Compare Flyhomes and Torii Homes
For Sellers
For Buyers
For Buyers
For Buyers
Answer: Flyhomes is a full-service real estate agent and a stand-in cash program for buyers that offers savings to homebuyers and home sellers while Torii Homes is a buyer’s real estate agent and a referral fee network
Buying and Selling with Flyhomes
Flyhomes is a multi-state full-service real estate agent offers consumers listing savings and buyer’s refunds in select areas across Washington, Oregon, Illinois, Massachusetts, and California.
In Oregon state law currently does not allow Flyhomes to offer buyer’s rebates to consumers.
Flyhomes Pricing
Flyhomes offers listing savings to sellers (1% listing fee) and commission refunds to buyers (32% estimated rebate where allowed by State law.)
Flyhomes also offers buyers Cash Offers stand-in program, where the company either assures buyer’s offer or buys a home and resells it to the buyer for an added fee (1% service fee).
A similar Trade-in Program is available for sellers.
Listing Services
- MLS Listing
- Zillow, Trulia, etc. Listing
- Accept and Deliver All Offers and Counteroffers
- Hold Open Houses
- Professional Photography
- Professional Floor Plans
- Yard Signage Installation
- Spare Key Lock-box Installation
- Schedule Inspection Services
- Schedule Private Showings
- Closing Duties
Buyer's Agent Services
- Find the Property
- Accept and Deliver All Offers and Counteroffers
- Recommend Other Professionals
- Attend Inspection Services
- Schedule Private Showings
- Negotiate Needed Repairs
- Closing Duties
Flyhomes Editor's Review:
Flyhomes is a consumer-focused saving real estate broker that offers a wide variety of value-added propositions for home buyers and sellers in select areas where it operates.
Agent Listings
As a listing agent, Flyhomes works with a seller to prepare their home for listing, including taking professional photos, pricing home, and publishing marketing materials. Flyhomes lists all homes on the local MLS as well as typical MLS Aggregators.
Trade-in Program for Sellers
Flyhomes is not an iBuyer. Flyhomes offers sellers a Trade-in Program where the company runs a pricing analysis on seller's current home and sets a conservative price guarantee for the amount that it will pay to buy it outright.
Once a seller selects a new home and her purchase offer is accepted, the company lists the seller's current home on the market in order to sell it for more than the price guarantee amount. Once the home sells company accounts for its expenses. Flyhomes Trade-in Program is a value-added proposition and a viable alternative to iBuyer Offers. Unlike Flyhomes, with an iBuyer seller inevitably loses a lot of their home net equity in the process due to the risk of holding and re-selling the home by the iBuyer. Sellers using Trade-in Program do not lose equity and only pay a moderate fee in the process. Granted, Flyhomes does not offer "quick cash" iBuyer proposition, where the seller still needs to list their home in the open market and wait for better offers to come in and pay expenses back, but the equity savings is why we rate this program as genuinely consumer-focused.
Sellers who use Flyhomes Trade-in program do not receive a rebate on the buy-side and Flyhomes charges sellers 1% commission as a service fee (this does not include the buy-side agent commission) to list their home. Flyhomes evaluates seller's home before the seller can participate in Trade-in Program and reserves the right to request repairs prior to seller's inclusion in the program.
Buyer's Agent
As a buyer's agent, Flyhomes works with buyers to find a home, schedule inspections, negotiate repairs and finalize the purchase. Flyhomes offers overall great value to consumers looking to buy or sell a home including a convenient "request tour" option on the Flyhomes website in order to easily schedule home viewings with their service team.
Guaranteed and Cash Offers for Buyers
Flyhomes offers buyers a unique Cash Offers stand-in program where Flyhomes purchases a home outright from the seller on a buyer's behalf in as few as 2 days and sells it back at the same price to the buyer on an agreed upon closing date.
When a Cash Offer is not available, buyers can utilize Guaranteed Offer instead. For the Guaranteed Offer program, Flyhomes guarantees the seller that the home will close, and if it doesn't, Flyhomes will then buy the home for the same terms.
Cash Offers stand-in program is not free, it is also highly selective. Cash Offers program may come with added risks in the event the buyer decides to back out of the sale. Buyers should carefully review their agreement with Flyhomes before participating in Cash Offers stand-in program so to fully understand the fees and potential penalties for backing out of the Cash Offer once it is made.
Buyers can only utilize Cash Offers when working with Flyhomes, which means that if there is another local real estate agent who offers a buyer a better commission refund, such as a flat fee option, the buyer cannot take advantage of these larger savings with Cash Offers.
In some cases, an alternative savings model may better serve buyers financially than Cash Offers proposition due to a sheer price tag of standard real estate commissions.
Where does Flyhomes operate?
Buying with Torii Homes
Torii Homes is a buyer's agent and a referral fee network that offers homebuyer’s refunds in select service areas. Torii Homes typically credits the buyer's refund savings against the miscellaneous transaction costs such as loan origination fees, appraisal fees, title search, title insurance, surveys, deed-recording fees, and credit report charges.
Torii Homes does not credit the buyer's refund savings against property taxes, homeowner's insurance, transfer taxes, interest, mortgage points (optional fees paid directly to a lender in exchange for a reduced interest rate.) orii Homes does not credit the buyer's refund savings against any recurring costs.
After the miscellaneous transaction costs are paid for, Torii Homes keeps the rest of the Buyer’s Agent Commission as a fee for representing buyers in the home purchase.
Torii Homes Pricing
Torii Homes offers homebuyers approximately 20%-30% of the Buyer’s Agent Commission as savings.
Listing Services
- This Service Does Not Openly Advertise to Home Sellers
Buyer's Agent Services
- Find the Property
- Accept and Deliver All Offers and Counteroffers
- Recommend Other Professionals
- Attend Inspection Services
- Schedule Private Showings
- Negotiate Needed Repairs
- Closing Duties
Torii Homes Editor's Review:
Torii Homes is a tech-enabled real estate brokerage. Torii Homes claims that it costs nothing to use the service: “The seller of a home pays the real estate commission, which we then put toward your closing costs. You don't pay Torii anything for our help.” This is false and misleading advertising because buyer’s agents never work for free. A recent settlement between NAR and US-DOJ prohibits licensed real estate brokers from making a claim that their services are offered for free.
The cost of hiring a buyer’s agent is always incorporated into the homebuyer’s final mortgage sum. As a buyer’s agent, Torii Homes is paid with a percentage of the home sale, Buyer's Agent Commission (typically offered at 2.5%-3% by the seller) and it contributes 20%-30% of this total amount to the buyer as a way to financially compete for buyer’s business.
Torii Homes provides homebuyers with a licensed expert real estate agent who helps with the home search, scheduling/attending showings, preparing a home purchase offer, and price negotiations.
Torii Partner Agents
Torii Partner Agents Referral Network (Torii Partner Agents) is a referral process that connects buyers with third-party real estate agents in exchange for an undisclosed blanket referral fee. Torii Partner Agents are not employed by Torii Homes, however, Torii Homes maintains a set of pre-arranged price-fixing agreements with random Partner Agents, claiming to offer consumers savings.
The price-fixing agreements between Torii Homes and Torii Partner Agents are presented to homebuyers as blanket incentives of $1,000 in buyer commission rebates.
Torii Partner Agents are employed by, or work with their independent brokerages, are referred by Torii Homes at their own discretion, as a blind match. Torii Homes keeps the referral fee amount it receives from these brokers hidden. This practice is highly deceptive and is designed to deceive consumers to utilize Torii Homes as a price-fixing scheme to receive savings from competing brokers.
A blanket incentive of $1,000 is presented before consumers as savings, but the cost of the referral fee always works against homebuyers. The blanket referral fee between Torii Homes and Torii Partner Agents is hidden in the final cost of commissions. This practice results in an inefficiency known as reverse competition between brokers and price-fixing. Ultimately, price fixing and kickbacks result in a lower quality of service or higher commissions paid by the homebuyers.
By engaging with Torii Homes, homebuyers authorize them to share personal information and home search history with any Partner Agent, regardless if a consumer wants to work with a Torii Homes agent directly.
Torii Homes dictates that Partner Agent rebates $1,000 of their commission as means to allocate homebuyers to other brokers. In the United States, all independent brokerage fees are always negotiable and each real estate agent establishes its own policy for a fee structure, amount of commissions, and issuing rebates to consumers.
Price fixing is firmly prohibited by federal antitrust legislation. To fix, control, recommend, suggest or maintain commission rates, rebates, and fees for other agents' services is an improper practice.
In summary, Torii Homes offers a legitimate buyer's refund to consumers spent against miscellaneous closing costs. However, Torii Homes cannot legally organize competing brokers into a referral fee network because blanket referral agreements, price-fixing, consumer allocation, and market allocation between licensed real estate brokers in the United States are prohibited.