Clever Real Estate Reviews: How the Discount Agent Matching Service Works

Finding a good real estate agent can feel like finding a needle in an ever-shifting haystack — you’ll know it when you find it, but where to begin? There are several websites that offer to match homeowners and buyers with great agents. Clever Real Estate is an agent referral website with a different slant — they provide matches with agents who’ll accept a lower commission or flat fee.

Saving money when you sell or buy a home is a common goal. With a typical seller’s agent, the commission is about 3% of the home’s sale price. If you only paid 1% when selling a $250,000 home, you’d save $5,000. But, what results can you expect from a discount commission agent?

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If you’re considering working with one of Clever Real Estate’s agents — or any discount agent — here’s some helpful information.

Editor’s note: The information in this article is current as of its publication date. However, real estate company processes, rates, and services can change based on market conditions, housing trends, changes in technology, and customer needs.

What is Clever Real Estate?

Clever Real Estate is a website that matches homeowners and buyers with agents willing to accept a lower commission. You can list your home for sale for a 1.5% commission, a minimum of $3,000. This compares to the nationwide average of a 3% seller’s or buyer’s agent commission.

Even though their agents accept lower commissions, Clever stresses that they aren’t traditional “discount” agents and are high performers. Agents must meet certain standards to join their network, including:

• Over five years experience as a licensed agent
• Great reviews from past sellers
• Extensive local market knowledge
• Great negotiators
• Comfortable with using technology

Clever Real Estate, which also operates realestatewitch.com, doesn’t list specific performance requirements on its list of agent criteria, such as the number of homes sold in the last year, average times to close, or the number of positive reviews they’ve received.

However, Clever does tell prospective agents that the company does not allow agents to pay them for sales leads. Their stated goal is “to send the best possible agents to our buyers and sellers,” and the best way to get more leads from Clever is to earn great reviews.

How does Clever Real Estate work for home sellers?

The agent’s commission is often the biggest expense for home sellers. Traditionally, sellers have covered both the listing and buyer’s agent commissions, typically totaling 6% of the home’s sale price, split equally between the agents.

However, a landmark settlement by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has reshaped the commission structure. Buyers are now expected to negotiate fees directly with their agents, and sellers are no longer obligated to shoulder this cost. Despite this change, many sellers still choose to cover the buyer’s agent commission to attract offers and speed up the sale process.

While Clever can’t guarantee that you’ll have a discount agent on the buyer’s agent, they can save you up to 1.5% on the sell side.

If your home sells for less than $350,000, you’ll pay just a 1.5% fee or a minimum of $3,000.

How can that save you money?

Let’s say your home sells for $400,000. If your listing agent charged the usual 3%, you’d pay them a $12,000 commission on the sale. With Clever Real Estate’s 1.5% fee, you’d only pay $6,000, saving you $6,000.

Of course, the savings and value of how this service works for home sellers can oscillate on whether the discount agent is able to sell your home for top dollar compared to a full-commission agent.

from HomeLight Blog https://www.homelight.com/blog/clever-real-estate-reviews/