Compare Landed and Better.com Real Estate

For Sellers

Not applicable
0
No Rates
Landed does not provide real estate services to home buyers.

For Sellers

Not Applicable
0
No Rates
Better Real Estate does not openly advertise listing services for consumers.

For Buyers

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

For Buyers

Origination Fee
0.75%
Home Value
Instead of working with Laded referred agents, consumers (teachers) can pay an origination fee equal to what the agent referral fee would have been: 0.75% of the total cost of the home.

For Buyers

Partner Agents
25%-40%
Referral Fee
Better Partner Agents do not work for Better Real Estate. Instead, Better Real Estate matches consumers with various real estate agents in exchange for 25%-40% referral fees. This is a form of collusion and all matched results suffer from pay-to-play bias because Better.com does not match consumers with agents unwilling to pay cut of their commission. When using Better Partner Agents consumers subject their home purchase to hidden kickbacks and fake price-fixed savings.

For Buyers

Buyer's Savings
+/- 32% (see note)
Commission Rebate
When Better Real Estate represents home buyers, it contributes an estimated 32% of its Buyer's Agent Commission (1% rebate from the 2.5%-3% BAC) to the buyer as a way to financially compete for a buyer’s business. Home buyers do not pay any taxes on the amount, the refund amount is always tax-free. This offer is only available where allowed by law. However, Better.com Real Estate buyer agent services and Better.com mortgage origination services are unlawfully tied. In this scheme, consumers are harmed by being forced to buy a fairly common service (mortgage origination service) to purchase a much more valuable service they want (buyer agent savings from a real estate brokerage transaction.)
Question: What is the difference between Landed and Better.com Real Estate?
Answer: Both Landed and Better.com Real Estate function as a referral fee network that enables broker-to-broker collusion with use of blanket referral agreements.
Compare Landed and Better.com Real Estate 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: 15 September 2021
Last updated: 15 September 2021

Buying and Selling with Landed

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

Landed 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.


Landed is a referral fee network designed to collect fees by matching consumers with local real estate agents willing to participate. Landed operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in California under BRE License #01988003, 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.

Landed targets financially constrained consumer groups (teachers for now, but it soon plans to expand services to other professionals such as registered nurses, etc.) with a 10% down payment assistance option to co-invest when buying a home in expensive cities like San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle.

The origination price of using the program, however, is hidden in referral fees that the company receives from each transaction when consumers work with agents referred by Landed.

Instead of working with Laded referred agents, consumers can pay an origination fee equal to what the agent referral fee would have been: 0.75% of the total cost of the home.

For example, if a consumer were to purchase a $1 million home, the origination fee equal to $7,500 would have to be paid in order to secure $100,000 down payment assistance. If the required down payment assistance amount is less, the fee would still remain the same. For example, if a consumer only wants to secure $50,000 in assistance, the origination fee still equals to $7,500 because this fee is based on the overall home value.

Landed also uses a select group of mortgage lenders who are specifically approved by the program. It is unclear what incentives are provided to Landed by these providers, or if consumers are able to use their own mortgage lender.

Landed Pricing

Landed revenue comes from either an estimated 30% broker referral fees, or origination fees set at 0.75% of purchased home value.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) provides cash funds to run the program. The 25% of the appreciation (or loss) in the price of the home upon sale is returned to Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and re-invested back into a down payment support fund.

Listing Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Sellers

Buyer's Agent Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Buyers

Landed Editor's Review:

On paper Landed seems to have a great idea – to help essential professionals (starting with educators) build financial security near the communities they serve. Digging deeper into the actual model turns out to be much less effective - Landed is a California licensed real estate broker that collects an estimated 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, Landed drives consumers toward agents who systematically price their services to accommodate such fees, this process is known as kickbacks.

Landed assistance program itself may be beneficial, but the costs of origination are certainly real. Landed uses excessive referral fees as a way to hide origination fees. Why? Simply because having to pay $7,500 to secure $100,000 down payment assistance (that comes with many strings attached, as well as a lien) seems a lot less attractive, especially when this fee remains the same, regardless of the assistance amount actually required.

By charging this fee as a form of commission kickbacks, the company hopes that most consumers won’t realize that this fee even exists – it is just a referral fee, who cares? In this review, we will show you how this fee very much exists and why it matters. Consumers can save tens of thousands by avoiding non-competitive real estate commissions, even if the buyer (teacher) decides to opt-in into Landed assistance program and pay the origination fee out-of-pocket.

Buyer’s refunds are available in all areas Landed currently offers an assistance program. The only way to take advantage of these savings is by negotiating with highly competitive real estate professionals without any referral fee agreements in place.

Buyer’s agents never work for free, instead, they can financially compete for consumers by offering refunds in 40 States. This is a legal incentive that helps to lower the cost of owning a home and is a growing trend in the industry.

Real estate agents only sign-up with Landed referral network because the price of the referral fee can be easily incorporated into their client’s agreement with excessive commissions. Landed either requires the use of their network, or it requires an origination fee to be paid, there is no third option.

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 Landed is able to operate under the Business and Professions Code and RESPA.

Nonetheless, funds from Chan Zuckerberg Initiative fund is a real incentive that consumers are able to utilize in exchange for a 25% share of the investment gain or loss with Landed (if Landed contributes less than 10% down, the future appreciation/depreciation sharing also changes proportionally. For every 1% Landed contributes, Landed shares in 2.5% of the appreciation (or depreciation, if any.)

In order to place benefits and costs of the program into perspective, we ran local results against HomeOpenly to see who offers buyer’s refunds in one of the areas Landed serves – San Francisco, CA.

We used a random home valued at around $1 Million to generate these results (as of April 2019.) Among various savings offers from local agents, we found two highly reputable agents (including a VC-backed flat fee agent that aims to deliver savings to consumers.)

Among these results, one agent offers 65% rebate that yields a buyer’s refund amount estimated at $19,500 and another offers $9,950 flat representation fee that yields buyer’s refund amount estimated at $20,050.

For the purpose of this discussion, these competitive saving, in the form of a refund, are about $20,000 (assuming 3% buyer’s agent commission split offered by the seller’s agent.) Home buyers do not pay any taxes on the amount, the refund is always tax-free, similar to any other service refund.

Now, the buyer can take this refund check of $20,000 pay the Landed origination fee out-of-pocket set at $7,500 and still walk away with $12,500 in cash savings. Why? These savings agents are highly competitive and advertise their rates subject to 0% referral fees.

HomeOpenly works with real estate agents that genuinely lower the cost of homeownership. The fact is, if the buyer doesn’t do this, the total expense of using Landed referral network plus the commission is $30,000 ($7,500 referral fee paid to Landed, plus $22,500 of the remaining commissions buyer’s agent actually keeps).

Using Landed referral network, in this case, means leaving $12,500 on the table. Instead, a teacher can easily engage a great competitive agent, receive $20,000 amount as a refund, and only pay origination fee out-of-pocket set at $7,500.

In this review, we separate issue to secure down payment assistance with an ability to negotiate a competitive refund with your agent subject to 0% referral fees. We bring this origination fee to full transparency so that there no illusion on how Landed service actually operates and why it steers consumers toward their referral network.

You, the teacher, have to take into account the fact that you pay all homeownership expenses, county taxes, maintenance, insurance, interest and closing costs (you pay the costs of ownership, but you don’t make any monthly payments to Landed.) As such, home appreciation you gain comes at a very high price, while the origination fee is something that you pay upfront, either out-of-pocket or with excessive commissions.

Is $7,500 origination fee a worthy expense to secure down payment assistance? You have to decide this.

This simple test aims to point out that $20,000 in buyers refund is available to buyers in this situation when working with the right local agents. When using Landed referral fee network agents, the refund amount is likely to be zero.

Moreover, non-competitive fees offered by Landed referred agents will become incorporated into a mortgage payment, and instead of the consumer getting a tax-free refund, these fees further incur mortgage interest for the duration of the mortgage.

Landed receives the second lowest score because this service is clearly biased toward high-priced real estate agents, as it aims to brush off the true costs of origination fees set at 0.75% of purchased home value, typically hidden in referral fee agreements.

Landed was presented the following questions prior to the review getting published, but Landed has not responded with any comments.

  • Whenever the consumer approaches Landed, with their own buyer’s agent, what is the origination fee amount they would be required to pay in order to use the service?
  • Are consumers able to negotiate a buyer’s refund in California with agents who are part of Landed referral network?
  • What is the referral fee percentage or amount Landed charges real estate agents in the network?
  • What happens in cases where the consumer is looking to buy FSBO listed home, where there is no listing agent and no buyer’s agent commission is offered by the seller?

Landed must be well aware of these issues, but continues to operate on pay-to-play methodology in order to collect origination and referral fees that needlessly make home buying and selling more expensive, while claiming that it makes homeownership more affordable.

Teachers should certainly not ignore Landed as an option, but with a full understanding that there may better terms available to them elsewhere for buyer’s representation, and that this program comes with high fees attached.

Where does Landed operate?

Landed currently operates in select areas across California (San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles Metro Area, and San Diego Metro Area), Colorado (Denver and Boulder metro areas), and Washington (King County Metro Area)..

Buying and Selling with Better Real Estate

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

Better.com 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.


Better Real Estate is a real estate broker and broker-to-broker collusion scheme designed to collect fees by matching consumers with local Realtors. Better Real Estate operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in a number of states, primarily in New York as BRE Services, LLC License #10991232130

When consumers submit information to Better Mortgage or Better Real Estate, this information is shared in exchange for an undisclosed fee with random real estate agents in a process known as a "blind match." In some instances Better Real Estate acts as an affiliate of Better Mortgage and may represent consumers directly, however, Better Mortgage and Better Real Estate services are unlawfully tied.

Better Real Estate Pricing

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

Better Real Estate pricing for buyer and seller representation is impossible to determine because broker services are unlawfully bundled with mortgage services where company's offers are available "to conforming loan product customers who have (a) entered a purchase contract on a home using the Better Real Estate Agent or Better Real estate Partner Agent; and (b) closed a mortgage loan on said home with Better Mortgage Corporation."

Listing Services

  • This Service Does Not Represent Sellers

Buyer's Agent Services

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

Better.com Real Estate Editor's Review:

Better Real Estate is a licensed real estate broker and a broker collusion scheme that organizes and price-fixes services of competitors in exchange for hidden kickbacks it receives from the "partner agent" commissions.

Using its website, Better Real Estate engages in a process known as price fixing because it sets buyer rebates for independent real estate professionals (Better Real Estate Partner Agents) that have agreed to participate in the scheme. According to the Better.com website, "Purchase borrowers matched with a Better Real Estate Agent may receive $2,000 in lender credits and purchase borrowers matched with a Better Real Estate Partner Agent may receive up to 1% of the home sales price in lender credits." 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 a network of competing brokers across the United States, Better 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.

The price fixed rates established by Better Real Estate scheme are severely inflated (for buyers, the buyer rebate is severely reduced) due to hidden kickbacks. Further, these same exact "partner agents" are in collusion with Better Real Estate, therefore, they are unethical and unlikely to provide any form of honest representation to homebuyers. Consumers using Better Real Estate "partner 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 kickbacks.

Better.com Price-Fixing Harms Homebuyers

Better Real Estate offers a “discount” to consumers from a blanket referral fee earned, not from a commission earned. This is a form of price-fixing and is, effectively, a kickback derived from another kickback, instead of a legal buyer's rebate mechanism.

The true intention of Better Real Estate is to motivate the consumer to use the network with a “discount” tangled as a carrot, despite the massive disadvantages of a hidden referral fee. In such a scenario, the consumer ends up grossly overpaying for their buyer's agent commission due to the hidden kickbacks between the mortgage company and the brokerage in their referral network.

Better Real Estate Partner Agents do not compete with each other in the scheme on price and level of service – they are simply farmed out to consumers. In this price-fixing scheme, Better Real Estate is not involved in a transaction of the actual home purchase. Better Real Estate LLC does not produce any tangible service to the purchaser of a home, but it merely sets up a network of brokers for its own benefit – to siphon off a cut of the buyer’s agent commission.

More importantly, price-fixing is an unlawful practice, and every agent who participates with Better 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.

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 Better Real Estate and any broker they refer a buyer 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.

While Better 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. Better Real Estate cannot account for these differences because the collusion scheme is not designed to deliver value, it is designed to lure consumers under a false premise for savings.

Better.com Kickbacks and Unearned Fees

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 Better Real Estate are "blanket" fee agreements that do not comply with RESPA.

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 Better Real Estate scheme, where an organizer of a hub-and-spoke conspiracy steers 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.

The entire RESPA prohibition against kickbacks was enacted specifically to stop mortgage companies from entering into symbiotic relationships with real estate brokers. Better.com may seem like a clever by-pass of RESPA’s prohibition against kickbacks, but this loophole is built entirely on the use of blanket referral agreements between brokers designed to restrain free trade.

Better.com Tying of Services

Better Real Estate does offer brokerage services directly to consumers in some instances, but even then, these services are unlawfully tied into Better.com mortgage offerings. Better.com "savings offers" are "open to real estate agent referral customers who have (a) entered a purchase contract on a home using a real estate agent referred by Finche, LLC, dba BRE, Better Home Services and Better Real Estate; and (b) closed a mortgage loan on said home with Better Real Estate’s affiliated mortgage lender, Better Mortgage Corporation."

In this tying scheme, consumers are harmed by being forced to buy a fairly common service (mortgage origination service) to purchase a much more valuable service they want (buyer agent savings from a real estate brokerage transaction.) Consumers must be able to shop for mortgage origination services and real estate representation services independently. This tying agreement is further complicated with an unlawful price-fixing of services offered by competitors - Better Real Estate Partner Agents.

Why Better.com Colludes with Realtors?

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. 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. The actual damages are further trebled. 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.

Better Real Estate buyer agent services and Better.com mortgage origination services are unlawfully tied. Better Real Estate engages in price fixing and consumer allocation with competitors. Why does this company do all this? This trend is a brazen new strategy used by a handful of VC-backed real estate companies, including Better.com, that are forced to deliver unreasonably high returns on billions of investments poured into them.

As of September 2021, Better.com has taken about $905 million in funding and suffers from a sky-high burn rate. To make up for this poor allocation of capital, commonly known as mega-rounds, Better.com uses a set of unlawful strategies to increase the gross revenue from mortgage origination services and real estate services by unlawfully bundling them.

The short answer is: Better Real Estate's intent to fix prices is directly tied into the massive 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. All kickbacks taken by Better Real Estate are savings lost to consumers, funneled into the wrong bank account.

Where does Better.com Real Estate operate?

Better.com Real Estate currently operates in select areas across United States.