HomeLight Simple Sale Reviews: Should You Use It?

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  Written by Jon Stubbs

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  Edited by Andrew Whytock

HomeLight Simple Sale reviews | Who should use HomeLight Simple Sale? | Alternatives | How it works | Locations | Investor portal

HomeLight Simple Sale (also called HomeLight cash offers) is a free service that matches home sellers with cash home buyers, such as rental property investors or home flippers. The service can help you get offers from multiple buyers, but they’ll still likely be much less than the offers you’d get by listing the home on the open market.

Cash buyers in Homelight’s network purchase homes in any condition — but like other investors they typically pay only 70% of market value.

If your home needs a lot of repairs, HomeLight cash offers could be a good fit. However, you could risk losing thousands of dollars if you accept a low offer because you don’t know what your home is worth.

If you want to see what different investors might offer compared to your home’s current market value, our team can help. Simply tell us about your property, and we’ll send you up to 10 competing offers from serious cash buyers in our network. You can also request a professional estimate of your home value, so you can evaluate offers against your home’s potential sale price. Get tailored cash offers from top local buyers — no added fees or commissions!

HomeLight Simple Sale reviews from customers

HomeLight has many positive reviews from customers, with an average rating of 4.6/5 based on 1,178 total reviews. However, most of these reviews are specific to HomeLight’s core agent matching business, not its Simple Sale service.

A few customers mention Simple Sale in reviews on HomeLight’s Better Business Bureau profile. Several reviewers claim that they were bombarded with calls from local agents, even though they submitted their property information intending to get cash offers. However, there aren’t many complaints about the service itself.

What is HomeLight?

HomeLight is an online real estate company whose primary business is matching buyers and sellers with real estate agents. It was founded in San Francisco in 2012.

HomeLight’s core agent matching service is a fast way to find an agent. However, in some locations, the service can’t match sellers with nearby agents. And the savings on commission aren’t as good as other companies, such as Clever Real Estate.

What is HomeLight Simple Sale?

HomeLight Simple Sale is an additional service that matches home sellers with investors and cash buyers who buy homes in as-is condition. You can sell your home quickly this way, but it may sell for 30–50% below market value.

» READ: Our full HomeLight review

Where is HomeLight Simple Sale available?

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

Who should use HomeLight Simple Sale?

HomeLight Simple Sale might be right for you if you want offers from cash buyers. 

Cash buyers typically offer only 70% of the home’s after repair value (it’s estimated sale price after renovations). But selling to a cash buyer could be worth it if you’re in any of the following situations: 

🛠 You have a home that needs a lot of repairs

Cash buyers are known for buying homes in disrepair at a discount to make a profit. Your offer will be much lower compared with what you’d get if you fixed up the house and listed it. However, if you’d rather not invest in renovations or pay agent commission, selling to a cash buyer could be a quick and simple solution. 

💰 You need to access cash quickly

If you’re going through an illness, a divorce, or another serious financial setback, selling to a cash buyer is one way to get a property sold fast. HomeLight Simple Sale can pay you as soon as 10 days after making an offer.

🏚 You want to sell an inherited house

Inherited homes can be more trouble than they’re worth. Even though a property might be a valuable asset, you still need to pay property taxes and maintenance expenses. Cash buyers make it easy to turn an inherited home into cash with no additional investment in repairs or fees. 

If you fit into any of these categories, a cash buyer might be a good solution for you. But make sure you’re getting a fair deal by comparing multiple offers.

Drawbacks of HomeLight Simple Sale

How HomeLight Simple Sale works

HomeLight submits your home’s details to several investors, so you’ll get a variety of offers. However, you can expect all 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.

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. the competition

Sundae

Sundae is the most similar to HomeLight Simple Sale. Like Simple Sale, Sundae is a free service that markets your home to a nationwide network of property investors.

Sundae has generally positive reviews, with an average rating of 4.6/5 across 598 reviews. The company also has a more flexible closing window of 10–60 days, compared with HomeLight Simple Sale’s 10–30 days. 

While HomeLight Simple Sale is available nationwide, Sundae is limited to the following markets: Atlanta, Dallas–Fort Worth, Houston, Inland Empire, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Oakland, Orange County, Sacramento, and San Diego.

Clever Offers

Much like HomeLight and Sundae, Clever Offers is a free service that helps you quickly find cash buyers, including iBuyers, real estate investors, and “we buy houses” companies. 

But Clever Offers differs from these services in two majors ways: 

• It helps you explore lesser-known options like novation agreements, in which an investor pays for any repairs needed up front and then splits the home sale proceeds with you at closing, helping you make more than a typical cash offer
• It can connect you to a local real estate agent for a professional opinion of your home’s fair market value — with no obligation to move forward with a listing

The Clever Offers team can help you compare cash offers and alert you to any red flags. And with a clearer understanding of your home value, you can be confident in the offer you accept. 

Other alternatives to HomeLight Simple Sale

Instead of selling through HomeLight Simple Sale, you could sell to a “we buy houses” company, to an iBuyer, or with a traditional agent. Here’s how they compare:

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. ‘we buy houses’ companies

The well-known “we buy houses” companies across the U.S. are cash buyers, much like the investors HomeLight would connect you with as part of the Simple Sale service.

Just like Simple Sale, there’s no fee or commission for working with a cash buyer company, and you can close as soon as 10 days after receiving an offer. But you’ll probably get only up to 70% of the value of your home.

» COMPARE: Best Companies That Buy Houses for Cash

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. iBuyers

Selling to an iBuyer is a good option if your home is in relatively good condition and you want to sell quickly. iBuyers pay about 98–99% of market value, which could add up to tens of thousands of dollars more than an offer from a “we buy houses” company. 

Offerpad and Opendoor, the two leading iBuyers, charge 5% of the home sale price, plus closing costs. But they have strict purchase criteria, and iBuyers aren’t available in certain markets.

HomeLight Simple Sale vs. traditional agents

If your home is in better-than-average condition, or if you can afford to make some repairs, you’re better off listing your home with an agent than selling to a cash buyer. Working with a reputable low-commission brokerage confers the added benefit of saving on realtor fees.

Selling your home on the open market could net you as much as 30% more than selling to a cash buyer. That’s like getting $300,000 for a home that a cash buyer would’ve paid only $150,000 for. 

A knowledgeable real estate agent can tell you if it’s worth the time and expense to fix up your home and list it.

See what top local agents think you could get for your house: Get agent proposals sent to your inbox, save thousands on listing fees if you decide to list.

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. 

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