72SOLD vs. Opendoor: Which Is Better?

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  Written by Michael Warford

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  Edited by Jessica Johansen

72SOLD vs. Opendoor | How they work | Offers and fees | Customer reviews | Availability | Alternatives

Opendoor and 72SOLD both promise to sell your home quickly, sometimes within days. Opendoor does this by buying your house for cash. 72SOLD has a more traditional selling process, but with highly aggressive tactics that — in theory — could create a bidding war among buyers.

In today’s lukewarm market, both companies have risks. Opendoor’s offers are less than they used to be, and the company is more selective about the houses it buys. 72SOLD’s service model relies largely on high buyer demand, which doesn’t exist in all markets.

Overall, we found Opendoor better keeps its promise to buy your home quickly. 72SOLD, on the other hand, is a far riskier choice, and many of its claims are misleading. While either company might work for your specific situation, we suggest shopping around first.

If you’re looking for a guaranteed cash sale, research available alternatives, like cash buyers. These buyers can also help you sell your home quickly. By shopping around and comparing your options, you’ll ensure you close fast without leaving money on the table unnecessarily.

72SOLD vs. Opendoor: Which should you use?

72SOLD and Opendoor are very different companies. Opendoor is primarily an iBuying service that can buy your house directly from you. You’ll get less than market value, but the service may be right for you if you prioritize speed or convenience over profit.

72SOLD is more like a traditional real estate brokerage, but with an aggressive marketing strategy. The company creates a sense of urgency among buyers. It only lets them view your home for a limited amount of time and then asks for quick offers, which, in theory, can create a bidding war.

However, 72SOLD’s approach is risky. It often relies on underpricing your home and giving buyers fewer opportunities to view it. If you live in a hot real estate market, 72SOLD could work. But if not, you could end up selling for less than your house is worth.

Plus, 72SOLD has a reputation for making unverifiable claims and pushing sellers into deals they’re not always happy with.

Both companies are unlikely to get you fair market value for your home

Neither 72SOLD nor Opendoor gets great marks when it comes to how much you’ll sell your house for.

72SOLD appears to list houses low to drum up competition among buyers and create a bidding war. However, this strategy is risky. While your house may technically sell above the asking price, that doesn’t mean much if your realtor encouraged you to ask for less than your home is worth.

72SOLD claims that independent studies prove its homes sell for more than the MLS median. But these studies were actually written by Sarah Perkins. Perkins works for Navi Title — which is listed as an affiliate partner on 72SOLD’s website — and has done promotional videos for 72SOLD.

Opendoor usually doesn’t pay market value for homes either. Its final offers are often lower than its initial ones because of deductions for repairs.

However, with Opendoor, you’re free to walk away if you don’t like its final offer. With 72SOLD, you may be stuck in a listing agreement for months. Several seller reviews complain of 72SOLD and its affiliate agents making it very difficult to cancel a listing agreement.

Opendoor has slightly lower fees

Neither company provides substantial savings for its customers.

With 72SOLD, there’s no discount for using the service. You pay the standard real estate commission rate, which is usually around 5–6%. Other discount real estate brokerages charge much less without sacrificing service.

Opendoor charges 5% for its iBuyer program. In some markets, this may be slightly lower than the average realtor commission. Opendoor also doesn’t charge a cancellation fee, although its repair costs can be high.

Customers complain of 72SOLD’s misleading claims

72SOLD makes a lot of claims on its website about the success of its program, but there’s little data to back these up. The company appears to have great reviews online, but these are artificially inflated. Over half of the reviews come from its realtor partners, not customers.

The company also makes it sound like your home will sell faster and for more money than listing the traditional way. There’s no evidence that this is true. In fact, some online reviews claim that sellers sold for far less than asking price and that the process took much longer than the eight days 72SOLD promises on its website.

72SOLD can make these unverified claims because neither the company nor its founder, Greg Hague, is a member of the National Association of Realtors (NAR), so they’re not bound by the Realtor Code of Ethics.

72SOLD is more widely available

72SOLD is available nationwide, whereas Opendoor only operates in 54 markets in 26 states and Washington, DC. While Opendoor is limited to metropolitan areas, 72SOLD also operates outside of major cities.

However, 72SOLD’s marketing tactics only work in areas where there is high buyer demand.

If you’re trying to sell in a slow or average market, 72SOLD will have a harder time creating competition among buyers. If that’s the case, while 72SOLD may technically be available where you live, the features that make it unique may not be suited for your home.

72SOLD vs. Opendoor: How they work

With 72SOLD, you basically get a traditional listing agent, but they employ a particular type of marketing strategy to encourage buyers to bid against one another. Their approach is usually to underprice your home, create a short window of time for buyers to see the property, and give a quick deadline for offers.

Opendoor offers a range of services. With its main iBuying model, you can sell your house directly to the company, allowing you to skip showings and close in just weeks.

How 72SOLD works

72SOLD is a lead-referral program. Instead of acting as a brokerage, 72SOLD sells leads to local realtors. The realtors pay 72SOLD a fee for your contact info and agree to adopt 72SOLD’s marketing techniques. These techniques revolve around creating a sense of urgency for buyers.

During the pandemic, when real estate prices were soaring, 72SOLD listed homes on Thursday or Friday, allowed buyers to view the homes during only a 90-minute window on Saturday, and required offers to be submitted before Monday. This process pressured buyers into submitting offers as quickly as possible, which helped drive up the sale price.

However, this strategy isn’t unique to 72SOLD. And it only works when demand far outpaces supply, which is no longer the case in many markets. As a result, 72SOLD no longer promises to sell your house within 72 hours — instead, it now promises 8 days.

Its marketing strategy varies by market, but it often still tries to create competition among buyers by pricing homes low and creating limited windows of time where buyers can actually view the properties.

How Opendoor works

Opendoor is a tech startup founded in San Francisco in 2014. While it’s best known as an iBuyer, Opendoor has expanded into other real estate services, including home trade-in, buyer representation, and title insurance.

Offers and fees

Opendoor and 72SOLD have different models for selling your house, which can result in very different offers on your home.

While 72SOLD could get you a fair market price, its approach is risky, and you could end up selling for much less. Opendoor offers less than market value, but the process is faster.

Fees are similar for both companies.

72SOLD fees

72SOLD charges the same commission as a traditional realtor, around 5–6% of the final sale price, which is split between the buyer’s and seller’s agents. Closing costs are around 1%, and repairs, if any are needed, are based on an inspection.

72SOLD doesn’t offer any discounts, and its selling strategy risks you selling your house for less than market value. Plenty of discount brokerages offer lower fees while giving you a better chance of getting a higher price on your home.

Opendoor fees

Opendoor charges a 5% service fee for its iBuying program, which is similar to what traditional realtor commission costs. Closing costs are usually around 1%, and there’s no cancellation fee if you walk away from Opendoor’s offer. There’s a daily fee if you decide to stay in your house after closing (for up to 17 days).

With Opendoor, watch out for repair costs. Several reviews complain of repair estimates that ran into the tens of thousands of dollars, substantially lowering the sellers’ profit. If Opendoor’s adjusted offer doesn’t seem worth it to you, remember you can walk away without penalty.

Customer reviews

72SOLD reviews

On the surface, 72SOLD has excellent reviews online — 4.8 out of 5. However, this figure is highly misleading. Over half of 72SOLD’s reviews come from realtors who are participating in its program, not actual customers. While this practice isn’t illegal, it’s looked down on by many other brokerages.

The result is that 72SOLD’s customer rating doesn’t accurately reflect the real customer experience. While many customers are satisfied with 72SOLD, many aren’t, and reviews tend to be much more negative in recent months.

❌ Some customers complain of agents being unresponsive

Some complaints show that 72SOLD and its affiliated agents did a poor job of staying in touch with sellers after their homes were listed.

As this seller said, “Not at all what we expected. Our home was listed with 72SOLD for 3 months. We got handed off to an assistant who didn’t keep us informed. We were the ones calling and texting to find out what was going on. When we finally decided to take our house off the market with them, it took them 9 days to do it.”

72SOLD is primarily a lead-referral program. Our research suggests that it charges realtors a flat fee in addition to a percentage of the commission for these referrals. This means 72SOLD doesn’t need your house to sell in order to make money. 

Other lead-referral programs only collect a share of the commission once the house actually sells, which gives them more incentive to ensure you have a great experience throughout your transaction.

❌ Sellers complain of 72SOLD’s offers being very low

72SOLD claims that its process nets sellers a higher sale price, but we found many reviews that suggest otherwise.

For example, this customer said, “They offered to sell my property for 63% below the current lowest online valuation company.” Another seller complained, “With 72 sold at the moment, not liking how this is going. Totally going against what was told to us on how this will go. The pricing is way under than the market value, 40-80 k.”

72SOLD’s strategy seems to be to underprice your home in order to encourage more buyer interest and a bidding war. In theory, this could push your home’s price above market value.

But this strategy is risky and only works in markets with a lot of buyer demand. If you don’t get enough buyers showing interest, you could feel pressured into selling for less than your house is worth.

❌ 72SOLD doesn’t always live up to its promise of a quick sale

72SOLD claims that you’ll sell your house with them in less than eight days, but we found plenty of reviews that indicate the company often fails to deliver.

For example, this reviewer said, “It’s been 40 days on the market and STILL not sold! Lies about selling ANYWHERE in USA in 8 days!”

72SOLD’s strategy is to make buyers believe that your house is in high demand. But that strategy only works in real estate markets where there actually is demand. Buyers know if houses are selling fast, and they aren’t going to move quickly to put in a high offer if the market has cooled.

So you may end up like the above customer: stuck with an unresponsive agent and struggling to cancel your listing.

If you want to sell your house fast, a better option is to use an alternative service, like a cash buyer.

Opendoor reviews

Opendoor reviews are fairly positive overall. Customers are usually happy with the quick process and customer service. However, recent reviews tend to be more negative. This trend likely reflects the fact that Opendoor is making fewer offers on houses and offering less than it used to.

Some reviews also complain about the company significantly lowering offers after inspections and making shoddy repairs.

✅ Customers appreciate Opendoor’s ease of use

iBuyers like Opendoor promise that their process makes selling a house much easier and faster than the traditional way. For the most part, we found this claim to be true.

For example, this seller said, “Sold with opendoor and the process couldn’t possibly have been better. It was so easy. … The process of getting an offer, preparing to close, and then closing was all super easy and we literally had no problems.”

Opendoor’s streamlined process relies heavily on technology and generally enables you to sell very fast. However, the drawback is that you’ll make less on your sale than you would on the open market.

❌ Lowered final offers are a major source of complaints

The most significant source of complaints from Opendoor reviewers is that the company sometimes makes an attractive initial offer only to lower it substantially after the inspection.

One seller said, “I was given an initial quote that was around market value. Went through all the steps and when the final offer came in it was over $100,000 less than the initial amount.”

Like all iBuyers, Opendoor is facing a challenging market as a result of high interest rates and lower buyer demand. In response, the company is making fewer offers overall, and those it does make are lower.

You shouldn’t take Opendoor’s preliminary offer as guaranteed, and you should be prepared to receive a much lower final offer.

❌ The quality of repairs isn’t always good

If you’re buying a property owned by Opendoor, we suggest getting a thorough inspection and looking out for shoddy repairs.

As one buyer said, “They do the absolute minimum amount of work at the cheapest possible price in order to sell a house. The quality of workmanship in the home we purchased is horrible.”

We found several reviews from buyers saying similar things about the repair quality in Opendoor homes.

Opendoor lets you view its homes on your own, but we’d recommend touring them with your own agent. Your agent will likely have more experience looking out for problems with the property, such as rushed repair work that could lead to issues later on.

Availability

Where does 72SOLD operate?

72SOLD is available nationwide. The company partnered with brokerage Keller Williams in 2022, which allowed 72SOLD to significantly expand its reach. It was listed at 260 on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.

However, 72SOLD is only licensed in Arizona and doesn’t actually represent sellers itself. Instead, it partners with local agents. 72SOLD provides partner agents with contact info for interested sellers in exchange for a fee.

When you work with 72SOLD, you actually work with whichever local agent has signed up for its referral program. So the service you receive may vary from one agent to another and may not align with 72SOLD’s promise to help you sell within eight days.

Where does Opendoor operate?

Opendoor is available in 54 markets across 26 states and Washington, DC. It’s currently the largest iBuyer in the country, although its growth has slowed since 2022. Not all services, such as Opendoor Exclusives, are available in every market it operates in.

Alternatives to using 72SOLD or Opendoor

Sell to a cash home buyer

If you want to sell fast, a better option may be to sell your home to a cash buyer. Like Opendoor, cash buyers are companies and investors who will buy your home for cash, allowing you to skip listing and showing your home. Unlike 72SOLD, they can reliably close fast, sometimes in just a couple of weeks.

Cash buyers are also a good option if you have a home that needs repairs or is otherwise difficult to sell on the open market. Many cash buyers, such as We Buy Ugly Houses, buy properties as is. However, cash buyers don’t pay as much as you would get selling with a realtor.

Your best bet is to compare multiple companies to see which one makes the best offer. A service like Clever Offers is ideal, since it solicits multiple offers from cash buyers on your behalf. You’ll have someone doing the hard part of actually getting offers from local buyers, so all you have to do is choose the best one.

Top cash home buyers

List on the MLS and use a cash offer as backup

Listing on the MLS with a traditional realtor is typically the best way to get the most money for your house. This approach isn’t usually as fast as selling to a cash buyer or iBuyer, but many realtors have strategies for selling quickly — and may even already know potential buyers.

You can even list on the MLS while using a cash buyer as a backup. This method involves signing a listing agreement with a realtor with the understanding that if you don’t get a satisfactory offer by the end of the listing term, you can use a cash buyer instead.

If you’re concerned about the potential cost of a realtor, consider using a low-commission real estate agent.

Many discount brokerages offer the same level of service as a traditional agent but charge less than the traditional rate, unlike 72SOLD and Opendoor. That way, you can save thousands on commission and still have the best chance of getting the best price for your home.