Real Estate Startup Raises $1.2M To Expand

Buying and selling homes is never an easy process. Buyers are trying to get the best bang for their buck, and sellers are trying to get as much money as possible for their property.

In hyper-competitive markets like Boston, New York and San Francisco, many buyers overbid and sometimes wave inspections to sweeten the pot for sellers. While this may seem like a great tactic for securing a home in a great location, inspections provide useful information that gives buyers leverage on price negotiations.

Real estate startup Faira, who just received a $1.2 million round of venture capital funding to expand into the San Francisco market, seeks to simplify the real estate process with its offering. According to the report, those choosing to use Faira have an upper-hand in both reduced complication and transparency due to the fact that the company conducts inspections prior to the home going on the market. This allows everyone involved a way to come to a true resolution in the game of real estate price debate between buyers and sellers.

Faira also seeks to reduce costs for sellers by offering a free MLS listing, inspection reports, professional photos and syndication to online real estate sites like Zillow and Redfin. The company makes its money through charging sellers a 0.5 percent platform fee. Overall, this process claims to save sellers an average of $20,000 and an average listing timeframe of 12 days.

GeekWire quoted Faira CEO Kamal Jain, who said: “Faira enables sellers to get the best price for their home for two reasons. There is social proof in the transparent offer process, which gives buyers confidence. Faira also gives agent-less buyers access to the offer process, and therefore more competition. Direct buyers can save 3 percent on the price using Faira without an agent.”

Now that Faira is entering the uber-competitive market of San Francisco, we may see an increase in home buying due to agents (and their fees) being taken out of the equation.