Compare HomeStory and Tomo
For Sellers
For Buyers
For Buyers
Answer: Both HomeStory and Tomo function as a referral fee network that enables broker-to-broker collusion with use of blanket referral agreements.
Buying and Selling with HomeStory
WARNING: Unlawful Kickbacks, Broker-to-Broker Collusion, False Marketing, Wire Fraud, Price Fixing.
HomeStory) 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.
HomeStory is a price-fixing scheme that allocates home buyers to colluding Realtors through a "shell" real estate entity. When consumers submit information on the HomeStory website, this information is simply shared in exchange for an undisclosed fee with real estate agents in a process known as a pay-to-play steering and a "blind match." HomeStory Real Estate Services, Inc. "shell" entity colludes and price-fixes commissions with various Realtors affiliated with Keller Williams, Weichert, Christie's, RE/MAX, ERA, Compass, Coldwell Banker, Better Homes & Gardens, Berkshire Hathaway, eXp Realty, Exit, Fathom, Sotheby's, Century 21, HomeSmart, and others.
HomeStory Pricing
HomeStory fees come from hidden kickbacks, set at 25% to 40% of the gross commission received by a network of colluding Realtors.
Listing Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Sellers
Buyer's Agent Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Buyers
HomeStory Editor's Review:
HomeStory Real Estate Services, Inc. (dba HomeStory, HomeStory.com, HomeStoryRewards, HomeStoryRewards.com) is a licensed real estate entity in the State of Texas License No. 605602 operates as a "shell" broker to collect an undisclosed referral fee, set at 25% to 40% from the gross commissions paid by all colluding Realtors in the network. This fee is inevitably passed down to consumers in a form of inflated real estate commissions when selling a home.
More importantly, HomeStory is a licensed real estate entity that does not engage in actual real estate broker services. HomeStory systematically applies pay-to-play bias towards all Realtor matching results, meaning, only Realtors that have agreed to collude and pay a referral fee are matched with consumers.
Realtors only sign-up with HomeStory because the price of the referral fee can be easily incorporated into their client's agreement with excessive commissions.
HomeStory receives a low Editor's rating because this service is a biased hub-and-spoke broker-to-broker collusion scam, that falsely claims to provide an independent and unbiased service of matching consumers with agents.
HomeStory operates on a pay-to-play methodology to collect junk fees that needlessly make home buying and selling more expensive. In this scheme, consumers are no longer in the driver's seat, but instead, are traded as a commodity between brokers.
HomeStory plays junk fees down, claiming there are "no upfront costs" to Realtors and the service is "free" and "no obligation" to consumers, but it rigidly locks every participating Realtor into a kickback attached to the back-end of every agreement that restrains free trade. As a licensed real estate entity that doesn’t perform any real estate services or take any responsibility for the transaction, this scheme operates to unlawfully allocate consumers and bypass RESPA anti-kickback regulations through a "shell" entity.
Consumer brokering is an act of selling information of potential home buyers and home sellers (paid referrals) between real estate brokers, in exchange for a cut of a broker’s commission. Brokers on each side of the adopted scheme, cause direct damage to the real estate representation market with reverse competition, anticompetitive market allocation, price-fixing, lack of competition, limited choices to consumers, unnecessary high commissions, and improperly negotiated fees. A referring broker in this scheme does not compete with referred brokers, instead, HomeStory administers a series of agreements that restrain free trade, disguised as Realtor matching services.
12 C.F.R. § 1024.14(g)(1)(v) (Regulation X) and RESPA 12 U.S.C. § 2607(c)(3) narrowly allow payments pursuant to cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements between real estate agents and real estate brokers. This limited exemption on kickbacks only applies to fee divisions within real estate brokerage arrangements when all parties are acting in a real estate brokerage capacity. HomeStory does not act in a brokerage capacity, in fact, this entity willfully chooses to disengage from offering real estate representation services to consumers, as the core premise to create successful collusion through interstate wire communication to further the scheme. Wire fraud is financial fraud involving the use of any telecommunications or information technology.
Real estate transaction is a rare, high-value, and high-risk-aversion experience that is easily subjected to unlawful kickbacks, especially with the use of the Internet. Consumers are often subjected to high commissions and hidden referral fees without a full understanding that these fees increase their commissions and result in a lower quality of service. Whenever any double-dealing Realtor agrees to pay these massive kickbacks, he or she is unable to offer full and competitive representation services to anyone. HomeStory does not cater to honest Realtors, it only caters to Realtors willing to cheat their clients out of full services, and willing to share private information about their clients' transactions with the scheme.
HomeStory antitrust and consumer protection violations are not harmless. Realtors who attempt to compete for consumers on fair terms and competitive pricing are at a massive disadvantage in this environment. As a result of broker-to-broker collusion, consumers end up getting steered toward a limited pool of agents and overpay for commissions. Consumers’ private transaction information is always shared with a referring broker that requires it to be disclosed to calculate the referral fees to be paid at the close of each transaction.
Consumers, of course, pay for this abuse with higher costs of commissions that, eventually, make it directly into their new mortgages and cause significant losses of net equity from a home sale.
HomeStory utilizes several high-profile financial institutions and lending channels to promote price-fixing and fraud to consumers across state borders, such as HSBC Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC, The Money Source Inc., Alliant Credit Union, Home Point Financial, etc.
| HOME VALUE | REWARD |
| $0 - $99K | $350 |
| $100K - $149K | $650 |
| $150K - $249K | $900 |
| $250K - $349K | $1,000 |
| $350K - $449K | $1,250 |
| $450K - $499K | $1,750 |
| $500K - $549K | $2,000 |
| $550K - $599K | $2,300 |
| $600K - $699K | $2,400 |
| $700K - $799K | $2,750 |
| $800K - $899K | $3,100 |
| $900K - $999K | $3,500 |
| $1.0M - $1.099M | $4,000 |
| $1.1M - $1.199M | $4,350 |
| $1.2M - $1.299M | $4,750 |
| $1.3M - $1.399M | $5,500 |
| $1.4M - $1.499M | $6,000 |
| $1.5M+ | $6,500 |
Obviously, these are plain price fixed amounts imposed by HomeStory on random brokerages. All of this is done to profit from the largest number of transactions, without actually performing the service of a real estate broker. The scheme is disguised as if consumers are saving money, but in reality, consumers lose money in hidden kickbacks.
For example, on a home purchase of $1 million, Home Story price-fixes the rebate for ALL "partner agents" at $4,000. What the scheme fails to mention is that the kickback HomeStory secretly takes (assuming a 30% kickback) from that same transaction is $9,000 - more than double the amount the consumer receives. On the open market, consumers can easily receive a buyer rebate valued at $15,000 or more, instead of a price-fixed $4,000 amount. This $9,000 loss is, obviously, the price difference between wire fraud, false advertising, collusion, price-fixing, as opposed to open competition. Moreover, honest agents able to offer even better terms to consumers on the open market are bypassed by this scheme entirely. Price fixing does not only harm consumers, but it harms all honest participants outside of the scheme, as well as the open nature of the real estate market itself.
HomeStory shell broker does not connect consumers with anyone outside the network, in fact, they specifically steer consumers into the network in exchange for massive kickbacks pre-negotiated in advance.
There are numerous reasons why consumers are wise to avoid the HomeStory scheme, but probably the most important reason is that the lack of transparency and honesty is contagious. HomeStory scheme attracts ONLY double-dealing Realtors who are willing to break a host of federal antitrust laws, and unwilling to compete for consumers with transparency. An unethical Realtor will always find a way to turn the most important transaction into a self-dealing proposition - to collect a bigger commission check faster without any regard for what is truly a good deal for their clients.
Why Does HomeStory Engage in Price-Fixing?
HomeStory engages in price-fixing because it needs a "dangling carrot in front of consumers" to "reasonably" justify the kickbacks it takes from the Realtors who patriciate in the scheme. This dynamic is better known as a hub-and-spoke conspiracy. In a hub-and-spoke type conspiracy, all listing rates are set at the same amount for all Realtors, where none of the "partner agents" compete with one another on pricing at all. HomeStory scheme produces absolutely no tangible service as a licensed broker to anyone and instead delivers inflated prices and lower quality of service. The scheme originates as a conspiracy to restrain trade and to funnel consumers toward the scheme and away from the open market. There are hundreds of thousands of highly competitive Realtors who offer great savings and great service, and they refuse to pay kickbacks or to comply with the price fixed rates set by HomeStory.
The illicit 25% kickback is the reason why HomeStory setsHSBC HomeStory listing commission rates for Realtors outside their firm. ALL consumers and ALL legitimate Realtors are scammed by HomeStory, even if the experience and savings may seem "good enough" because price-fixing is a faulty shortcut to genuine open competition between Realtors. By law, all Realtors must compete for consumers and set prices individually. Open competition is at the core of our free and independent society everywhere in America.
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. ALL Realtors who participate in the HomeStory scheme are engaged in price-fixing. 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 for each count. Persons found guilty of wire fraud under federal law face fines up to $250,000 for individuals and up to $500,000 for organizations, subject to imprisonment of not more than 20 years. There are additional penalties of 30 years imprisonment and a million-dollar fine if the wire fraud involves a financial institution. These penalties are per count, which means that each electronic communication can be considered as a separate count. 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 can recognize price-fixing as wrong because they respect the true value of honest negotiations.
The prices set by HomeStory are not for the services that they offer, but for services offered by their direct competitors – other brokers. When HomeStory refuses to compete with these brokers and instead organizes "partner agents" into a network, it breaks an entire host of basic principles that guide our open and fair markets. Moreover, HomeStory extends this conspiracy all across the United States, making the scheme highly damaging due to the scaled use of the Internet to transmit collusion. The Internet, like any other scaled information medium, can be used to transmit open competition just as easily as pay-to-play fraud and collusion.
HomeStory wire fraud scheme is particularly alarming because it is scaled across state borders by financial institutions such as HSBC Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, Lakeview Loan Servicing, LLC, The Money Source Inc., Alliant Credit Union, Home Point Financial, etc. in an open violation of RESPA and Sherman Antitrust Act by means of wire communications interstate channels such as the following:
HSBC HomeStory wire fraud channel
Fidelity HomeStory wire fraud channel
Chase Homestory wire fraud channel
The short answer is: HomeStory's intent to fix prices is directly tied into the kickbacks it receives from the "partner agents." This dynamic is a product of 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.
Where does HomeStory operate?
Buying with Tomo Brokerage
WARNING: Unlawful Kickbacks, Broker-to-Broker Collusion, False Marketing, Wire Fraud, Price Fixing.
Tomo) 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.
Tomo Brokerage is a paper brokerage that operates a consumer allocation and a price fixing scheme designed to collect hidden referral fees by matching consumers with local real estate agents willing to pay it. Tomo Brokerage operates under a Texas TREC License #9010749 issued to Tomo Brokerage, Inc., 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.
In exchange for matching consumers with an Tomo Brokerage Partner Agent, Tomo Brokerage is compensated by the Partner Agent with a hidden kickback, likely 25%-35% cut of their commission. The company partnered with real estate coach Tom Ferry to build out their collusion scheme with a network of independent agents across multiple states.
Tomo Brokerage Pricing
Tomo Brokerage revenue comes from the use of blanket referral agreements with random real estate brokers. Tomo Brokerage is a broker-to-broker collusion scheme that scrubs consumers' information from their mortgage operations and passes it along to a colluding broker who is willing to pay for it with a cut of their commission. Tomo Brokerage’s blanket referral agreements effectively operate on a longstanding myth that buyer agents work for free. In reality, a homebuyer can negotiate a sizable commission refund with a competitive buyer agent in 40 US states from the Buyer’s Agent Commission (typically offered at 2.5%-3% BAC) received.
Tomo Brokerage, in effect, operates as a price-fixing scheme that converts a small portion of the kickback they receive into "perks." Tomo dangles these "perks" as carrots in front of consumers, currently fixed at an interest rate set discount at 0.125% if customers use a Tomo Brokerage Partner Agent. These “perks” savings, in reality, are dismal, compared to thousands in kickbacks received by Tomo for the act of pay-to-play steering. In this scheme, consumers end up giving up an opportunity to receive massive amounts of cash rebates (thousands or tens of thousands depending on the overall home price) available to them in the open market from highly competitive agents who offer in legitimate tax-free buyer’s cash refunds to compete for homebuyers’ business.
Listing Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Sellers
Buyer's Agent Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Buyers
Tomo Editor's Review:
Tomo claims to be a different consumer-focused company, but in reality, it is in of the worst VC-backed real estate pay-to-play consumer steering schemes. For consumers, Tomo Brokerage promises a real estate agent “concierge” platform for top local real estate agents. By gathering consumers’ home preferences and budgets while shopping for a mortgage with Tomo Mortgage, Tomo Brokerage scrubs users’ information and feeds it into their limited pay-to-play network of real estate brokers. According to Tomo's website Privacy Policy, they sell consumers’ information to any number of other services. This pay-to-play dynamic is unlikely to represent the consumer’s best options. Whoever pays Tomo some form of kickbacks, in effect, is who they pass consumers’ information to:
“In some circumstances, we share your information with third parties not owned by or co-branded with Tomo Mortgage that benefit directly from our sharing your information with them.”
Tomo Mortgage may even sell consumers’ information to competing lenders:
“Third-party lenders. If Tomo Mortgage cannot finance your home, we may share your personal information with one of our partner lenders.”
Tomo further may attempt to sell consumers’ information to random home insurance companies:
“Home insurance agencies. If your real estate transaction is such that you may need homeowners insurance, we may share your information with homeowners insurance agencies and those agencies may reach out to you directly to offer you a quote.”
For real estate professionals, Tomo Brokerage promises a “no upfront costs” lead generation by scrubbing consumers’ information when they shop for their mortgage. Once a potential homebuyer is identified, a Tomo Brokerage initiates a transfer to the Partner Agent. Tomo Brokerage representatives give Partner Agents all the background information on the homebuyer to make the transition.
In other words, Tomo Brokerage is a consumer allocation scheme between licensed real estate brokers that scrubs consumer’s information and passes it along to a broker who is willing to pay for it with a cut of their commission. If a broker is unwilling to give a portion of their commission to Tomo Brokerage, the company has no interest in recommending them. Tomo Brokerage further takes no responsibility for any of the actions of the brokers that they allocate to consumers.
In effect, Tomo Brokerage is a self-serving scheme designed to funnel consumers toward brokers who pay them a hidden kickback at the close of consumers’ transactions. Consumers using Tomo Brokerage have zero control over what agents the company shares their information with. Instead of being scrubbed and 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.
Tomo attempts to present this pay-to-play scheme differently:
"Tomo Brokerage only works with Partner Agents that meet its high standards of customer-centric service, and they have to be experts in the areas you want to live in. They help you hone in your search criteria, find great homes, negotiate a great deal, and navigate the entire process. They can also help you identify qualified professionals to put the finishing touches on your new home."
These claims are entirely false. Tomo Brokerage only works with brokers who pay them kickbacks. These agents engage in consumer allocation with Tomo Brokerage. The act of consumer allocation between licensed brokers is a prohibited practice in the United States, by the virtue of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Tomo Brokerage Partner Agents are unlikely to have consumers' best interests, and, because they have to pay a kickback, they do not earn their full commissions. In effect, these agents work for consumers half the time, and for Tomo, the other half.
Even considering the overall dishonesty, kickbacks, and legal implications of the scheme, a consumer can technically still use Tomo Mortgage and freely negotiate a competitive buyer refund elsewhere on the open market with any agent.
There are honest and competitive buyer agents who are willing to share a cut of their commissions with consumers, as a legitimate way to earn business, rather than paying hidden kickbacks to Tomo Brokerage. Tomo Mortgage does not require consumers to use Tomo Brokerage, but it instead dangles an interest rate discount (set at 0.125%) so that homebuyers think that there are savings available to them. Tomo Brokerage's hidden kickbacks cost consumers thousands in properly negotiated fees while funneling hidden fees back into the scheme itself. These hidden kickbacks, eventually, reside in consumers’ mortgages and collect interest.
Price Fixing with Tomo Perks
Broker compensation fees must never be fixed via agreements between two or more brokers anywhere in the United States. All commissions and rebates must be set by each real estate agent individually and may only be negotiable between the consumer and the real estate agent. Buyer agents never work for free.
Genuine 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. If an agent is unwilling to negotiate competitive buyer rebate terms in compliance with the law, there is no reason for homebuyers to assume that they will be willing to negotiate competitively when it comes to their home purchase.
In combination, Tomo Mortgage and Tomo Brokerage terms equate to price fixing rates of independent real estate professionals who do not work for either one of these entities. Price fixing between independent business entities is a felony everywhere in the United States.
Tomo Perks Terms and ConditionsSubject to the following terms and conditions, customers who buy a home with Tomo Mortgage and a Tomo Brokerage Partner Agent qualify for Tomo Perks, which lowers their mortgage interest rate by 0.125%:
Tomo Brokerage Partner Agent. The customer must be party to a fully executed home purchase contract that identifies a Tomo Brokerage Partner Agent as their real estate agent, and Tomo Brokerage must have a record of referring the customer to the Partner Agent.
Tomo. The customer must purchase the home referenced above using a mortgage loan from Tomo with a loan amount of at least $150,000.
Rate Lock. The Tomo Perks interest rate reduction will be applied when the customer locks in their interest rate.
Modification. Tomo may modify the terms of Tomo Perks, but when it does so they will be modified only for customers who entered into purchase contracts after the date the program terms were modified.
Consumer Allocation
Tomo Brokerage is a broker-to-broker collusion scheme. All Partner Agents agree to pay Tomo Brokerage a pre-arranged referral fee, on all closed transactions, through their employing broker. A referral agreement between Tomo Brokerage and a Partner Agent for a random transaction that may or may not happen sometime in the future is executed in advance.
Tomo Brokerage engages in consumer and market allocation agreements with Partner Agents brokerages, because it is a broker itself. Instead of representing consumers to help buy and sell homes, this “paper” brokerage actively disengages from its licensed activities so that every Partner Agent knows that Tomo Brokerage, Inc. will not compete with them. Tomo Brokerage does not act in a real estate brokerage capacity, instead, their real estate license is used to collect a blanket referral fee from the largest number of brokers possible.
Sherman Antitrust Act effectively requires all active real estate brokers to proactively compete for consumers. An agreement or an understanding between brokers not to compete for a mutual benefit is a "per se" violation of antitrust regulations in the United States.
The amount of a referral fee between brokers must be negotiated with respect to an individual transaction. It is a per se violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act for real estate brokers to agree on a “standard” referral fee that will be paid for producing a client. Real estate professionals are not allowed to enter into blanket referral agreements between one another because such agreements always restrict free trade.
Brokers are not allowed to organize their operations into any collusion schemes and networks, and instead, all brokers must compete for consumers on a fair playing field. Legitimate agents who choose NOT to engage in the Tomo Brokerage “no upfront costs” scheme are harmed as well because consumers are steered away from them in a highly competitive real estate market.
Kickbacks and Unearned Fees
RESPA, among other things, is designed to prohibit abusive practices such as kickbacks and referral fees between mortgage companies and real estate brokers.
The statutory exemption for a payment to a cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements between real estate agents and real estate brokers requires all agents to compete against one another. To comply in good faith with RESPA (12 U.S.C. 2607) Section 8 exception for cooperative brokerage and referral arrangements, legitimate real estate agents must render referral agreements in a particular instance for a particular transaction.
Actions of Tomo Brokerage “paper” brokerage directly increase the costs of owning homes in the United States due to added blanket referral fees, consumer allocation practices, price fixing, and reverse completion between brokers. Partner Agents in the scheme have no incentive to compete for consumers individually with lower fees, instead, they have an incentive to compete for Tomo Brokerage’ attention. In this scheme, both colluding parties benefit from offering consumers higher commissions. Tomo Brokerage promotes Partner Agents as somehow “superior” to those outside of the network, thus limiting free-market competitive forces and steering consumers in self-interest toward a network of very few agents who chose to agree to participate in the scheme.
Similar attempts to by-pass RESPA prohibition against kickbacks by means operating a paper brokerage in a combination with services of a mortgage broker are not new. Similar schemes include:
Blend and Blend Brokerage
Better.com and Better Real Estate
HomeStory and a number of third-party lenders
Rocket Mortgage and Rocket Homes
loanDepot and mellohome
Nationstar Mortgage (dba Mr. Cooper) and Xome
and possibly some others. CFPB is currently investigating at least one of these schemes, Rocket Homes, and consumers must exercise great care to protect themselves in the meantime. A real estate home purchase is one of the most important transactions and it must be free from hidden kickbacks and self-steering.
In the real world, Tomo Mortgage and Tomo Brokerage are a single company, both designed and built with massive VC capital to rake hidden fees, by-pass RESPA, collude with independent brokers for a cut of their commissions, and openly price-fix services of others.
The entire RESPA prohibition against kickbacks was enacted specifically to stop mortgage companies from entering into “symbiotic relationships” with real estate brokers. Tomo Brokerage 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.
As an active licensed brokerage, Tomo Brokerage owes absolutely no duty of care to consumers, takes no responsibility for the transaction, and does not help consumers to buy homes - all despite receiving a direct financial benefit from the home purchase completed by the homebuyer.