Richr vs. Zillow

Richr vs. Zillow

What Is Richr?

How Does Richr Work?

What Is Zillow?

How Does Zillow Work?

Which Is Better For Buying Your Home: Richr Or Zillow?

Home Buying With Richr

Home Buying With Zillow

Which Is Better For Selling Your Home: Zillow Or Richr?

Home Selling With Zillow

Home Selling With Richr

Which Has More Fees: Richr or Zillow?

Richr Fees

Zillow Fees

Is Zillow’s Estimates Better Than Richr Estimates?

Zillow Zestimate

Richr Estimate

The Bottom Line

Richr vs. Zillow

Nowadays, people can now use real estate sites like Zillow and Richr when buying or selling a property. And these platforms offer various features that allow home selling and home buying processes to become more efficient.

However, one must know their needs in order to understand which site is best suitable. Whether Richr vs. Zillow, etc. With such, keep reading to learn more about which of the two platforms is better for your real estate journey.

What Is Richr?

Richr is a property listing platform best for For Sale By Owner (FSBO) that allows sellers to utilize famous consumer portals and multiple listing services (MLS). And what’s even better about selling with Richr is that you can do all of this for free.

You won’t have to be worried about paying the usual commission required when working with an agent. Instead, Richr gives you the power of marketing in multiple listing services (MLS), so you can take advantage of the broader market even without an agent.

Once you find a client, Richr also handles your escrow and title needs for you. Lastly, it provides home buyers with an extraordinary cash back opportunity to help with home repairs or your next vacation.

How Does Richr Work?

Richr real estate works by providing sellers with a place to list their homes, absolutely free with exceptional online support. Once the seller puts up their property online, Richr will post the home to MLS and over 750+ sites to reach more customers.

Although Richr has other features like a concierge service that assists sellers in closing, the seller is still responsible for managing customer inquiries and other parts of the selling process. This means you have control over negotiating with a client or agent, unlike when working with other sites like Zillow.

What Is Zillow?

Zillow is an online marketplace for buying and selling real estate properties. To date, Zillow remains to be one of the most visited listing websites: Zillow homes received no less than 2.2 billion visits during the latter part of 2020 alone.

Much like the former, it provides Zillow homes for sale by owner listings options. However, unlike Richr, Zillow for sale by owner takes away commission costs.

Being an FSBO website, Zillow also offers home buyers a fresh array of Zillow houses for sale.

Another unique feature that Zillow has is called Zillow Offers. This enables home buyers to make cash offers to pay the property, accelerating the closing date.

Moreover, this feature is only available to 25 markets. But for users to take advantage of this feature, they must first fill up a form confirming their eligibility and paying for Zillow offers fees.

How Does Zillow Work?

Unlike the other high-ranking best real estate websites for buyers, Zillow Offers doesn’t accept homes that require a major overhaul. It only accepts properties that are considered a quality potential resale, according to their standards. Houses that have foundational issues, persistent moisture problems, and other issues requiring major refurbishing are off the list.

Lastly, Zillow operates in markets with a higher chance of selling, making the property’s location a big factor. One of which is the Zillow Florida homes for sale has higher-scale markets.

Which Is Better For Buying Your Home: Richr Or Zillow?

Both Richr and Zillow offer home buying services, but they differ in a few aspects. In a nutshell, Richr acts like the buyer’s real estate agent while Zillow lets buyers connect to real estate agents. For a more elaborate explanation of how you can use both Richr and Zillow, check them out below.

Home Buying With Richr

Traditionally, realtors take a commission from you when you employ them to help you purchase a property, as do the seller’s agent. The commission will be taken from the funds during the closing when the buyer pays the seller. And this commission is usually 6% of the total home cost. The two agents will then divide the commission evenly, and that’s how they get paid. If the buyer doesn’t employ an agent, the seller’s agent will take the whole amount.

While having an agent may seem a good idea, it can limit your negotiating power. As a buyer, not having an agent also makes viewing a property difficult. Without an agent, you may not get past listing agents without them pressuring you to pay out the entitled buyers’ commission.

Without a buyer’s agent, you’re acting as if you are your own agent. This means that you’ll do most of the work, from looking for properties, making an offer, managing paperwork, and the like. However, you won’t receive any commission that professional agents would. As mandated by Law, licensed agents are the only ones eligible to collect commissions from home sales. And as mentioned, any commission will only go to the seller’s agent if you don’t have an agent.

This is where platforms like Richr come in handy. When buying with Richr, you’re treated as if you have a buyer’s agent. What’s more is that you can set viewing schedules and submit offers through Richr’s platform. It also allows you to manage all the paperwork in their database, including getting a Richr estimate.

What’s even better is once you purchase Richr homes, the total amount of the buyer’s agent commission will be credited back to you.

With Richr, you get to enjoy the benefits of having a buyer’s agent while also saving you from commission costs. Not only does Richr act as your agent, but it also provides you an award: redeem up to 2% of the property’s value upon closing.

Home Buying With Zillow

At Zillow, you can work with agents when buying homes. If, for instance, you found Zillow houses for sale, Zillow will provide you with a form to complete. This form enables you to contact multiple agents who are partnering with the platform.

From there, you can select one that you feel is the most suitable for you. It’s important to note that Zillow doesn’t employ these agents; they’re merely paying for referrals.

Zillow also doesn’t handle any negotiation with the agent. So, if you’re looking to get buyer’s rebates, then you’ll have to work that out yourself.

Which Is Better For Selling Your Home: Zillow Or Richr?

Another feature of Richr and Zillow is their home selling services. Whether you’re using Zillow or Richr, your home selling journey is much easier than when you do it traditionally.

Home Selling With Zillow

With Zillow, you can sell your property either with an agent or Zillow for sale by the owner. If you’re still on the market for a real estate agent, then all you need to do is give Zillow your address. Then, they’ll connect you with agents who are practicing around your area. Zillow also provides you with their contact details, client reviews, and other helpful information that will assist you when selecting the right agent.

Much like with home buying, Zillow will not negotiate any deals for you. The agents they work with are also not discount agents. So if you’re looking for lower fees, Zillow may not be the best for you.

If you want, you can list your property as FSBO and manage your own listing through the site. Although there are no commission fees, you might miss out on the significant benefits of working with a seller’s agent. As a result, you’ll have to oversee the entire selling process by yourself from beginning to end. This includes preparing for a negotiation, open houses, and closing deals.

It’s also vital to remember that listing your property as FSBO might still entail Zillow fees if your buyer is working with an agent. You still need to pay a commission of around 2.5% to 3% of the total sale price. This is because sellers are the one who’s in charge of paying for commissions from both the seller’s and buyer’s side.

Home Selling With Richr

You’ve probably been told that selling your property without an agent is extremely hard and sometimes even impossible. Although there’s some truth to it, it might not be the case anymore, especially with technology at your side.

Nowadays, even people with little to no experience selling a home may get away with a successful sale for more than they could’ve hoped for, free from the commission, all thanks to platforms like Richr.

With Richr, listing your home as FSBO and completing a private sale has been made easier. Richr gives you access to MLS with little to zero fee. Such tools enable both sellers and buyers to be exposed to more options out there. It also allows the sellers to leverage a broader market.

Moreover, Richr allows you to take advantage of free marketing for your property so you can lessen the cost of selling as much as possible. Putting up a listing with Richr is also incredibly easy as all you have to do is fill in a short form that takes no longer than five minutes. Afterwhich, Richr will then take care of the rest for you.

Once you submit the form, Richr will post your listing to at least 750 websites and consumer portals. With Richr, you can also set your own calendar. This means you can select the optimal time for you to conduct open houses and viewings.

On top of all that, Richr also enables you to establish your own commission rate. As the seller, you can set a rate you’re comfortable with. That means the buyer’s agent will only get the amount you’re willing to pay. If you set your commission rate to 2%, you only have to pay the said amount and nothing more.

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Which Has More Fees: Richr or Zillow?

With the advantages that both Richr, Zillow, and other best real estate websites for buyers and sellers offer, it’s only natural to pay them for some fees. The question is, how much are their fees? Are Richr fees more affordable than Zillow fees? Check out below.

Richr Fees

Richr doesn’t charge you when you list your property. Richr fees only sum up to $699 upon closing a deal with title insurance included. This means it’s FREE TO LIST at Richr, which isn’t common to other real estate sites.

In addition, you get to expose your property to thousands of real estate agents in Florida by using their MLS via Richr homes’ platform. While MLS rules require you to pay commission fees to real estate agents who can bring you a buyer, Richr saves you money from this.

What’s even better is their cancellation policy: cancel any time without incurring Richr fees.

Zillow Fees

On the other hand, you may need to pay various Zillow fees whether you’re buying or selling a home. For instance, the transaction cost of buying properties from Zillow for sale can range to a 6% selling cost fee. While this isn’t a penny less than hiring real estate agents, you’re missing out on agent expertise at the same price.

As for the transfer tax, escrow, and title, you’re more likely to pay 1-2% closing costs. In addition, Zillow fees also include a 2.5% service charge on top of the other fees. This is in light of their utilities, maintenance work, and taxes when providing services to you.

Is Zillow’s Estimates Better Than Richr Estimates?

One of the best things about selling and buying properties using Zillow or Richr is knowing the home value estimates even before making an offer. Richr and Zillow’s estimates are one of the most accurate home values in the market. To learn more about the Zillow vs. Richr estimate, keep on reading.

Zillow Zestimate

A Zillow’s estimate is also known as Zillow Zestimate wherein its tools use market conditions, location, home facts, and user-submitted data to develop a property’s market value. Moreover, to get a Zillow accurate estimation, they include details like prior sales records, tax assessments, and listing comparable price data.

As for its accuracy, the Zestimate is dependent on the listed properties’ data but isn’t that accurate for off-market properties. Moreover, Zillow Zestimate doesn’t consider upgrades when estimating a property’s value. However, Zillow doesn’t claim that their estimates are 100% accurate. More or less, its accuracy is about 80%.

Richr Estimate

Richr gives an accurate estimate based on a comparative market analysis that produces a report based on what homes have been selling for in your area. You can only access their estimation tool after signing up, which is absolutely free.

The Bottom Line

Richr, Zillow, and the other best real estate websites for buyers offer the same feature: convenience. However, if you’re comparing Richr vs. Zillow, the former gives you more control over your selling and buying journey while the latter connects you to other real estate agents. So if you want to save more from commission fees and additional fees, it’s evident to say that Richr is the best choice.