HomeLight Reviews: Are Its Services Right for You? (2024 Update)

HomeLight Simple Sale — sometimes referred to as HomeLight Cash Offers — is a free service that helps you sell your house directly to a property investor or flipper. You submit basic info about your home, such as its age and condition, and HomeLight compiles multiple preliminary cash offers so you can compare and choose the best one.

Most cash buyers will then conduct an in-person inspection. If any issues come up during the inspection, the final offer may be lower than the initial cash offer.

HomeLight Simple Sale reviews online are generally positive, with no major customer complaints. Overall, customers like how easy it is to sell their homes for cash. Note, though, that you likely won't sell your home for the best possible price — one of the major drawbacks of selling to any cash buyer.

That said, HomeLight Simple Sale may be a good choice if you:

• Need to sell your house fast: This is common if you’re in pre-foreclosure, moving for work, selling an inherited property, or going through a divorce. A cash offer closes faster.
• Are looking to sell as is: If your home needs significant repairs but you’re unable or unwilling to fix it up before listing, it's often easier to sell directly to a cash buyer.

» MORE: 12 Best Companies That Buy Houses for Cash

How much will HomeLight Simple Sale pay for my home?

When you sell directly to a property investor or flipper for cash, you’ll typically get 30–50% less for your home than you would by listing it. These buyers often need to invest in repairs and upgrades to make a profit during the selling process, so they usually pay way less than market value.

You’re free to use a seller’s agent when selling directly to a cash buyer through Simple Sale, but doing so doesn't reap many benefits. A seller’s agent can advise you about what your home is worth and how long it would take to sell, which is useful information regardless of whether you sell to a cash buyer or list it on the market.

If you can't decide between selling to a cash buyer or going with an agent, Clever Offers can help. Your Clever agent can request offers from cash buyers on your behalf. For comparison, they'll also give you an expert opinion on your home's open market value.

HomeLight's Home Trade-In program works like this:

1. You get pre-qualified to tap into a portion of your current home's equity, enabling you to submit a strong, non-contingent offer on a new home without having to sell your current home first.
2. You can move into your new home right after completing the purchase.
3. HomeLight then partners you with an agent to list and market your previous home over the next 90 days.
4. If it doesn't sell within that period, HomeLight will buy your house for a pre-determined amount and continue to try to sell it on the open market.

The program doesn't require any up-front costs, but HomeLight charges 2.4% of the old home's sale price at closing.

Home trade-in may work for you if you need to access equity to afford your next home or you want the security of a guaranteed sale. However, if you're a new homeowner, you might not have enough equity (over 20%) to benefit from the program.

Most lenders only provide pre-approval letters, but HomeLight Home Loans completes full underwriting before you even bid on a home. By guaranteeing financing upfront, HomeLight allows you to make contingency-free, competitive offers to maximize your chances of securing the property you want.

The online loan application can get you approval in as little as 30 minutes in qualifying states. HomeLight has dedicated mortgage advisors to guide you through selecting the best home loan product for your situation from a range of offerings.

While HomeLight advertises lending fees below traditional banks, you might be able to find better rates elsewhere. Make sure to compare options across multiple lenders before choosing one.

Coverage: 5/5

With a network of over 28,000 agents, HomeLight covers way more of the country than just about any of its competitors. That’s good news if you live in a rural area where other agent matching services may have limited coverage.

And if you’re planning on moving from one state to another, HomeLight’s large agent network allows it to potentially match you with recommended agents in both states.

HomeLight’s network also means you get more options. Its algorithm uses the information you provided during signup to immediately match you with up to three local agents.

If those agent matches don’t seem right for you, you can immediately request and receive an additional two matches, giving you up to five matches in total. That's more than most other agent matching services offer.

Agent screening and qualifications: 1/5

We rank HomeLight poorly for how it screens agents. Essentially, any agent can join HomeLight’s network. Unlike other agent matching services, HomeLight doesn’t require agents to meet any performance criteria.

As a result, its agent network varies in quality, and its large size needs to be taken with a grain of salt. With so many agents, you’ll find great ones on HomeLight but also lackluster ones.

Matching quality: 3/5

HomeLight’s matching quality is a mixed bag. We found that the quality of agent matches on HomeLight is usually pretty high, largely thanks to HomeLight’s algorithm. When making a match, HomeLight’s algorithm takes many factors into account, including:

• Price range
• Geographic area
• Number of transactions
• Average sale price vs. average listing price
• Prior reviews
• Average days on the market
• Success rate with previous HomeLight referrals

You’ll usually get paired with agents who are not only local but have closed many transactions in the area as well.

That said, we think HomeLight’s agent matching process relies too much on its algorithm. While a concierge will contact you immediately afterward to review those matches — and potentially suggest different ones — the fact that the concierge doesn’t first verify whether those matches are a good fit is a drawback.

We prefer services that combine data with human oversight to help you find the right agent. After all, a realtor may look good on paper, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a good fit for you.

Buyers and sellers will both be disappointed by HomeLight’s lack of savings. In most cases, you’ll pay the full listing fee for your realtor, usually 2.5–3% of the purchase price, depending on your local market. That’s the same rate you’d pay if you found an agent on your own.

Companies like Ideal Agent and Clever, in contrast, pre-negotiate discounts with their partner agents on your behalf. With Ideal Agent, the listing fee is 2%, while for Clever, it's just 1.5%.

There’s also no discount or rebate on the buyer’s agent commission with HomeLight. The buyer’s agent commission is typically around 2.5–3%. So you’re looking at a total commission of 5–6% — again, the same as if you’d found an agent without the help of HomeLight.

Customer service: 2/5

HomeLight is a mixed bag in terms of customer service for both buyers and sellers. We give points to HomeLight’s representatives, who were generally knowledgeable and helpful.

However, we were far less happy with the volume of communication we received. Simply put, we were bombarded with emails, calls, and text messages after signing up, both from HomeLight representatives and the agents we were matched with. While it is normal for an agent matching service to try to contact you — and many customers prefer it — HomeLight takes "communication" to a whole new level.

Our mystery shoppers tended to get more calls, emails, and texts from HomeLight than other similar services. And HomeLight was the only company that made it difficult to unsubscribe from their emails.

Ease of use: 5/5

We found HomeLight.com to be fast and easy to use. You’ll get your agent matches almost instantly and keep track of them through your HomeLight online dashboard.

We like that the dashboard is intuitive and provides a lot of useful information about your agent matches. For example, you can view matches from the main dashboard page and view agent information, including:

• Years of experience
• Number of homes sold in your area
• Achievements
• A map showing their recent sales

If you want more information, you can read agent bios and additional sales data via their profile.

Your dashboard also includes additional features, like:

• A message center where you can contact HomeLight and your matched agents
• An option to try out HomeLight’s Simple Sale service
• A section to keep track of the progress of your home sale or purchase

While a nice dashboard isn’t nearly as important as finding a great real estate agent, it is a nice touch and makes the process of selling or buying a house a tiny bit less stressful.

HomeLight is best suited for sellers and buyers who want to choose a traditional real estate agent quickly and aren’t concerned about savings. You won’t save money by going with HomeLight, but you'll get matched with agents almost instantly.

HomeLight might also be a good option if you live in a rural area where similar companies have less coverage. Due to HomeLight’s massive agent network, it's far more likely to match you with an agent no matter where you live.

But with other agent matching services, you can get a great agent while paying a lot less. With Clever, for example, you get matched with top real estate agents, but you pay a listing fee of just 1.5%, potentially saving you thousands of dollars in commission.

» MORE: See how Clever can help you save

HomeLight will match you with an agent for free, but you’ll still have to pay standard commission rates to that agent. Other similar services match you with agents from the same real estate brokerages you know and love, but also offer discounted listing fees. Find our complete rankings of the best low commission companies!

The commission rate you’ll pay for a HomeLight partner agent is the same as if you found an agent on your own, usually around 5–6%. Unlike its top competitors, HomeLight doesn’t offer reduced commission. Find discount real estate agents near you!

No, HomeLight doesn’t buy homes. HomeLight’s SimpleSale program only matches you with cash buyers and iBuyers who may be willing to buy your home. Find out more about how iBuyers work!

No, Google doesn’t own HomeLight. HomeLight is its own company headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

No, HomeLight is not an iBuyer since it doesn’t buy houses itself. But it does offer a service called HomeLight Simple Sale, which allows you to sell to a cash buyer and is similar to working with an iBuyer.

Our team of mystery shoppers spent hundreds of hours testing HomeLight and other agent matching services. Using the data we compiled, we compared HomeLight with competitors across three categories: agent quality, savings, and customer service. We weighted agent quality most heavily, which covers factors like coverage, screening criteria, and the quality of agent matches with mystery shoppers. We assigned equal weight to the savings and customer service categories.