Unlike a lot of brokerages in the industry, launching an iBuyer platform isn’t an immediate focus for Compass, the well-funded New York City-based brokerage. But that isn’t stopping one of the company’s San Diego-based real estate teams from launching its own.
Jason Cassity, a Realtor and leader of The Cassity Team — as well as occasional Inman contributor — launched an iBuyer platform this week to connect potential selling clients with investors and home flippers for a quick-close, all cash offer.
Jason Cassity | Photo credit: Jason Cassity
“It’s just a way for me to add value to potential listing clients that are in the need for that type of thing,” Cassity told Inman. “I can provide convenience over top dollar, per se.”
Cassity will provide clients with a full comparative market analysis to show what they would get if they listed the home traditionally or what one of his three investor partners will offer. The investor partners are home flippers that can make those quick-close, all-cash offers.
In the first week since the platform went live, Cassity said he’s had two clients request an offer.
“It’s just another tool that we have, to go along with Compass Concierge as well as a full normal, traditional listing,” Cassity said.
Unlike some of his iBuyer competitors, Cassity doesn’t charge any transactional fee for selling to an iBuyer. Instead the profit for Cassity comes from getting the listing after the home flipper has done the repairs and is ready to bring the home to the market.
San Diego hasn’t been a market with a large iBuyer presence in the past. Zillow Offers just launched in San Diego and RedfinNow has a presence in the market, but as of June 30, there had been no sales to iBuyers in San Diego.
Cassity expects the platform will also generate listing leads for his team, which has previously been a more difficult task for agents than finding buyer leads that can be purchased through a number of services like Zillow’s Premier Agent or realtor.com.
“I imagine that 99 percent of these will be listing leads, and that’s the holy grail for real estate agents, to find a way for consistent listing leads,” Cassity said.
Cassity’s launch of his own iBuyer platform is a service he’s solely offering and he was clear that it’s not an offering from Compass. Creating an iBuyer platform currently isn’t a priority from Compass, according to a source. The company is currently working on developing a real estate platform and consumer-facing experience.
