HomeLight Simple Sale Reviews

Who it's for | What it pays | Reviews | Competitors | How it works | Criteria | FAQ

If you prefer the speed and efficiency of a cash offer, but are concerned with the loss you might take selling to an investor, HomeLight Simple Sale makes it easy to explore two options:

• Selling to a cash buyer in HomeLight's investor network
• List with a realtor in its agent network

HomeLight Simple Sale (also called HomeLight cash offers) is a free service that matches home sellers with investors who make cash offers on their homes. Buyers in HomeLight's network purchase homes in any condition — but like other investors, they offer a lot less than what your home is actually worth.

As part of their service, HomeLight also connects you with real estate agents to explore a traditional listing. While this option could ultimately help you sell for a higher price, customers complain of unwanted calls from agents — even when they've specified they only want cash offers.

Competitors like Clever Offers can also help you source competing cash offers. Their nationwide network ranges from local investors to iBuyers like Opendoor. With more offers in hand, you can easily narrow down your best options. Simply send them a few details about your property, and they'll do what they can to help you sell for a higher price — with no added fees or commissions.

HomeLight Simple Sale at a glance

Who does HomeLight Simple Sale work best for?

HomeLight Simple Sale is a great option for sellers who want to compare options before settling on a cash offer. Some specific situations that HomeLight Simple Sale can offer a solution for include:

• You want to sell an inherited house and don’t have time to put it on the open market.
• You have a home that needs a lot of repairs and you don’t have the time or money to invest in them.
• You need to sell a house fast, such as if you’re facing foreclosure.
• You're on the fence about selling for cash vs. listing with an agent. 

According to HomeLight, the company's investor network includes hundreds of qualified cash buyers who can close in as few as 10 days. But HomeLight primarily operates as an agent matching service that connects home sellers with qualified realtors in their area. So in addition to connecting you with investors, they'll also try to match you with a real estate agent.

Even if you'd prefer to sell for cash, listing with an agent may work in your favor. More than one customer review for HomeLight mentions that their realtor was able to secure a cash offer — often within a week of listing.

If, on the other hand, you'd prefer to cut a realtor out of the process entirely, HomeLight may not be for you. Multiple reviews and comments on Reddit mention that customers received unwanted calls from realtors after specifically requesting cash offers from HomeLight.

Here are a few HomeLight competitors that may be worth checking out as you weigh your options.

How much does HomeLight Simple Sale pay?

HomeLight Simple Sale doesn’t buy houses directly. Instead, it finds investors for your home and gets offers from them on your behalf. Because these investors are independent of HomeLight, the amount they offer will vary.

However, real estate investors typically pay anywhere from 50–80% of a home's after repair value (ARV) for an investment property.

Factors such as location, the condition of your home, and the number of investors available in your area will all impact the quality of the offers you receive.

HomeLight Simple Sale fees and other costs

HomeLight Simple Sale doesn’t charge any fees simply to compare offers from cash buyers.

Investors and 'we buy houses' companies like the ones in HomeLight's network don’t typically charge fees or closing costs either. These costs are simply absorbed into their offers. As a result, they will usually make offers lower than what your home could be worth to other buyers, including iBuyer companies, which typically pay more for homes.

If you opt to list with a realtor in HomeLight's network, you'll need to pay a standard realtor commission on the sale of your house. You may find a better deal with similar companies that negotiate lower commission rates with their partner agents.

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. competitors

HomeLight has an established network of cash buyers, which can be helpful for selling your house fast, but its Simple Sale platform is one of a handful of services that can help you source cash offers. 

Clever Offers is another option that can help you compare offers from multiple cash buyers — ranging from local investors to leading iBuyers and 'sell before you list' programs like Homeward. However, Clever will only try to match you with an agent if you request one. Additionally, their agents offer discounted commission rates exclusively through Clever, something HomeLight's agents don't. 

Sundae's offer marketplace is another highly-rated option for getting competing bids — but it's currently only available to homeowners in Texas and California.

To get the best outcome from your home sale, be sure to compare HomeLight Simple Sale with solutions offered by other top cash buyers.

» MORE: Best Companies That Buy Houses for Cash

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. a realtor

If your home is in good condition, or if you can afford to make some needed repairs, you’re probably better off finding a good listing agent than selling to a cash buyer.

Even if your home needs significant work, you'll typically still net more putting your house on the market where you have the potential to reach the largest pool of potential buyers. Often, the cost of doing a major renovation isn't worth the return, so many realtors will suggest listing as is to target cash offers.

While HomeLight has some excellent agents in its network, it doesn't offer discounted commission rates — something that plenty of other top-rated real estate brokerages do. So you may want to first look into lower commission options if you're thinking of listing with a realtor from HomeLight (or elsewhere).

HomeLight Simple Sale customer reviews

HomeLight has many positive reviews from customers, with an average rating of 4.4/5 across 1,001 total reviews. However, most of these reviews are specific to HomeLight's core agent matching business, not its Simple Sale service.

Reviews specific to HomeLight Simple Sale are limited, but the few that do mention its cash offer service are mixed.

Positive reviews mention that HomeLight Simple Sale provides a convenient way of getting a cash offer — whether through a realtor or an investor in their network. Sellers also praise the company’s helpful customer service agents.

Negative reviews complain that HomeLight pushes sellers into using a traditional real estate agent, claiming that cash buyers aren't available. As a result, these sellers find themselves bombarded with multiple marketing calls from realtors.

✅ Reasonable offers from investors in HomeLight's network

While few customer reviews specifically mention HomeLight's cash offer service, a couple of reviews do state that the cash offers they received from Homellight's investor network were fair. This may be partly because HomeLight puts you in touch with more than one investor when possible, which can increase the chances of getting a more competitive offer.

"Since I needed to sell the home quickly and did not want to go the route of a traditional sale, I opted for cash offers.  HomeLight connected me with a few reputable investors.  I received a very fair offer to sell and close in 30 days, which was perfect."

– Muriel E., 2022, Google

✅ Quality of service provided by HomeLight realtors

While most sellers who use HomeLight end up listing with an agent, a couple of reviewers mention that their realtor was able to get them a cash offer on their house. 

"I signed up and was quickly contacted by a realtor in my area. This realtor turned out to be perfect for me...he walked me through everything and we got a cash offer on the day that it listed. I would highly recommend HomeLight if you are looking to sell a home. Their website is very easy to use and they provide a great service, which saved me a lot of time and trouble since I didn't have to look for my own realtor."

– John B., Sept. 2023, BBB

✅ Ability to choose between an agent or cash buyer

The qualify of service provided by HomeLight agents was mentioned by a number of reviewers, helping sellers make an informed choice and feel at ease with their decision. 

"I was able to chose between using an agent or accepting a cash offer. The process was much less painful then I thought it would be. Home Lite agents were knowledgeable and really seemed to care about helping me sell my home. Selling a home can be a little scary (especially if you’ve never done it). Home Lite made it easy to make a decision and was there for me with any questions I had."

– Amanda I., 2023, Google

❌ No investors available in the customer's area

A number of reviewers complained that HomeLight Simple Sale told prospective sellers that no investors were available in their area and instead pushed them to use a traditional real estate agent.

"I request an Offer for their Simple Sale cash buy option, and specifically stated that I did not want to be contacted by an agent... After entering my information they immediately said no investors were available in my area and sent my contact info out to several realtors. They are not to be trusted with your information. This is just a bait and switch referral operation."

– Ryan S., Sept. 2024, BBB

❌ Unwanted calls from realtors

Customers also complained that the number of calls they received from various realtors after contacting HomeLight for a cash offer was overwhelming.

"Anyone seeing this don't make the mistake in contacting them. It says a cash offer but all they offered me was about 500 calls from different realtors they sold my phone number and email to. There was no cash offer involved. They are totally misleading."

– Anonymous User, July 2024, Reddit

How does HomeLight Simple Sale work?

HomeLight submits your home’s details to several investors, so you could get a variety of offers. However, you can expect cash buyers to offer less than what you’d get on the open market.

Here’s the process for getting offers through HomeLight Simple Sale:

1. Enter your property address and details through the HomeLight website.
2. A HomeLight rep contacts you within 48 hours to learn more about your home.
3. HomeLight contacts home buyers in its investor network to gather preliminary offers. This takes about a week.
4. Review the offers, and choose the best one.
5. Most cash buyers want to do an in-person home inspection after you accept their initial offer. If the inspection uncovers major problems, the cash buyer may reduce the offer.
6. Accept the offer, close in as little as 10 days, and choose a move date up to 30 days away.

Simple Sale is free, and you’re not obligated to accept an offer. After getting offers through HomeLight, you can still shop around for a higher offer.

How does the Simple Sale investor portal work?

We signed up as a home buyer and explored HomeLight's investor portal. 

Signing up with Simple Sale as an investor is easy. To get started, you enter your contact information and some details about your real estate investing business. The questionnaire asks you:

• How long have you been a real estate investor?
• How many homes did you purchase in the last 12 months?
• How many homes do you plan to purchase in the next 12 months?
• Are you or another team member currently a licensed real estate agent?

When we reached out to HomeLight, it told us it was looking for investors who had sold a minimum of 10 homes in the past 3 years.

Next, HomeLight asks questions about your investing strategy and what profit margin you expect to earn:

• Is your investment strategy to fix and flip or are you interested in longer-term investing?
• What ARV (after repair value) do you typically offer?
• Do you offer rent-to-own, leaseback, or in-house listing services?

Once you're signed up, you can look at your leads in the investor portal and organize them by status.

Before you can get any investor leads from HomeLight, you'll need to sign a referral agreement that outlines the fees and terms for the program. This includes a 4% referral fee due to HomeLight after closing. If you (the investor) represent the seller as an agent at any point for two years after the sale, 25% of your agent's commission is due to HomeLight. 

HomeLight requires its investors to reach out to sellers as quickly as possible. As an investor, you'll need to agree to contact any new leads within four hours. If you take longer, HomeLight may direct the seller to someone else. If you fail to contact new leads within 24 hours more than a few times, HomeLight may close your account. 

Which homes qualify for HomeLight Simple Sale?

Almost any type of property qualifies for HomeLight Simple Sale. However, individual buyers that HomeLight Simple Sale connects you with will have their own purchase criteria.

Generally speaking, iBuyers have the most stringent criteria. They’ll usually only buy properties in relatively good condition, located in major markets, and that are owner-occupied.

Other cash buyers within HomeLight Simple Sale’s network are far more flexible and will purchase properties with even major issues, including delinquent taxes, foreclosure, structural problems, and squatters. However, some cash buyers will refuse to purchase mobile homes or commercial properties.

HomeLight Simple Sale locations

HomeLight Simple Sale is available nationwide. But in locations far away from major metros, you may have fewer cash buyers to choose from

FAQ