Sold.com Reviews (READ WARNING!)
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.
Selling with Sold.com
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.
FAQ for Sold.com
What are the alternatives to Sold.com?
Sold.com directly competes with several broker-to-broker blanket referral fee schemes, including OJO Labs, mellohome, UpNest, Xome, HomeLight, LemonBrew, Radius Agent, ReferralExchange, Nobul, NAEBA, agentpronto, effectiveagents, topagentsranked, myagentfinder, Rocket Homes, Clever Real Estate, and others.
Genuine alternatives to Sold.com are unbiased real estate platforms, open marketplaces, and consumer review portals that offer reliable information without any pay-to-play bias.
What are the pros and cons of Sold.com?
Pros: there are none with Sold.com. Sold.com is a 'paper' broker that operates a consumer steering scheme with a network of independent brokers. Consumer allocation between brokers holds no tangible value to any consumer, either when buying or selling a home.
Cons: there are several main disadvantages to Sold.com. First, consumers are hiring two brokers for the work of one. Second, Sold.com takes a hidden referral fee, so the referred agent is unable to offer their full value to thier client. Third, Sold.com only recommends paying agents to consumers, leaving out the vast majority of honest agents out of the scheme.
Summary: Sold.com steers consumers toward their network of brokers and away from others. Sold.com cannot legally organize brokers into a network because blanket referral agreements, price fixing, and consumer allocation between licensed real estate brokers in the United States are prohibited.
What is Sold.com?
Sold.com is a 'paper' real estate brokerage. Agents agree to pay Sold.com a referral fee, on all closed transactions, through their employing broker. Sold.com does not offer any representation services. Sold.com is a consumer brokering scheme that works to receive a cut of agent's commissions with the use of blanket referral agreements.
Is Sold.com legitimate?
No. Sold.com is a consumer allocation scheme between licensed real estate brokers that increases broker commissions and limits consumer choices. Sold.com's revenue comes from undisclosed referral fees. Blanket referral fees set by such networks range anywhere between 30%-40% of the entire broker's commission. Sold.com is a pay-to-play scheme that offers biased matches for financial gain. The main qualification for real estate brokers who participate with Sold.com brokerage is their willingness to pay a referral fee. Consumer allocation between licenses real estate brokers is a felony in the United States prohibited by federal antitrust regulations.
Where does Sold.com operate?
Sold.com User Reviews
They give few leads, and the ones they give are just wanting the free CMA so they can sell their home on their own. Others have literally cussed me out stating they are tired of getting calls. Wish I could hit the rewind button, major scam company stay away!!!
I asked four different questions of the agents who responded and no one answered any of them.
One of the people they recommended was a one year rookie and no one that was recommended has ever sold a home in the county we live in at our Colorado home.
Find yourself a local trustworthy realtor and don’t waste your time with another Yellow Pages type solicitation.
You cant speak to any live person it's only on a chatbox and then comes the real problem the live agent will appear (Abby) and guess what you get no response from her, heck this is nothing but a fake person for all I know. She won't respond to the questions you have and no matter how many you ask still no response. Then to make things worse they provide you with a number but guess what the number has an answering machine and asks you to leave a message and number so they can call you back lol nope this does not happen they never call you.
So is this company a 100% legitimate company that expects you to pay for their services!, they are a fraudulent company that most likely some kid developed and is now taking your money and giving you nothing in return but will sell you the same area code to hundreds of Agents, and while those agents think they are the only ones in that area who are receiving these paid benefits to get referrals from sellers or buyer you are being scammed because they are selling it to hundreds of agents in the same area.
This company is a fraud nothing more and it’s the worst of them all.
They sent us to a representative who sold us on an advertisement piece on their website. We paid the fee of $600.00 upfront, and they began building our profile. From this moment on everything went down hill.
Our profile link would take you to another agent information (talk about privacy issues) and after numerous attempts to get Sold.com to correct the issue we gave up. Also, we signed a broker referral form (I signed it, being the broker of record) and they keep trying to populate a different broker of record
A company that is supposed to recommend consumers to the best brokers in their area using an algorithm, can’t even get their profiles set up correctly. If I was an agent, broker, or consumer, I would highly recommend staying away from this company.
No one ever answers the phone or responds to messages, the rep doesn’t seem to know a whole lot about the program her self and I honestly feel like this is just a scam. Waste of money
Not to mention, the 1 lead I got already had 4 offers when I called her.
Invest your money elsewhere.
Also, felt pressured which made me uncomfortable. AVOID!!
While there is a link to unsubscribe, the fact that they send emails from random domains (meaning they're trying to get around spam filters) probably means unsubscribe requests go into their round bin.
They do nothing but sell your name to a real estate agent who will owe them 30% of the commission if that agent lists & sells your house.
What a scam - it should be illegal!
I am doing this review because I hate spam email and this one makes you fill out a form including your phone number in order to unsubscribe.
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