What's the Deal: Upnest for homeowners

Nydia Han Image
Thursday, October 26, 2017
What's the Deal: Upnest
What's the Deal: Upnest. Nydia Han reports during Action News at 4:30 p.m. on October 26, 2017.

MONTGOMERY CO., Pa. (WPVI) -- There is a new service for homeowners who want to sell. It's called Upnest, and a local guy who used it says it saved him a whopping 7-point-5-thousand-dollars.

Drone video shows a house in Collegeville, Montgomery County.

The owner wanted to sell but says he wasn't impressed with the real estate agents he was meeting.

"Her fees were really high, like close to seven percent and it didn't seem like they were digitally advanced - meaning they did everything by paper," Thomas Lembck said.

Lembck took to the internet and found Upnest.

Upnest analyzes hundreds of agents to find the best to compete for you.

It's free for home buyers and sellers.

"Just like Uber and Air B and B, we charge the realtor a platform fee when the house is sold," Founder and CEO Simon Ru said.

How does it work for consumers? Just enter your preferences and property address.

We'll then filter top agents against your criteria and negotiate the best commissions or rebates with them on your behalf.

Upnest will show you the agents' performance stats, and provide you up to three personalized, detailed quotes within 24 hours for free.

After Lembck received his proposals, he chose Mike Bottaro of Homestar Realty to be his agent.

"It's so important to use online tools whether it's Facebook, social media marketing, we do a ton of advertising with social media and Facebook," Bottaro said.

In fact, Facebook is one of the platforms Bottaro used to sell Lembck's house, and Lembck says within the first two hours of listing the property, it had close to 100 views.

"We ended up in the first 36 hours introducing the house to six families - three of which bid for the property. And at the end of 36 hours, we sold the property at 25-thousand-dollars more than I listed it for," added Lembck.

And he saved two percent on the commission he paid his real estate agent!

"So I did pretty well. I was very happy with the results," he said.

For more information on Upnest, click here.

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