Homie is a Utah-based broker, offers consumers flat fee listing savings and buyers refunds.
Homie offer listing savings ($199 advance, plus $1,299 at closing) and buyer’s refunds ($5,000 subtracted from Buyer’s Agent Commission) for select Utah properties.
Homie is a consumer-focused real estate agent that successfully represents consumers across Utah and offers sizeable savings. Homie agents are salaried client-service focused employees who are not motivated by commissions.
Homie service includes posting home on the MLS and MLS Aggregator services, professional photos and 3D images in addition to all typical services offered by a traditional real estate agent. If a seller accepts an offer from a buyer represented by Homie, a $1,299 buyer transaction fee is added, instead of the full buyer agent commission (2.5%-3%) amount advertised on the MLS.
Homie claims that Homie-to-Homie incentive favorably lowers overall transaction costs, but it also requires the buyer to accept the potential downside of dual representation.
For buyers, a flat $5,000 buyer’s refund savings may not work as well for higher-priced properties. For example, if there a 50% buyer’s refund offered by another local agent, the amount can reach $15,000 for a home valued at 1,000,000 USD; in this case, $5,000 is only third of the amount a buyer can potentially receive compared to a 50% refund savings. Still, $5,000 buyer’s refund offered by Homie is a substantial amount that results in legitimate savings to buyers.
Overall Homie offers an excellent proposition to Buyers and Sellers alike.
Faira is a multi-state savings broker, offers consumers listing savings and buyer’s refunds in select areas across Washington, Arizona and California.
Faira offers savings to sellers (charges 0.5% platform fee to the buyer with an optional 1% listing fee) and commission refunds to buyers (2% of the purchase price).
For its in-house listings platform offers self-represented buyers a 2.5% independent buyer discount, to account for the fact that there is no need for Buyer's Agent Commission (BAC) expense for self-represented buyers.
However, we recommend that all Buyers work with their own competitive buyer's agent who offers a buyer's refund. Faira also offers Premium Listing option for a 3% listing fee.
Faira is a consumer-focused real estate agent that successfully represents consumers across Washington, Arizona, and California and offers sizeable savings.
Faira listing service includes posting home on the MLS and MLS Aggregator services, professional photos in addition to all typical services offered by a traditional real estate agent.
Faira gives sellers access to a well-designed dashboard with great communication features. The pricing model at this brokerage may be an issue for some Buyers and Agencies who are unable to work with it due to the "platform fee" structure.
Buyer's commission rebate structure is also subjective with ambiguously defined savings. What is considered standard real estate services are advertised by Faira as Premium for a significantly larger fee.
While Faira does offer sizeable savings for Buyers and Sellers, we find that some service offerings by Faira are difficult to substantiate, especially when it comes to its Premium listings.