Author: kps0925

Updated November 21, 2021 with final sale price. 

Perhaps the biggest news in the real estate industry since we began testing the NoDiscount® model in 2003 came six days ago when the home valuation Goliath Zillow announced the company will be exiting the instant home buying business.  Between 2011 and 2021 Zillow amassed millions of LIKES and FOLLOWERS for its Zestimates on over 100 million homes in the United States.  

“The unpredictability in forecasting home prices far exceeds what we anticipated and continuing to scale Zillow Offers would result in too much earnings and balance-sheet volatility,” Zillow CEO Rich Barton said in a statement. 

The company lost over $381 million on the business in the third quarter, accelerating the overall business net loss to $169 million.  

Out of respect for our colleaque in the industry it would not be appropriate to echo the snarks that have gone viral regarding Zillow’s valuation algorithm and business model.  As with any business innovation the less informed or misinformed are quick to scream SCAM without empathizing the years invested on trial and error and millions to develop SOPs and product positioning in a most competitive market.  In its attempt to command marketshare and become the de facto for everything real estate and in particular; the place for market values — Zillow strained its muscles and injured many investors — who believed in the Zestimate product.

Real estate professionals with experience in the industry have known all along that real estate values are determined by humans.  Real estate was never and could never be valued by a single number displayed on computer screens.  Just as stock and crypto prices can fluctuate 5-100% in a day’s time, real estate has a value range.  Zillow’s attempt to compress the human desires into binaries has proven there is more to buying low and selling high than placing a listing on the market.   

We start with a recent case study:

Property located at 18** Carnelian LN, Eagan, MN 

Market Values:  $306,240 – $397,760

AVM:  $352,000

A quick search of public record confirms the property was  acquired by Zillow Hms Prop A De Statutory on June 11, 2021 for $328,300.  Thirteen days later Zillow relisted said property through a traditional real estate company at $355,000.  

A pricing history reveals a series of discounts:

June 24, 2021 LISTING PRICE $355,000

July 9, 2021  discounted to $349,900

July 24, 2021 discounted to $339,000

August 8, 2021 discounted to $329,900

August 20, 2021  discounted to $326,300

September 3, 2021 discounted to 314.900

September 17, 2021 discounted to $309.900

September 24, 2021 discounted to $304.900

October 5, 2021 SOLD under contract.

UPDATED NOVEMBER 21, 2021 —  Sold Price Nov. 12, 2021  $296,100 with Seller Contribution $6,600 ( $289,500 )

_______________________________________________________________

UPDATED:  NOVEMBER 21, 2021 — Zillow lost  $38,800  ( excluding real estate commission + repairs + holding cost + loan interest ) which could be an additional $15,000 to $25,000.  POTENTIALLY A NEGATIVE $53,800 TO $63,800.   

In all likelihood Zillow assumed the company could make a purchase for $328,300, spruce up appeal, and relist for $355,000.  Had Zillow’s optimism realized the property could have profited $26,700 gross before commission and cost of renovation.  Instead the reverse happened and the company today stands to lose at least $23,400 ( $328,300 – $304,900 = $23,400 ).  Discount after discount the above property like many Zillow properties across the US did not appeal to buyers.  In this scenario a total of seven discounts were taken over a 12 week period and yet without success.  It should be noted that the Zillow mistake occurred during one of the hottest real estate market in US history.  Further, the above figures exclude real estate commissions to be paid by Zillow, thus final loss could be significantly higher. 

We must be mindful that this is one case study with many more across the country.  In Phoenix alone, Zillow had 250 listings at the end of October with a median price of 6.2%, or $29,000 less than what they were bought for, according to research from Mike DelPrete – Real Estate Tech Strategist (mikedp.com). 

It wasn’t due to Zillow’s algorithm that single handedly ended the Z’s buying business model but the difficulty for the company to create demand for properties and generate offers.  Analysts and critics of Zillow completely ignored a 90-day FHA title seasoning requirement which disqualified homebuyers from FHA financing.  According to FHA FY 2020 report, FHA insurance on purchase transaction forward mortgages served 817,847 homebuyers, 83.1 percent of whom were first-time homebuyers.  On average the current FHA rule disqualifies 13.6% of buyers from home purchases and in some areas as high as 40%.  This factor works against Zillow’s business model of buying and reselling properties in 2-3 weeks.

Hundreds of real estate brokers and investors who flipped homes using NoDiscount.com between 2003-2005 understood the FHA restriction better than anyone.  Zillow may have overlooked.       

When attempting to assign a NoDiscount® score to randomly selected Zillow home listings we identified some of the lowest scores in the industry.  A low NoDiscount® score has the highest probabilty of selling at a discount.  This fact coupled with our observation that Zillow’s practice of listing with traditionally high priced real estate brokers created the straw which broke the camel’s back. 

SO WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM ZILLOW’S MISTAKE?

There are three:

1)  The $300 million lesson the industry should have learned and consumers should take note of is that emotions, wants, and desires play a significant role in what buyers pay for properties.  For example the 90-day FHA financing restriction resulted in fewer buyers and fewer offers.  2)  The way buyers buy homes today has changed and selling properties the same way from 10 or 20 years ago will force properties to sell at discounts.  3) Zillow typically listed with traditionally high cost Realtors which leaves little profit to offer incentives or assistance for buyers to make offers.     

Zillow is not to be pointed for its business model as many industry players were equally involved and responsible for Z’s mistake.  As detailed in our WE’RE TAKING THE SCARY OUT OF REAL ESTATE report and book HOW TO BUY OR SELL YOUR HOME IN 1 MINUTE it’s not possible to change the real estate industry without also changing the ecosystem which created the circumstances for Zillow’s mistake.  

The real estate industry owes Zillow a well-earned recognition for demonstrating that technology and artificial intelligence with age old inefficiencies cannot sell properties.  Zillow gifted the industry the perfect case study illustrating that taking discounts is not the way to sell properties.  Alas, discount after discount forced Zillow out of the home buying business because not just Zillow but many agents who represented Zillow played a role in the systematic and synergistic cause of selling at discounts.     

Final Thought:  A typical real estate owner who sells only one or two properties in a lifetime can benefit by learning from Zillow’s mistake.  It is figuratively optimistic to assume that buyers will pay for the same or more for like properties in the same area but it is literally impossible because each buyer in every market brings with them unique circumstances, wants, and needs.  With a hot real estate market and lowest interest rate in history Zillow was unable to capitalize using its latest high tech tools.  The company purchased and sold nearly 20,000 properties through traditionally high cost ways of selling real estate which took away incentives to generate more offers, higher offers, and faster offers.  The discounts killed Zillow’s home buying business.             

Reference: 

Zillow’s home-buying debacle shows how hard it is to use AI to value real estate – CNN

Zillow’s exit from the home-buying business earns a wave of downgrades from surprised analysts (cnbc.com)

Zillow’s Growth Prospects Dim as It Exits Home Flipping – WSJ

What does Zillow’s exit tell us about the health of the iBuying market? | TechCrunch

Zillow exits home deals; it had a small presence in Twin Cities real estate – StarTribune.com

Zillow Statistics from Ipropertymanagement 

https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/Housing/documents/2020FHAAnnualReportMMIFund.pdf

NoDiscount.com might be the newest kid on the block in 2021; yet, we certainly have the most experience in generating multiple offers for properties.  After searching the web for social proof we’d thought you might be interested in reading what hundreds of sellers across the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have said during the early days of the NoDiscount® pilot.  

20 years of NoDiscount

Many of these sellers were not inexperienced homeowners who sold only one or two properties in a lifetime.  Most were professional investors and real estate agents who earned a living selling properties for $10-50,000 profit over what they paid for.   In the early days of NoDiscount® our system was  complex and required sophisticated knowledge of the real estate process.  As detailed in the book HOW TO BUY OR SELL YOUR HOME IN 1 MINUTE, we extrapolated each component of our secret selling process and detailed why each component has over the years continually improved to generate offers for properties fast.  While the fundamentals of the process have not changed in 20 years as registered with the U.S. Copyright Office, we have added two powerful elements that will revolutionize the way real estate is sold forever.  

A first significant change is the inclusion of the Smartphone to control web-based features allowing NoDiscount® to setup in minutes.   

A second significant change is our partnership with licensed real estate professionals to work with users everywhere.          

Over the years we’ve listened to our customers and understood the value of creating demand and market timing.  We waited for  the United States Government and Realtor Industry to reach an agreement to remove competitive constraints for accelerated innovation to happen.   

In 2021 we relaunched NoDiscount.com to take the SCARY out of real estate so you can turn your smartphone into a real estate agent.  We’ve come a long way and our selling process will continue to innovate with the latest technologies to execute our scientific home selling process. 

Thanks for making NoDiscount® the most powerful home selling system in the world.  We’ve made home selling so-so easy.  Just set it and sell it!

“While homebuyers have shifted their buying behavior to websites, today’s sellers and agents still use the same S-L-O-W 100 year-old offer process – The equivalence of paying through a fast food drive-thru and asking customers to wait 1 hour for the food.” — Founder of NoDiscount.com 

It’s true — The Smartphone has revolutionized our world in the past 10 years in amazing and remarkable ways.  Sophisticated and complex tasks once took hours to complete today takes just seconds.  For over 100 years every attempt to speed up the process of buying and selling a home has failed.  And every attempt to reduce real estate commission has been met with resistance and often competitive restraint.  Why?  Because while the world has changed rapidly; frankly — buying and sellng a home remains slow and tedious, and costly. 

Today, while upto 90% of buyers use the web to search homes and esign documents the process in which real estate agents handle pricing, response, offers, conversion, escalation, safety, and systematize the buying and selling experience has not changed in over a century.  At NoDiscount.com we recognize that at least 75% of the headache and COST of home selling is caused by the offer process.  Did you know that most buyers will have their offers rejected 3-15 times before an acceptance? 

When one considers a typical offer can be 50-100 pages long; cumulatively, hundreds of pages and hours of headaches between buyers and sellers go to waste for every property for sale on the market.  The sheer number of hours wasted and complete lack of transparency should be compelling reasons for the industry to innovating how offers get submitted, presented, and received.  But it hasn’t.   

And as offers get rejected buyers and sellers must still pay for time loss and frustration — sometimes suspicion —  that one or more offers failed to be presented properly, timely, or correctly.  In cases of multiple offers sellers sometimes choose the wrong buyers and sell for much less than they could.  Conversely buyers regularly fail to win the home they truly want due to offers not reaching sellers or presented properly.  .      

Isn’t it time we have a complete makeover in how the real estate industry handles offers? 

WE THINK SO. 

Your Smartphone is 100,000x faster than the fastest computer that landed mankind on the moon in the 1960s, and yet, the industry hasn’t manifested itself to bring speed and savings for the benefit of consumers.  Instead we see large corporations use technlogy to keep cost high and services slow while obfuscating the inexperienced consumer with a false sense of complexity.  

At NoDiscount.com —  when you turn your smartphone into a real estate agent every listing will display a special QR code from QR CODE MONKEY on the property detail page.   

With any Smartphone a buyer simply scans the code — AND make offer!

After the initial setup and account approval, it should take less than one minute to submit one offer.  Within seconds buyers and sellers will receive confirmation that offers have been received.  Sellers can login to view, compare, accept, or reject offers in real-time. Buyers can login to view and see the status of all offers and quickly and conveniently compare to previous offers submitted.      

Got questions?  Turn your smartphone into a real estate agent!®  SCAN the QR code at the top of any page for more info.  

Want in on a secret?    

Sellers can share their QR code and receive offers directly from buyers.  By doing so buyers may submit offers while bypassing the need to pay real estate commission.  

Want another secret?  

Post the QR code on your social media pages and drive even more buyers.  Buyers simply point their smartphone camera to the QR for details or to submit an offer.

Today’s buyers can be easily excited at the sound of paying no closing cost or no down payment.   And with closing cost edging 2-4% of a purchase price it shouldn’t come as a surprise that no buyer wants to pay unless they have to.  When it comes to paying it isn’t a matter of whether there is closing cost.  A more important question is who is paying?  

The responsibility typically falls on one of four parties:  Buyer, seller, bank, or gift.  

Will the buyer pay?  A bulk of the closing cost (2-4%) is the responsibility of the buyer.  Did you know that buyers who pay their own closing cost have a higher chance of winning in a multiple offer situation?  

Will the seller pay?  Sellers seldom offer to pay closing cost unless doing so lead to getting more offers or higher sale prices.  If the seller pays will the increase in purchase price increase the risk that a property will not appraise?  Likewise, in a buyer’s market not offering to pay closing cost can lead to selling at a discount or no offer.    

Will the bank pay?  In 2021 Wells Fargo Bank has been known to pay upto $5000 of a buyer’s closing cost with no strings attached.   

If the bank pays, will the buyer pay back in the form of a higher interest rate or loan fee?

If the buyer pays, will the buyer have sufficent amount for down payment to qualify for a loan?

If it is a gift, will the funds be properly documented?   

No matter who pays the closing cost the money will need to come from somewhere.  AND–In many situations the closing cost can mean a difference between closing a deal, walking away, or losing out to a better offer.

Updated:  September 9, 2021

In a hot market sellers with multiple offers often assume that the offers received must be the best and highest.  In a slow market the same seller might assume that a home without offers is one caused by a laggard or unperforming real estate agent.

While both of the scenarios above may have held some truth 10 or 20 years ago when buyers were spread over town and market exposure was fragmented by newspapers, MLSes, magazines, home publications, flyers, open houses, and neighborhood word-of-mouth the fact to the matter is it is no longer the way buyers search for homes in our current “always-on” world.  Today — it no longer requires buyers to spend hours to drive around town to compare properties — it takes just a few minutes to pull up all the properties for sale on a smartphone or home computer.  Extraordinary efforts are no longer necessary to locate and find buyers because all the buyers are locked and glued to their smartphone awaiting the newest listed properties.  While each buyer might start their journey differently all will end by comparing properties on their mobile or computer screen. 

Current transformational shift in how buyers search for properties has become a key driving force behind the success of scientific home selling.  No longer will it be necessary to hunt down buyers, today’s sellers simply need to quickly identify the needs and wants of buyers in a non-intrusive way that will generate the best and highest offers.  To receive the best and highest offers sellers must be able to generate the best and highest quality buyers in the quickest possible time. 

In the absense of a system to generate and compare high quality buyers, offers can be best compared to your email spam.  With the recent onslaught of businesses and investors beating down doors with cash offers on properties, the savvy consumer will be one who understands the benefits from comparing in real-time.

According to industry publications there are currently over 2 million licensed real estate agents in the United States — Of this 1,359,208 are Realtors.   

With over 1.3 million licensed real estate agents as Realtors the primary difference among them is the number of years experience they have and how much they charge in commission.  What is often not discussed is how many have been sellng properties at a discount over the years?   

How many properties could have been sold for the same or higher price without paying commission?  

We answered these questions in 2001 while the real estate industry was still struggling with internet technology, State agency laws, and complicated industry regulation.  With over 6 million properties sold each year we estimate $110-$275 Billions could be saved by not locking consumers into a real estate commission.  The educated consumer will be able to compare all offers simultaneously whether they are from a Realtor, cash buyer, retail buyer, investor, or instituational buyers like Zillow and OpenDoor.  That’s why when you take a moment to visit the U.S. Government’s Library Of Congress Site Copyright.gov and search “scary real estate” in the Copyright registry you’ll quickly learn that the founder of NoDiscount.com had registered to protect a special report titled “We’re taking the SCARY out of real estate” under alternative titles The acronym SCARY in real estate and What are SCARY discounts in real estate?

For the frist time in the real estate industry’s 110 year history NoDiscount® has published a first publication to expose SCARY discounts that have been costing consumers 8-25% everytime they buy or  sell real estate.  This report is available free of charge when you register for a free test drive of NoDiscount.com and will open your eyes to hidden secrets that have been kept from the public for years.  We were proud to be the first in 2001 to have created a selling system to exploit these hidden discounts and helped to return them to a small group of pioneering investors and real estate brokers who took part in testing our business process.  Unfortunately, in the era of slow internet without smartphones only a few entrepreneurial minds were able to profit $20,000 – $40,000 – $50,000 – OR MORE.  

The idea of not getting locked into a real estate commission before seeing all the offers on a property was unheard of in 2001.  Due to a lack of knowledge, inexperience, and revolving door of agents entering and exiting the industry, most real estate agents ( virtually ALL ) have traditionally practiced locking consumers into a commission before even generating the first offer.  What they don’t realize is that by lockign consumers into a commission they are doing clients a disservice by limiting the number of possible offers.  One common example is when a seller is locked into a 6% commission the same seller will be less likely or unable to assist more buyers with closing cost or include other conveniences to generate multiple offers — This alone could cost sellers tens of thousands of dollars in higher offers.   Due to strict industry regulations and real estate companies with laggard business models from the 1970s — the unwary consumer who only bought or sold real estate once or twice in a lifetime was systematically forced to lose tens of thousands of dollars.   

On November 19, 2020 everything changed.  The U.S. Goverment through the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission helped to accelerate innovation and made possible for NoDiscount.com to debut as a solution to selling properties at a discount.   ASK your assigned agent about the SCARY REAL ESTATE report and start putting tens of  thousands of dollars back in your pocket — where they belong!  

“Let’s face it– No matter how you look at it — If you are one of the milions of Americans who will sell a home only once or twice in a lifetime….”

IT SUCKS!  AND IT SUCKS BIG TIME!!!

And there are several reasons why.  

First:  Regular real estate agents charge a lot of money and yet don’t really tell you what they are doing.  Your house becomes another “lost inventory” on the market waiting for the wrong buyers to discount.  Many agents make big promises but then lock you into a long term contract without a guarantee.  They sell you on the latest and most innovative marketing with bells and whistles to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside without understanding themselves that homes no longer require marketing to buyers.  BECAUSE BUYERS ARE ALREADY WAITING TO BUY 24 HOURS A DAY.  When these agents sell your home at a discount you LOSE.  They still WIN.

Next:  Discount real estate companies promise to save you thousands in commision and yet; they too– have no way to protect you from selling at a discount.  When they sell your home at a discount you LOSE.  You might save thousands in commission but you still LOSE when you sell at a discount. 

Then:  Instant cash buyers roam the market with cash offers at a discount.  These companies often talk down on Realtors but within 14-21 days of buying a home at a discount will list with a Realtor for tens of thousands in profit.  When you LOSE, they still WIN. 

It sucks even more:  Now there’s a new lending program that will allow a seller to buy a new home without the need to sell a current home.  The catch:  You must pay 1-2% of the new loan amount for the convenience and use their lender.    

More?  For buyers who don’t qualify to buy but want the freedom to live in the home of their choice now there’s a new program that will let them rent to own any home on the market.

At NoDiscount.com we make buying and selling a home like comparing airline tickets, hotel rooms, and restaurant deals.  Using a simple 1-page offer sellers can choose how soon they want to sell whether 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month and compare offers simultaneously.  Buyers love the 1-page offer because they have better things to do with their time than spend hours writing offer after offer only to receive rejection after rejection without explanation why or how they’ve lost and if their offers were even submitted.   

We believe NoDiscount® will become the non sucky way to buy and sell homes for many years to come.  

You’ve heard of websites that can give you home valuation estimates.  You’ve seen companies buy houses at a discount.  You’ve heard of discount real estate companies.  AND–You’ve seen real estate agents who charge a lot of commission and deliver discount result.  We’ve thought through the entire home selling process and are ready to bring you the next evolution of home selling.  Say “NO” to selling properties at a discount. 

Spend  a few minutes to listen to this podcast and you’ll agree that the timing is now!

Are we the Martin Luther King Jr. of the real estate industry? 

Are we the Google of real estate? 

Frankly, we didn’t procrastinate for 17 years to bring out the best real estate company in 110 years.  We studied the market and protected our business model with Copyrights and Trademarks so the big giants can’t stop us from protecting the little guys again. 

A recent article on Forbes discusses a trend that has been taking ( shocking ) the traditional Realtor industry by storm; and frankly— we don’t believe it’s such a big deal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwake/2019/09/01/the-surprising-way-real-estate-agents-are-adapting-to-ibuyers-buying-houses-directly-from-sellers/amp/

At NoDiscount.com we invented the first platform to empower buyers and sellers to compare offers using a simple 1-page offer.

The ability to compare in real-time guarantees buyers the most transparent buying experience while protecting sellers from selling to the wrong buyers.

Using a simple 1-page offer we can protect a seller from losing $20,000 to $50,000 OR MORE from selling to the wrong buyer!

Be sure to ask your agent about commission compression.  At NoDiscount.com we believe comparing commission is equally important as comparing offers on a home to identify the most profitable option. 

For nearly 110 years the real estate community and consumers have not been able to compare offers and commissions simultaneously.  Until now!  

NoDiscount.com is the “first and only” place that lets you compress all the buyers and commissions in a short period of time allowing you to compare actual cost of buying or selling in real-time. 

The simple truth is it doesn’t add up to compare commission unless all offers are presented at the same time.  That’s how NoDiscount.com can protect you from losing $20,000 to $50,000 — OR MORE! 

Powered by Forsalebyweb.com!