“Historically there have been many services that focus on homebuyers, but the biggest gap was with the home seller,” Ohan Antebian of SOLD.com.
Whether downsizing, upsizing or moving out of state, the time has come to put your home on the market, but you’re stumped on which route to go and hastily choose the first realtor you see. This happens often, and sellers were getting the short end of the stick when it came to real estate resources, according to the founders of SOLD.com. While there’s a bevy of information focused on homebuyers, little is available to help homeowners looking to sell their home.
This is becoming a growing need as the industry evolves, said Antebian, adding, “We want to evolve with it, but specifically through empowering home sellers.” There are a lot of new models popping up in real estate, especially on the ‘for sale’ side.” From iBuyers offering homeowners cash instantly to alternative brokers who offer a flat fee for fewer services, these emerging models buck tradition and are gaining traction fast.” Not all of these models yield the specific outcome desired by a unique home seller. Determining the most successful path for a home seller is at the heart of our solution at SOLD.
SOLD.com was launched in January 2018 to meet the growing need of more resources for sellers in the marketplace. It was the culmination of several companies coming together. SOLD.com leverages data from ATTOM Data Solutions to match thousands of sellers with the best approach to sell their home. The site takes great pride in helping to save sellers time, reduce stress and improve sales outcomes for home sellers by delivering data-driven content and personalized recommendations.
“Algorithmically, using data and analytics, machine learning, and all the sexy terms you can throw in there, we use them to match you with the best way to sell your home successfully. That’s the premise of our business,” said Antebian. He added that SOLD.com also applies their expert knowledge of the existing industry patterns and preferences.
Success is ultimately defined by the homeowner, he said, adding, “If success is defined as selling it fast, great, if success is more money, great. If success is selling it with the least amount of hassle and involvement, great. So, all those variables we account for, and the foundational data we use for that is ATTOM’s public recorder data.”
SOLD.com leverages that dataset by knowing every parcel in the U.S. and all its attributes such as owner’s financial position, type of residence, size of residence and so on. Additionally, SOLD.com expresses its transparency by providing up to three automated values per home. This includes the most recognized by consumers, Zillow, as well as ATTOM’s highest grade valuation model. Three AVMs empower homeowners so they can observe the variance and draw their own conclusions.
“As a visitor and as a user on our site, we personalize your experience through the aggregation of provided answers, your property data and market conditions data. We use these publicly available data sets such as ATTOM’s to deliver convenience that is expected by consumers today. It helps us avoid asking you questions on the site that we already know the answers too,” said Antebian, “We can process and get to the point of recommending the best path for you.”
So far, the marketplace has responded well to SOLD.com. In fact, from testimonies of saving money to learning that there were more nontraditional options available to home selling, home sellers have been happy with the service. One user of the site said, “SOLD.com came up big time in my small town! After spending some time trying to sell a rental property, I was looking for alternatives. Thankfully I found SOLD.com. My property and our real estate market is unique but they had the perfect solution. I listed with their recommended partner and am off and running. SOLD.com is professional and courteous. I recommend for anyone looking to sell or buy!”
On choosing to partner with ATTOM, Antebian said the reality is that SOLD.com is a start-up, and they wanted a partner that can work with startups as “scrappy, nimble, agile and as flexible” as we are at a beginning stage. He also said, the data was the primary reason, “I’ve been in the industry for a long time, I know the history of how ATTOM sources it’s data and the completeness of that data.”
