Compare Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) and Zillow
For Sellers
For Buyers
Answer: Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) is a referral fee network that enables broker-to-broker collusion with use of blanket referral agreements while Zillow is a Multiple Listing Services (MLS) aggregator
Buying and Selling with Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity)
WARNING: Unlawful Kickbacks, Broker-to-Broker Collusion, False Marketing, Wire Fraud, Price Fixing.
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity)) 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.
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) is a referral fee network designed to collect fees by matching consumers with local real estate agents willing to participate. Opcity operates as a licensed real estate brokerage in Texas under TREC License # 9005100, 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.
When consumers submit information to Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity), this information is simply sold to real estate agents who are willing to pay for it with 30%-40% share of their commission.
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) Pricing
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) revenue comes from referral fees and sale of user data.
Listing Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Sellers
Buyer's Agent Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Buyers
Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) Editor's Review:
Opcity is a Texas licensed real estate broker that collects an undisclosed referral fee (estimated at 30%-40% of agent’s commission) from all real estate agents. This fee makes it hardly a free service for anyone since referral fees are inevitably passed down to consumers.
More importantly, Opcity is a real estate agent that “does not engage in actual real estate broker services.” Opcity systematically applies pay-to-play bias towards all matching results, meaning, only real estate agents that have agreed to pay a referral fee are matched with consumers.
Opcity audits all transactions and requires agents to update the status of each transaction on continued the basis because it needs to find out how much money real estate agents receive in commissions and when these fees will be due, inevitably collecting private details of consumer’s agreement for home purchase or sale.
Opcity further calls it a "dispatch process that matches agents to available leads based on lead's proximity, lead's price points." The main qualification for real estate agents who participate with Opcity is their willingness to pay a referral fee. With Opcity is a subsidiary brokerage for Realtor.com, what used to be an independent MLS Aggregator, now is a middle-man broker.
Realtor.com had acquired Opcity in 2018, making this scheme one of the most scaled and damaging Referral Fee Networks in the United States. Realtor.com Opcity scheme is the low point of a transparent real estate process. From Opcity's own description of the service, the nature of the process could not be clearer: "We send a lead alert via text or mobile push notification to the agent 1st in the queue. That agent has approximately 5 seconds to click-to-claim the lead alert before the 2nd agent receives a lead alert and can also click-to-claim the lead. 5 seconds later, another agent is alerted, and so on."
In this process Opcity "qualifies" and "dispatches" consumers, where consumers are no longer in the driver's seat, but instead, are traded as a commodity.
Opcity plays fees down, claiming there are "no upfront costs" and does not publically disclose the exact amount of referral fees it charges each agent, but it rigidly locks every participating real estate agent into a 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 Opcity because the price of the referral fee can be easily incorporated into their client's agreement with excessive commissions.
Opcity receives the lowest score because this service is clearly biased and it claims to provide the complete opposite of what it actually does. Realtor.com Opcity must be well aware of this issue but continues to operate on pay-to-play methodology in order to collect fees that needlessly make home buying and selling more expensive. As a matter of this review, it is impossible to segregate Realtor.com from Opcity - consumers should avoid using either service in order to protect their information from being "sold as leads" to random agents while being subjected with heavy referral fees.
Where does Realtor.com ReadyConnect (Opcity) operate?
Buying and Selling with Zillow
Zillow is an MLS Aggregator that allows buyers and sellers to list homes and find out what local homes are available for sale. Zillow aggregates home listing data from thousands of private MLS databases across the United States.
By making this otherwise unavailable information to consumers, Zillow creates a positive value-added experience with local results for the majority of available listings.
Zillow generates revenue with ads using Zillow Group’s Premier Agent and Premier Broker programs.
Zillow Pricing
Zillow does not offer paid services to consumers directly, instead, the portal generates revenue with ads and referral fees from real estate brokers.
Listing Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Sellers
Buyer's Agent Services
- This Service Does Not Represent Buyers
Zillow Editor's Review:
This review is focused on Zillow as an MLS aggregator, separate from the referral fee network (Zillow Premier Broker) and (Zillow Instant Offers). Two separate reviews are assigned to Zillow Premier Broker and Zillow Instant Offers programs. As an MLS aggregator, Zillow benefits real estate consumers with highly accurate MLS data and home value estimates.
Today, most consumers ready to buy or sell real estate begin their search on the Internet. This is a logical first step that can help identify similar properties, pricing budget to help make the correct decision about buying or selling real estate. Zillow is one of the main and most well-known sources of such information. Zillow analyzes property values, aggregates data and displays results that make sense to seasoned real estate professionals as well as newbie home buyers and sellers.
Undeniably, Zillow, has a great wealth of aggregate MLS property information, an easy-to-use interface, valuable neighborhood information, excellent user reviews and a wide array of real estate-related services, articles, and forums. Zillow is one of the top real estate platforms in the United States and will likely remain there with acquisitions of Trulia.com, Streeteasy.com, and RealEstate.com “mirror” platforms. The chances are that a consumer either buying or selling a home uses Zillow platform or one of its affiliates as part of their real estate transaction experience.
Zillow is technically free, but Zillow is funded with advertising and referral fees. Zillow advertising costs vary by ZIP code, cost per impression and Premier Broker referral fees are currently hidden from consumers. Agents that sign-up for their Premier Agent program "get in front of buyers and sellers in the largest online real estate network."
This fact ultimately means that real estate agent recommendations provided to real estate consumers by Zillow are biased. Those agents that pay Zillow for Premier Agent accounts consistently show up first in their search results without a clear indication of Premier status. Thus, an agency at the top may or may not be the best choice, yet Zillow implies to its users that it is.
As of 2019, Zillow has further turned to “broker mentality” against consumers with an introduction of Zillow Premier Broker and Zillow Instant Offers programs. Both of these programs effectively take Zillow into a middle-man real estate broker category, and away from an independent portal. Zillow had designed these programs to “trade consumers as leads” and push buyers and sellers onto a select group of real estate agents in exchange for hidden referral fees.
Unlike the Premier Agent program, where agents simply pay for ads, Premier Broker is a pay-for-play lead generator pipeline that qualifies consumers as a service.
This literally means that Zillow qualifies consumers into a commodity where agents buy that commodity; Zillow calls this a “flexible” payment option. Zillow CEO states that “it simplifies selling process because it de-risks the purchase decision for advertisers.” There is no upfront fee to brokers when they receive consumers info as validated leads, so there is no risk to the broker if they quote a consumer a "standard" commission – if the broker doesn’t get the business, they move on to the next validated lead with their overpriced commission offerings.
Like any other limited agent referral network of agents who are willing to pay “industry standard performance advertising expense” the only job for Zillow here is to push a few agents onto consumers en masse. With even a small percent success rate, each time Zillow converts consumers into leads, it receives thousands or tens of thousands in referral fees, typically set at 25%-40% of the commission. This business model is called reverse competition, where Zillow still refuses to acknowledge the exact amount in referral fees it receives from this new program.
The only way real estate agents are able to pay 25%-40% of their commission to Zillow is to either reduce service or jack up the price. Consumers should be careful not to provide their complete information to Zillow including name, email and a phone number in order to avoid being "sold as leads" to random real estate brokers.