Home Bay is a multi-state savings broker, offers consumers listing savings and buyer's refunds in select areas across California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Texas, and Colorado.
Offers savings to sellers (2,500 USD base flat listing fee) and buyers (50% of the Buyer’s Agent Commission).
It should be noted that Home Bay flat fee rates do modestly increase relative to the home's sale price according to the company’s fee schedule, so the final listing rate flat rate will vary.
Home Bay is a consumer-focused flat fee real estate broker. As a listing agent, Home Bay works with a seller to prepare homes for listing, including taking professional photos, pricing home, and publishing marketing materials.
Home Bay lists all homes on the local MLS as well as typical MLS Aggregators. Home Bay maintains a well-designed online platform that allows sellers to communicate with all parties involved in a sale.
As a buyer's agent, Home Bay works with buyers to find a home, schedule inspections, negotiate repairs and finalize the purchase.
Home Bay offers overall great value to consumers looking to buy or sell a home.
HomeVestors (also known as We Buy Ugly Houses) is a franchise network where each individual local franchisee considers the condition of a home and makes an offer to pay cash for the property. In determining the offer, each franchisee discounts from the estimated retail value after it’s fully renovated.
HomeVestors franchisees make money with a difference between buying and selling each home. Typically an offer equal to 70% of home value is expected from this type of sale after any cost of the repairs and resale.
HomeVestors franchisee will buy a home at a price that is below market value due to necessary repairs, renovation, and other factors. After the franchisee buys the home, it renovates and resells it for a profit or rents it out to qualified tenants.
With the low offer price, comes a convenience of an all-cash closing when selling a home. HomeVestors franchisee typically closes a home in 30 days of receiving cash offer.
Typically each franchisee uses the following factors when determining the offer: existing condition of the home including repairs needed, time it will take to finish needed repairs, value of a home compared to other comparable homes in the area, real estate commission required to resell, costs associated with maintaining a home during repairs, including taxes, payments, insurance, utilities and homeowner dues.
The main disadvantage of using HomeVestors is high losses in homeowners' equity. HomeVestors is a "heavy" model, ready to buy homes in all-cash transactions.
As any real estate investor, HomeVestors franchisee is susceptible to losing money in any given transaction. This model is prone to a number of risk factors, high operational costs and a continued need for higher-than-average Return on Investment (ROI) with each flip.
HomeVestors franchisee is not legally bound to represent consumers, its main legal obligation is to its stakeholders. Moreover, because most homes in the United States are financed, homeowners own only partial net equity in their home.
Banks receive the same amount of the remaining mortgage sum regardless of how any given home is sold, or how much of homeowners' net equity is lost in the transaction with HomeVestors.
Today, there are a number of highly qualified real estate agents who offer competitive listing rates and flat fee listings across the United States. Unless a situation absolutely requires a quick sale, HomeOpenly recommends that consumers first consider using a licensed real estate agent working on competitive terms to properly list their homes on the open market before turning to HomeVestors option.