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What is Sold.com?
Sold.com is a free service that claims to match sellers and buyers with the best real estate service that suits their needs — from traditional realtors to discount brokers to cash buyers.
Beyond quickly spitting out a list of local real estate agents and services, Sold.com offers little to no value for consumers, but numerous drawbacks and risks, including:
- No quality control for its real estate services network
- Aggressive customer service reps
- Shady business practices
Should you use Sold.com?
If you need to find a real estate agent, we recommend trying a low commission company instead. The top companies vet realtors based on performance, make personalized recommendations, and pre-negotiate savings on your behalf.
For example, sellers who use Clever Real Estate can list with a top local agent for just 1.5%. Eligible buyers get cash back after closing.
» Find the right agent and save thousands.
Is Sold.com legitimate?
Yes, Sold.com is a licensed real estate brokerage in California. All agent matching services must be licensed in at least one state.
Sold.com has a B– rating from the Better Business Bureau. It’s not BBB accredited.
Executives from several major companies in the real estate industry (such as Auction.com, Fizber, LendingTree, and Realtor.com) founded Sold.com in 2018.
Though Sold.com is a licensed and legitimate company, we found a number of its business practices alarming.
🚨 Sold.com makes misleading claims about agents paying for matches
The Sold.com website says, “We believe in putting our customers’ needs first. There’s no pay to play with Sold.com. Every recommendation is based on what is best for the homeowner.” However, that is not true.
Sold.com offers agents a “Guaranteed Display” service, which means they can pay to sponsor certain zip codes. When any customer searches for a realtor in that zip code, the sponsor will be one of their agent matches.
Additionally, agents who pay for Guaranteed Display receive a “Featured Agent” badge on their profile that makes them appear better qualified than the other agent matches.
This practice misleads buyers and sellers who think they’ve been matched with good agents who are best equipped to help with their sale.
🚨 Concierges can be rude and pushy
The Sold.com customer service Concierges our mystery shoppers encountered were unpleasant.
We discovered Sold.com Concierges are compensated based on the number of appointments they schedule between buyers/sellers and agents. As a result, our shoppers felt Sold.com concierges were overly aggressive in their efforts to schedule appointments.
The Concierges don’t seem to coordinate their efforts. At one point, one of our shoppers had three Sold.com Concierges calling and texting to schedule an appointment, essentially fighting over the customer.
The Concierges didn’t listen to the requests or concerns of our shoppers. They just plowed through in an attempt to schedule unwanted appointments. In fact, one Concierge disregarded the wishes of one of our shoppers and scheduled several real estate agents for in-person appointments at the shoppers’ home in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. (Read more about our shopper’s negative experience.)
🚨 Agent quality is questionable
Sold.com says it hand picks only high-performing agents to join its network. We did some digging, and this doesn’t actually seem to be the case.
The company doesn’t share any criteria agents must meet to join its network. It does not seem to vet agents before they join, either.
Typically, agent matching services require a minimum amount of experience and sales performance to ensure agents are qualified to help their customers.
How does Sold.com work?
Sign-up
Signing up for Sold.com is pretty straightforward — you simply fill out a form on its website that asks some expected questions about your sale or purchase, such as:
- Timeline
- Budget
- Type of property
- Contact details
Sold.com also asks questions similar services don’t ask, such as:
- Why are you selling?
- Have you sold a home before?
- What is the condition of your home?
- What’s more important: selling your home fast or selling your home for the highest price?
- What’s more important: full-service realtor experience or saving money?
Presumably, these questions inform potential alternatives to selling with a traditional real estate agent.
Agent matches
Once you sign up, Sold.com sends you a Seller/Buyer Report where you can view your matches. All of our shoppers received five matches each. This amount was a bit overwhelming compared to alternative agent matching services. We find 2–3 matches are ideal — that range gives you some selection but not too much work comparing and researching each match.
Sold.com claims its matches are based on an algorithm plus a “Concierge assist.” However, our shoppers’ matches came automatically, with no time for a Concierge to have tailored the selections to their individual needs.
The Seller/Buyer Report gives some background information on your agent matches, like a link to their Zillow profile and recent sales numbers. Additionally, some of our shoppers received an option labeled “Worth Considering” at the bottom of their report. This included iBuyer companies and discount brokerages.
Concierge service
Within a few minutes of signing up, a Sold.com Concierge calls and texts to introduce themself and the service. Sold.com Concierges make appointments between agents and buyers/sellers for “free home consultations.” This differs from other matching services. Typically, you communicate directly with your agent matches to schedule interviews.
Sold.com’s Concierges are aggressive about scheduling these appointments. One of our shoppers had three Sold.com Concierges calling and texting to schedule an appointment, which was confusing and annoying.
If you choose to work with one of the agents, you sign a listing agreement. Sold.com’s Concierges remain in touch throughout the transaction if you choose to work with one of the company’s agents.
It is a free, no obligation service, so you can opt to walk away if none of its agents interest you.
How much does Sold.com cost?
Sold.com is free for home buyers and sellers. All agent matching services are.
If you choose to sell with a Sold.com agent, you’ll still have to pay the average realtor commission. Sellers typically pay 5–6% of the home sale price in agent commissions. Half usually goes to your listing agent and half goes to the buyer’s agent.
Alternative agent matching companies offer a more thorough and thoughtful service than Sold.com, plus they pre-negotiate discounted commission rates with their agents.
» Compare full-service agents who charge a low commission rate.
Sold.com reviews: Major benefits and drawbacks
Site | Rating |
---|---|
Trustpilot | 4.5/5 (249 reviews) |
Sitejabber | 2/5 (27 reviews) |
Better Business Bureau | 1.4/5 (11 reviews) |
Sold.com reviews online are generally positive on Trustpilot and overwhelmingly negative on the Better Business Bureau and Sitejabber. It has an average customer rating of 4.1 out of 5.
The company is fairly new, which is likely the reason there aren’t many reviews. Though it’s difficult to make an overall judgement on the company when there’s so little information to base it on, some Sold.com reviews raise red flags:
Echoing these Sold.com reviews, our shoppers’ experiences with the company were substandard. The service doesn’t offer any value beyond spitting out a list of random realtors in your area.
We aren’t fans of Sold.com’s pay-for-play Featured Display offering, since it means you may be paired with an agent who isn’t actually a good match for you (or isn’t a competent performer).
The Sold.com Concierges were so bold, they made shopping the service an unpleasant experience. Our shoppers felt they used unethical tactics to force customers to use Sold.com agents without regard for the time or comfort of the agents and customers they serve.
Given the lack of benefits and overwhelming drawbacks, you’d be better off just doing your own realtor search on Google.
Bottom line: Don’t waste your time with Sold.com. Instead, check out low commission companies that offer better quality, customer service, and built-in savings.
Sold.com pros and cons
✅ Easy sign-up; matches come quickly
The sign-up process for Sold.com is simple. You just answer a few straightforward questions.
This speed and convenience benefit isn’t unique to the company; most agent matching companies provide the same.
Your agent matches come immediately. Other agent matching services may take several hours to deliver your matches because they are checked and selected by your Concierge to ensure they meet your needs.
Sold.com indicates their Concierges do this, but in our shoppers’ experiences, that wasn’t the case. Their matches populated instantly with no time for a person to have customized the selections.
If you just want a handful of agent names in your general area, Sold.com delivers. If you’d prefer to ensure your matches are tailored to your situation, Sold.com might not be a fit for you.
✅ Responsive to requests for additional agent matches
One of our shoppers expressed concern to their Concierge about the proximity of their agent matches. The Sold.com Concierge offered to find two new agents located closer to the shopper.
It took the Concierge several days to deliver these new matches, but they were high quality compared to the initial batch, with recent sales in the specific neighborhood where the shopper lives.
Other agent matching services (Ideal Agent, for example) aren’t as responsive to requests for additional matches.
⚠️ Seller/Buyer Report delivers some helpful information
Sold.com’s Seller/Buyer Report is a dashboard for customers to view their agent matches and learn more about them. It has a convenient feature that allows you to chat with a Sold.com Concierge or request that one call you.
The Seller/Buyer Report features background information on each agent match to help customers make an informed agent choice. This information includes Zillow reviews, number of years’ experience, sales stats, and a map of recent transactions.
Although this background is helpful, we recommend you verify it before making an agent choice, since we’ve found misleading information elsewhere on the Sold.com site.
Sold.com’s dashboard rates somewhere in the middle compared to other agent matching services. Some, like UpNest, offer more in-depth details. Others, like MyAgentFinder, don’t even have a dashboard and deliver agent matches via text.
⚠️ Communication is streamlined through Concierge
Sold.com agents don’t reach out to buyers and sellers directly once they’re matched. This is unlike any other agent matching service.
Instead, Sold.com Concierges act as an intermediary, scheduling appointments for buyers and sellers with the agents that interest them. Theoretically, this benefits the customer, as fielding calls, texts, and emails from five agent matches plus your Sold.com Concierge could be overwhelming.
In practice, things didn’t pan out like this for our shoppers. Three separate Sold.com Concierges reached out to one of our shoppers, seemingly unaware of the others. So, the number of calls, texts, and emails they received wasn’t exactly reduced.
The calls and texts from Sold.com Concierges were frequent and persistent — to an annoying level. Our shopper said it felt like a feeding frenzy with Concierges swarming, trying to score their business.
Even after our shopper agreed to a phone meeting with one Concierge, the others kept calling and texting. This uncoordinated communication was tiresome to our shoppers and left an unprofessional impression of Sold.com.
⛔️ No commission savings for sellers or buyer rebates
Sold.com does not offer cost savings benefits for home sellers or buyers. Other companies do.
For example, Ideal Agent offers a 2% listing fee, while Clever has a 1.5% listing fee. Clever also gives eligible buyers cash back after closing.
⛔️ Pushy and unethical Concierges
Our shoppers’ experiences with Sold.com’s Concierges was off-putting. Beyond the uncoordinated outreach, their persistence to schedule appointments with agents was aggressive.
😱 Recapping one shopper’s noteworthy encounter
- Our shopper spoke with a Concierge via phone who pushed hard for an in-person “free home consultation” in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The shopper told the Concierge they were not comfortable with that. They did not want a stranger in their home. Especially during COVID.
- After the call, our shopper received email invitations from the Concierge for two phone meetings with agents. They did not agree to any agent meetings or even express interest in working with these agents.
- Our shopper called the Concierge and asked them to cancel these meetings. The Concierge confirmed the cancellations.
- The next day, at the meeting times, both agents called our shopper for their meeting. The Concierge had lied to our shopper and never cancelled the meetings.
- A few days later, the Concierge left a voicemail for our shopper informing them that two new agents would be coming to their home the following day for in-person meetings.
- Our shopper had never agreed to meeting with any agent, had expressed discomfort with in-person meetings, and had already become upset with the Concierge for scheduling phone meetings without permission. Yet the Concierge scheduled meetings at the shopper’s home anyway.
- The shopper found contact information for these agents online and cancelled the meetings because they could not trust the Sold.com concierge to do so.
After this incident, we learned that Sold.com Concierges are compensated based on the number of meetings they schedule between buyers/sellers and agents. This encourages Concierges to act unethically, scheduling meetings without customer consent and wasting the time of agents who the customer hasn’t indicated any interest in.
⛔️ Off-base agent matches
The agent matches our shoppers received from Sold.com were not tailored to their target neighborhoods; some were up to an hour’s drive away.
A shopper looking for agents in a suburban area got matches specializing in a nearby big city and in rural areas further away, but no agents based in their town.
We believe one of the most important things to look for in an agent is expert local knowledge. Our shoppers did not feel their agent matches possessed this in the neighborhoods they targeted.
⛔️ No agent quality control
Sold.com says the agents in its network are proven to buy for less and sell for more, but it doesn’t say how or why.
Many agent matching companies share specific criteria agents must meet to join its network, including number of years’ experience and minimum sales statistics. Most only work with top performers in their local areas.
Sold.com does not appear to have any quality standards for its agents. We did some digging and found that agents are able to sign up without the company verifying their qualifications.
If buyers and sellers can’t rely on Sold.com to at least quality check its agents, we’re not sure it’s any better than a DIY Google search for an agent.
⛔️ “Alternative” options aren’t showcased
One of Sold.com’s unique selling points is that in addition to traditional real estate agents, it says it matches buyers and sellers with alternative options that might better serve their needs. For example, a flat-fee MLS company or discount brokerage.
In our shoppers’ experience, the service always matched them with traditional agents, despite needs that were clearly suited to an alternative option. Potential alternatives were presented at the bottom of the Seller/Buyer Report in an easy-to-miss section titled, “Worth Considering.”
We feel that providing information on alternative real estate options could be of significant value to some customers. Unfortunately, Sold.com delivers these recommendations as an afterthought.
Top Sold.com alternatives in 2024
These alternatives are free, no-obligation services that connect you with top local agents. Not only will you get better value in terms of agent quality and concierge assistance, but you can also save thousands on your transaction.
Unlike Sold.com, Clever and Ideal Agent guarantee commission discounts. The average Clever seller saves $7,000 on their home sale.
UpNest is a popular agent matching service that offers a “real estate agent marketplace” where local realtors submit proposals to compete for your business. This competition could lead to lower rates, but that’s not guaranteed.
Company | Our Rating | Listing Fee | Availability | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Best overall
Clever Real Estate |
Our rating
|
1.5%
Min. $3,000
|
Nationwide
|
Find Agents |
Ideal Agent |
2%
Min. $3,000
|
Nationwide
|
Learn More | |
UpNest |
Our rating
|
Varies by agent
Avg. 2.2%
|
Nationwide
|
Learn More |
Listing Fee
Customer Rating
Our take
Company details
Reviews
Clever Real Estate is the best option for most sellers looking to save on realtor commissions. Its 1.5% listing fee is among the lowest of any full-service, nationwide brand. You save thousands on commission while working with a top local realtor from a well-known brokerage, like RE/MAX and Keller Williams.
Read the full Clever Real Estate review.
Pros
- 1.5% listing fee is half the typical rate.
- Agents have strong sales records and great customer reviews.
- Free agent-finding platform with no obligation to sign with a realtor.
Cons
- Add-ons like drone photography and staging may cost extra.
- May not get matched with a specific realtor if they’re not in Clever’s network.
- Service that matches sellers and buyers with full-service real estate agents
- Sellers pay a pre-negotiated 1.5% listing fee (half the average rate) to their realtor after a successful home sale
- Sellers are responsible for paying a competitive buyer’s agent commission, usually 2.5-3% depending on the market
- To join Clever’s network, real estate agents must be top performers in their local market, have 5+ years of experience, and demonstrate a track record of positive customer reviews
- Clever has a 5/5 rating across 3,180 online reviews
- Accredited through the Better Business Bureau and holds an A+ rating
- Agents offer full service and support, including pricing advice, photography, MLS listing and description, negotiation support, etc.
- Eligible buyers receive $250 cash back
Clever has an average customer rating of 5/5 across 3,180 reviews.
- Better Business Bureau: 5/5 (91 reviews, accredited, A+ rating)
- Google: 4.8/5 (303 reviews)
- Trustpilot: 5/5 (2,786 reviews)
Reviews repeatedly highlight commission savings and high-quality agents. Some complaints include confusion over the commission structure.
Listing Fee
Customer Rating
Our take
Company details
Reviews
Ideal Agent is a good choice if you’re looking for a top agent, but you won’t have multiple options. The company claims it works with only the top 1% of realtors by performance, based on sales volume in each agent’s market. But you get only one agent match. Not being able to compare multiple agents is a big risk to consider, as the agent might not be the right fit for your situation. Read the full Ideal Agent review.
Pros
- You get matched with a top-performing realtor
- Discounted 2% listing fee
Cons
- Small agent network; hard to compare options
- Limited coverage outside of big cities
- Savings aren’t competitive compared to other companies
- Platform that matches sellers and buyers with full-service real estate agents
- Company negotiates a 2% listing fee with its realtors, which is slightly less than market value (2.5-3%)
- Sellers are responsible for paying a competitive buyer’s agent commission, usually 2.5-3% depending on the market
- Ideal Agent has a 4.9/5.0 rating across 7,007 reviews
- Accredited through the Better Business Bureau with a A+ rating
- Agents are expected to offer full-service and support, including pricing advice, photography, negotiation support, etc.
- No guaranteed buyer savings
Ideal Agent has an average customer rating of 4.9/5 across 7,007 reviews.
- Better Business Bureau: 5/5 (317 reviews, accredited, A+ rating)
- Google: 4.8/5 (462 reviews)
- Trustpilot: 4.9/5 (6,222 reviews)
- Yelp: 1.8/5 (6 reviews)
Customers are consistently happy with the qualified agents and helpful customer service. Some complaints mention agent matches that weren’t a good fit.
» READ: Our full Ideal Agent review
Listing Fee
Customer Rating
Our take
Company details
Reviews
UpNest is a legitimate agent matching service, but it’s not a great way to save money on realtor fees. It can be a good way to compare real estate agents in your area. But there’s no guarantee you’ll save on real estate commissions because UpNest doesn’t negotiate a lower fee with its agents. Read the full UpNest review.
Pros
- Agents compete for your business, which may result in a lower realtor fee
- Wide selection of experienced, tech-savvy agents
Cons
- Savings for sellers and buyers vary by agent
- Customers complain that it’s hard to get the promised Amazon gift card
- Service quality can vary between agents
- Platform that matches sellers and buyers with full-service real estate agents
- Sellers fill out an online questionnaire and receive agent matches in an online dashboard
- Agents can offer to work for a reduced listing fee, but most charge close to market value (2.5-3%)
- Sellers are responsible for paying a competitive buyer’s agent commission, usually 2.5-3% depending on the market
- UpNest has a 4.6/5.0 rating across 6,934 reviews
- Not accredited through the Better Business Bureau
- Services may vary by agent, but most offer the same general services as traditional real estate agents (pricing advice, photography, negotiation support, etc.)
- No guaranteed buyer savings
UpNest has an average customer rating of 4.6/5 across 6,934 reviews.
- Better Business Bureau: 4.4/5 (33 reviews, not accredited, F rating)
- Google: 4.7/5 (298 reviews)
- ShopperApproved: 4.6/5 (6,603 reviews)
Reviews frequently highlight UpNest agents’ hard work and ability to sell homes quickly. However, some customers had agents who lacked experience and professionalism.
» READ: Our full UpNest review
» Want more options to compare? See our list of the top low commission companies.
FAQ
How much does Sold.com cost?
Sold.com is free for home buyers and sellers. However, you'll still have to pay full agent commissions, which are typically 5-6% of the home sale price.
Is Sold.com legitimate?
Yes, Sold.com is a legitimate and licensed agent matching service. However, other agent matching companies provide better customer service and lower commission rates.
Methodology
We strive to deliver objective reviews. The Real Estate Witch Team spent 1,400+ hours over a six-week period testing and researching agent matching services. Our goal is to help you find an agent who can get you the best possible value when you buy or sell your home.
Related links
20 Ways to Save Money When Buying a Home: Your home is one of the most expensive purchases you’ll ever make, but that doesn’t mean you can’t save money when buying one.
How Does a 3% Real Estate Commission Work? Need help understanding realtor commissions? This article will explain it all.
The 8 Most Important Repairs to Make Before Selling Your Home: If you’re getting ready to sell your home, make sure you read this first!
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