Compare Houwzer and Sold.com

For Sellers

Listing Rate
$5,000
Flat Fee
Minimum commissions and other terms may apply. Buyer's Agent Commission (2.5%-3%) is not included, but sellers may be able to negotiate this as well.

For Sellers

Referred Agents
30%
Referral Fee
Sold.com does not provide real estate services to home sellers. Instead, this company matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for a 25% referral fee. Sold.com results suffer from pay-to-play bias because the network does not match consumers with agents unwilling to pay 25% of their commission to Sold.com.

For Buyers

Not Applicable
0
No Rates
When Houwzer represents a buyer, it keeps the entire Buyer’s Agent Commission amount (2.5%-3%). A home buyer can always try to negotiate a refund amount with any real estate agent in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey, but this company does not advertise buyer’s rebates openly.

For Buyers

Not Applicable
0
No Rates
Sold.com does not match consumers with buyer’s agents.
Question: What is the difference between Houwzer and Sold.com?
Answer: Houwzer is a full-service real estate agent that offers savings to homebuyers and home sellers while Sold.com is a referral fee network that enables broker-to-broker collusion with use of blanket referral agreements
Compare Houwzer and Sold.com 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: 02 April 2019
Last updated: 25 April 2021

Buying and Selling with Houwzer

Houwzer is a multi-state savings broker, offers consumers listing savings and buyer’s refunds in select areas across Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey.

Houwzer Pricing

Houwzer offers savings to sellers ($5,000 flat listing fee)

Listing Services

  • MLS Listing
  • Zillow, Trulia, etc. Listing
  • Accept and Deliver All Offers and Counteroffers
  • Hold Open Houses
  • Professional Photography
  • Professional Floor Plans
  • Yard Signage Installation
  • Spare Key Lock-box Installation
  • Schedule Inspection Services
  • Schedule Private Showings
  • Closing Duties

Buyer's Agent Services

  • Find the Property
  • Accept and Deliver All Offers and Counteroffers
  • Recommend Other Professionals
  • Attend Inspection Services
  • Schedule Private Showings
  • Negotiate Needed Repairs
  • Closing Duties

Houwzer Editor's Review:

Houwzer is a consumer-focused flat fee real estate listing broker. Houwzer does not openly offer buyer’s refunds to buyers.

As a listing agent, Houwzer works with a seller to prepare homes for listing, including taking professional photos, pricing home, and publishing marketing materials. Houwzer lists all homes on the local MLS as well as typical MLS Aggregators.

Houwzer does not openly offer buyer's refunds and keeps the entire Buyer's Agent Commission when it represents home buyers unless individually negotiated.

Houwzer offers a “bundle” rebate applied to the cost of listing if a consumers buys new home first. In order to qualify, a buyer must purchase a home with Houwzer and the company will reduce listing fee by $2,500 to sell buyer’s current home on the open market.

Where does Houwzer operate?

Houwzer currently operates in select areas across Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey..

Selling with Sold.com

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

Sold.com 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.


Sold.com is a referral fee network designed to collect fees by matching consumers with local real estate agents willing to participate. Sold.com operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in California under BRE License #01937601, but it does not produce any services that are typically offered by real estate agents and does not represent consumers when selling real estate in any State.

When consumers submit information to Sold.com, this information is simply sold to real estate agents who are willing to pay for it with a 30% share of their commission.

Sold.com Pricing

Sold.com revenue comes from referral fees.

Listing Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Sellers

Buyer's Agent Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Buyers

Sold.com Editor's Review:

On paper, Sold.com seems to have a great idea – to provide its users with the best way to sell a home, but in reality, it is a referral network designed to steer consumers toward agents and other services willing to pay a cut of their commission back into the network.

Sold.com states that it is an “unbiased” and consumer-focused service, but the actual model turns out to be much less effective - Sold.com is a California licensed real estate broker that collects a 30% referral fee from all real estate agents that participate.

This fee makes it hardly a free service for anyone since referral fees are inevitably passed down to consumers. More importantly, Sold.com applies this pay-to-play bias towards all matching results, meaning, only real estate agents that have agreed to pay a referral fee are displayed in match results for consumers.

Sold.com 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.

Sold.com plays fees down to consumers - it states directly that the service is 100% free, but at the same time, it rigidly locks every participating real estate agent into 30% referral fee attached to the back-end of every contract. As a licensed real estate agent that doesn’t perform any real estate services or takes any responsibility for the transaction, it is not entirely clear how this process works under the Business and Professions Code and RESPA.

Clearly, real estate agents only sign-up with Sold.com because the price of the referral fee can be easily incorporated into their client's agreement with excessive commissions. Sold.com receives the second lowest score because this service is clearly biased and it claims to provide the complete opposite of what it actually does.

Update: on September 29, 2021, SOLD.com (operated by Ten-X Finance, Inc. 'shell' real estate brokerage CA DRE License 01937601) has originated a request to the editor asking for this review to be removed.

The following is a pdf link to the notice originated by SOLD.com, dated September 29, 2021.

The following is a pdf link to the reply written by the editor of this review, dated December 13, 2021.

Where does Sold.com operate?

Sold.com currently operates in select areas across United States.