A new real estate company is launching in Nashville with the guarantee: If they list your house and don't sell it in 90 days, they'll buy it from you.
The company is called "Felix," and they're choosing Nashville for their first city to open up shop.
"On an annual basis, real estate in Nashville is growing around 15 percent, which is really exciting for us," Tyler Forte, co-founder of Felix, said.
The company works with the home seller to figure out what their home is worth using an appraiser, and once that is done, they will work with the seller to set a list price generally slightly below the appraised value in hopes to get offers that are higher than the appraised value.
Felix will give the seller up to 2 percent of their home value for agreeing to sell their home through Felix, and they urge the home seller to use that money to improve their home prior to sale, but the money can be used for anything.
Felix then works to sell the home, and they only take commission if the company sells the home above list price.
For example: If your home is listed at $300,000 and it sells for $300,000, you get all of that cash, and Felix takes no commission, but if it sells for $315,000, Felix will take that extra $15,000.
The commission is capped at 6 percent, so for a $300,000 home, if it sells for more than $318,000, Felix will only take a commission of $18,000, and the rest of the money will go to the seller.
If the home doesn't sell in a 90 day period, Felix will offer to buy the home.
"We'll guarantee to purchase it, and the price that we purchase it at is typically 5 percent discounted from the original list price," Forte said.
That format guarantees money in the sellers pocket, if they choose to sell. After the 90 days, the seller can choose to not sell the home to Felix, or take the offer.
The goal of Felix is to put the stress on the real estate agents and not on the seller.
"If we can't perform, and if we can't sell your home for the price that we say we can, then we're not going to charge our commission," Forte said.
Felix is currently hiring real estate agents in Nashville for their launch.
Other real estate agents have said that Felix's model of guaranteeing a sale is not new, but it hasn't been done on a large scale like this with the commission structure.
One possible limitation would be that Felix listings are only available through the Felix Homes website, which could limit the exposure the home gets.
