HOMELIGHT

The amount of equity you can unlock is determined using our proprietary algorithm, which takes into consideration your agent’s estimation of the home’s value, current market conditions, projected market risk, borrower financials, outstanding loans, and more. You’ll be able to unlock a portion of the overall equity you have in your home upfront, prior to selling the home — and will receive the remainder of your equity after the home sells, less program fees and expenses.

We work with your agent to determine the appropriate listing price based on market comps and the home inspection. We want to list the property at a price that will attract the most buyers and get you the most money for your home. Additionally, we never want the property to sit on the market for more than 30 days, ensuring that your fee is as low as possible.

Though HomeLight will own your home at the time of listing, you will be consulted on any offers received. If, however, the home has not sold after 45 days of HomeLight owning the property, we reserve the right to act as the sole decision maker on accepting an offer.

Regardless of the home’s final sale price, HomeLight’s purchase price is the minimum amount you’ll receive at the end of the transaction. If for any reason the home sells for a lower price than what we paid, we absorb the loss.

We recommend you keep utilities in your name, but you will have the option to transfer utilities ownership to HomeLight, in which case we’d pay the costs. If HomeLight covers the costs, the following would be passed on to you: all transfer, start, and stop fees associated with utilities, the total cost of utilities, and a 20% surcharge for utility management. We include these costs in the property ownership costs that are outlined in the economic breakdown we provide to you, if you choose to have HomeLight take over utility payments.

Listing prep work is based on a pre-listing inspection of the property and your agent’s recommended prep work to get the home ready for the market.

Once HomeLight takes ownership of the property, we pay any vendors directly for any listing prep work including property repairs, home staging, and deep cleaning. We recover these costs at the sale of the property. Additionally, if you prefer, you will have the option to pay these costs directly to the vendors as the costs are incurred.

You are not required to use HomeLight Home Loans to finance the purchase of your new home, however the HomeLight Trade-In fee is lower if you choose to do so.

Our fees are calculated off of the final selling price of your current home. The percentage charged is dependent on your market, the lender you use, and the number of days we own your home. The day we close on the purchase of your current home is counted as day one.

You and your agent agree on the fees they’ll collect, just as you would in a traditional home sale process.

As HomeLight Settlement is in-house, working with them makes the closing experience as seamless as possible for you and your agent. Our Escrow Officers thoroughly understand the HomeLight Trade-In product and, because we use the same systems and processes, can expedite the transfer of relevant documents and information.

Please let your Client Manager know early on in the process that you have solar panels on your property. If you have a personal loan tied to the solar panels on your property, that loan will be paid off during the initial transaction when HomeLight purchases your home. If you are leasing the solar
panels, we will need to look into the terms of the lease to find the best way to transfer the lease through the HomeLight Trade-In transaction. Lastly, if you own the solar panels outright, please provide documentation of your ownership to your Client Manager.

Once HomeLight takes ownership of the property, we take over property insurance. The associated costs are included in the property ownership costs that are outlined in the economic breakdown we provide to you.

Closing costs work like they would for any other real estate transaction. When you sell your property to HomeLight you may incur closing costs such as settlement fees, title insurance policy, and other closing costs specific to your area. HomeLight also incurs its own set of closing costs both when we purchase your property from you and sell it on the open market. The fee that HomeLight charges covers any closing costs that we incur, we do not double charge you for our closing costs. The only exception is if there are city mandated transfer taxes where your property is located. As city transfer taxes can vary greatly, we pass this cost through to you rather than incorporating it into our fee structure. This ensures we can keep our fee as low as possible for all of our clients.