1% Listing Fee Explained
I enjoy a good industry disruption. It challenges complacency. A disruption can bring about savings and efficiency to consumers. It encourages competition and watch how quickly everyone else steps up their game!
There are dozens of industries craving disruption including ours (working on it!), title insurance, and real estate sales to name a few tired platforms close at hand.
But what if the White Knight Disruptor was the same everyday actor from past films wearing armor bought by a VC company desperate to make a deal?
Is the disruptor really just a lot of cute-sy NFL advertisements, or sponsorship of a sports stadium on a product that was previously hollow?
Interesting to see a company describe themselves as “WELL-FUNDED” as in “someone else is paying for our crazy ads and they really hope the consumers will fall for the re-packaging attempt.
Enter 1% Listing Fee.
On face-value it sounds like a $30K savings tool. Similar to our “Press Button -Get Mortgage” dissection the 1% Listing program has A LOT of asterisks. In fact so many that we suspect a very small percentage (if any) succeed in paying only 1%.
I copied the disclaimer text of a large 1% Listing Fee Real Estate Sales website and did a word count. It takes 666 words to explain how/when the 1% fee is NOT available. You need to live in specific states. You need to engage the company to also help you BUY a house (basically you have an arranged marriage for you future buyer’s agent – can you see where that arrangement could COST you money?). What if your plan is to rent, or buy in a zone not covered by this company?
If you wound up paying only 1%, I’d classify that as a fail. Why? The 1% Fee mandates that a Buyers Broker commission has not been incurred. To get to the point where buyers of your home aren’t represented means for some reason they’ve “passed” on this offering. Concerning.
Should a company advertise a 1% listing fee if the likelihood is similar to an average person completing a Ninja Warrior course? Would that be considered the “Full Truth” or be it a Bait and Switch / an attempt to mislead consumers?