Real Estate price fixes an arbitrary rate for all agents, such proposition becomes absurd when comparing home transactions worth $15 Million to home transactions worth $150,000 in different states, rural, or urban areas, variable market conditions, etc. Obviously, in some situations, consumers' interest maybe with the lowest fees, in other cases, consumers are looking for the most experienced agents, etc.

The true VALUE of any real estate agent is their ability to negotiate honestly. If an agent is unwilling to negotiate competitive terms in compliance with the law, there is no reason for consumers to assume that they will be willing to negotiate competitively when it comes to their home purchase or a home sale.

Why Does Clever Real Estate Engage in Price Fixing?

Clever Real Estate is a price-fixing and a consumer allocation scheme between licensed brokers. All price-fixing agreements are illegal "per se" regardless of whether they are reasonable or not. Whatever economic justification particular price-fixing agreements may be thought to have, the law does not permit an inquiry into their reasonableness. They are all banned.

Clever Real Estate engages in price-fixing because it needs a "dangling carrot in front of consumers" to "reasonably" justify the kickbacks it takes from the brokers who patriciate in the scheme. This dynamic is better known as a hub-and-spoke conspiracy. Clever scheme produces absolutely no tangible service as a licensed broker to anyone and instead delivers either inflated prices, lower quality of service, or, more likely, both. The scheme originates as a conspiracy to restrain trade and to funnel consumers toward the scheme and away from the open market. There are hundreds of thousands of highly competitive Realtors® who offer great savings and great service, and they refuse to pay kickbacks or to comply with the price fixed rates set by Clever.

The kickback is the principal origination point for Clever Real Estate. The kickback is the reason why Clever sets listing commission rates and buyer rebates for Realtors® outside their firm. ALL consumers and ALL legitimate Realtors® are scammed by Clever Real Estate, even if the experience and savings may seem "good enough" because price-fixing is a faulty shortcut to genuine open competition between Realtors®. By law, all Realtors® must compete for consumers and set prices individually. Open competition is at the core of our free and independent society everywhere in America.

The Realtor® commissions in the United States have long suffered from the "standard" 6% myth and the false notion that "buyer agents work for free." However, these myths cannot be resolved with price-fixing of commissions to some other level, in exchange for kickbacks. ALL Realtors® who participate in the Clever Real Estate scheme are engaged in price-fixing. The Sherman Act imposes criminal penalties of up to $100 million for a corporation and $1 million for an individual, along with up to 10 years in prison. No legitimate Realtor® will ever willingly allow themselves to be exposed to such massive liability.

The best, highly-experienced, well-educated, law-abiding, honest, and ethical Realtors® will never participate in price-fixing because it is a felony that carries massive penalties. The best Realtors are able to recognize price fixing as wrong because they respect the true value of honest negotiations.

The prices set by Clever Real Estate are not for the services that they offer, but for services offered by their direct competitors – other brokers. When Clever Real Estate refuses to compete with these brokers and instead organizes "partner agents" into a network, it breaks an entire host of basic principles that guide our open and fair markets. Moreover, Clever brokerage, which is based in Missouri, extends this conspiracy all across the United States, making the scheme highly damaging due to the scaled use of the Internet to transmit collusion. The Internet, like any other scaled information medium, can be used to transmit competition just as easily as collusion.

The short answer is: Clever Real Estate's intent to fix prices is directly tied into the kickbacks it receives from the "partner agents." This dynamic is archived by allocation of consumers to competitors and by the restraint of genuine competition. The "standard commissions" problem in the residential real estate sector can only be fixed legally by encouraging Realtors® to set and advertise competitive prices to consumers at scale without paying any kickbacks. Kickbacks cost thousands in open market savings lost to consumers.

Update: on June 19, 2019, Clever Real Estate has originated a request to the editor asking for this review to be removed.

The following is a link to the notice originated by Clever Real Estate, dated June 19, 2019.

The following is a link to the reply written by the editor of this review, dated June 28, 2019.

Where does Clever Real Estate operate?

Clever Real Estate currently operates in select areas across United States.

Buying and Selling with UpNest

WARNING: Unlawful Kickbacks, Broker-to-Broker Collusion, False Marketing, Wire Fraud, Price Fixing.

UpNest is a broker-to-broker collusion scheme, where "partner agents" unlawfully agree to pay massive kickbacks to receive your information and engage in market allocation, consumer allocation, false advertising, unlawful kickbacks, wire fraud, and price-fixing practices in violation of, inter alia, 18 U.S.C. § 1346, 18 U.S.C. § 1343, 15 U.S.C. § 1, 15 U.S.C. § 45, 12 U.S.C. § 2607, 12 C.F.R. § 1024.14. As a consumer, you will always significantly overpay for Realtor commissions subject to hidden kickbacks and pay-to-play steering promoted in this scheme.

United States federal antitrust laws prohibit consumer allocation and blanket referral agreements between real estate companies.

Be smart; do not allow your information to be "sold as a lead" to a double-dealing Realtor in exchange for massive commission kickbacks paid from your future home sale, or your future home purchase.


UpNest works as a referral fee network that collects pricing and services data from a limited pool of Referred Agents and sends it to consumers as non-binding proposals. UpNest operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in California under BRE License # 01928572, but it does not produce any services that are typically offered by real estate agents and does not represent consumers when buying or selling real estate in any State.

When consumers submit information to UpNest, this information is simply sold to real estate agents who are willing to pay for it with a 30% share of their commission. If an Agent does not want to pay a referral fee, the consumer will not see any proposals from them using the UpNest platform.

UpNest claims to provide savings, but consumers are likely to overpay for their Referred Agent's commission due to added mandatory 30% referral fee.

UpNest Pricing

UpNest revenue comes from referral fees and sale of user data.

Listing Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Sellers

Buyer's Agent Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Buyers

UpNest Editor's Review:

UpNest is a referral fee network in business to collect fees for matching brokers with consumers. Referral fees are highly disadvantageous for real estate consumers because these are hidden and not negotiated. One of the major expenses for real estate consumers, when buying or selling a home, is real estate service fees and closing costs associated with the purchase, or sale.

Service fees and closing costs are, for the most part, a necessary expense. Real estate agents significantly help home buyers and sellers to navigate a complicated and competitive real estate process in exchange for a legitimate commission as a reward. Other closing fees usually include required services such as property appraisals, inspections, title insurance, etc. – all in some way help to legitimize the sale and to manage risk. There can be much said with regards to managing closing costs by choosing a motivated competitive agent who is willing to offer a buyer’s refund or a competitive listing rate.

On the other hand, while claiming it saves money to consumers, UpNest simply adds referral fees into already a fee-ridden process – consumers experience false and fabricated savings in this model. In economics, this process is known as reverse competition.

The platform works with a limited pool of Referral Agents willing to pay a very significant part of their commission to UpNest. This referral fee is back-loaded into Referred Agent's agreement, instead of being handed to the consumer directly. The consumer technically does not pay UpNest, but he/she ends up with a higher cost of commissions when working with their Referred Agent. UpNest is not a free platform, these fees are simply hidden.

Let's say a real estate consumer, James, wants to hire a buyer’s agent in one of the States that allow buyer's rebates when buying a median-priced home for $250,000. A local competitive buyer’s agent, Jill, offers James a 50% buyer's refund while helping him in this process. This is a typical refund Jill is able to organically negotiate with all her customers. The estimated commission refund, in this case, is $3,750 paid back to James from Jill in a form of buyer's refund, assuming a 3% Buyer’s Agent Commission.

On the other hand, James also receives non-binding proposals using UpNest platform from Referred Agents with a 30% referral fee attached to the back of every proposal. When James is faced with these types of proposals, results are quite different. Firmly assuming that the profit margins and service offerings remain the same for Jill and Referral Agents using UpNest, any possible buyer's refund offered by Referral Agents must be reduced to account for the UpNest referral fees. The referral fee in this scenario estimated at $1,125 due to UpNest from a Referral Agent. With the profit margin fixed, the estimated commission refund a Referral Agent may offer to James is now only $2,625.

James just effectively “paid” UpNest $1,125 for a service that is supposed to be “free”.

One reason the amount of savings may ever be matched by Referred Agents versus Jill's competitive savings is due to broker-to-broker pricing collusion - if Referral Agent is willing to reduce their fee beyond market rates to compensate UpNest out of their own pocket, which is highly unlikely and unreasonable to assume.

Because referral fees are pre-set between UpNest and Referral Agents in advance, the cost of the referral has to be eventually be paid by the real estate consumer.

The reason we give UpNest a low score is due to exigent fees and the way these fees are structured. UpNest plays down fees to consumers, it states directly that the service is 100% free, but then it rigidly locks every Referred Agent into an added cost. The vast majority of competitive agents refuse to play this game and UpNest simply steers consumers toward a limited pay-to-play network. As a licensed real estate agent that doesn't perform any real estate services, or takes any responsibility for the transaction, it's not entirely clear how this process works under the Business and Professions Code.

Should real estate agents distribute "bids" of other agents for a fee? If one to say that the 30% fee is indeed necessary, why not structure it as an actual service fee that is properly charged, instead of having to be back-loaded into Referral Agent's agreement? The answer is simple – if UpNest was to charge Agents for its service directly, no Agent would ever sign-up. Agents only sign-up with UpNest because the price of the referral fee can be easily incorporated into their client's agreement.

UpNest clearly doesn't provide any tangible value to the real estate consumers as a licensed real estate agent. UpNest further audits all transactions because it needs to find out how much money real estate agents receive in commissions, inevitably collecting private details of consumer’s agreement for home purchase or sale.

This effect is known as a “blind” match. Truly competitive agents who offer great savings to consumers can never use UpNest. For example, a highly competitive flat fee listing service has a set competitive price – they would never be able to pay 30% of this amount to a third-party. UpNest 30% referral fee only works is with services who are “silent” on their commission – if a client comes directly to an agent, one price is given, if a client uses UpNest, another price is in play. We strongly believe that real estate consumers looking to buy or sell a home should always use 0% referral fee platforms in order to avoid paying a higher cost in commissions.

By using UpNest, consumers further encourage pay-to-play referral fee bias to thrive in a broken real estate industry.

Where does UpNest operate?

UpNest currently operates in select areas across United States.