Final Offer, created by Boston-based real estate agents and tech experts, lets home sellers stipulate what they’re looking for from buyers’ offers.

A group of local real estate agents and technology experts launched a homebuying platform in Boston this spring that banks on the idea pulling back the curtain on the bidding process could be a disruptive success in residential real estate.  

But in the region’s hotly a competitive real estate market, it remains to be seen if total transparency ends up leaving money on the table for sellers wanting to maximize their profits. 

Final Offer, which bills itself as bringing greater transparency to the bidding process for a home, launched in April with a 3,368 square-foot Hingham home that listed on MLS PIN at $1.75 million and ended up with a winning bid for $1.83 million.  

An over-asking sale in the suburbs may not seem like anything disruptive to the residential real estate space. But it’s how the home sold that Final Offer’s founders say can bring much-needed change to an industry that leaves a lot of people feeling like they’re left in the dark.  

“It just kept coming back to the whole offer process and negotiation process and where things weren’t transparent,” said Tim Quirk, co-CEO of Final Offer, of how the platform came to be. “A lot of times, you could leave a transaction feeling a bit sour and wondering what happened there and asking, ‘Why couldn’t my client purchase the house, or did my client get the best and top dollar for their home?’” 

Inspired by Overseas Practices 

The Final Offer team looked to other parts of the world like the UK and Australia for how the platform would be modeled. Home listings in those markets offer a window on pricing and generally what a bid would need to be successful, Quirk said.  

Final Offer gives buyers an idea of the seller’s bottom price for consideration as well as their ceiling, or “final offer” price. Along with a listing price, sellers also include factors that can sweeten a bid like shorter closing windows and waiving mortgage or inspection contingencies – no, those buyer “love letters” all the rage these days detailing how envision grandchildren would come to visit aren’t a factor here.  

Final Offer is about a level playing field, so when a bid comes in, other potential buyers can see what the offer was and decide if they want to go higher. If a bid comes in within 15 minutes of a listing’s bid deadline, the clock resets to 15 minutes to allow other bidders a shot to offer a competing bid. 

“Look at what technology’s been doing for every other industry, and transparency has helped transform those industries so that you have just a much better understanding of what it takes to buy and sell something,” Quirk said. “Real estate’s really been opaque in that light.” 

A buyer can skip the bidding war entirely and just select the final offer price to take the property off the market. That’s what happened with a pending $624,900 sale for a 905 square-foot South Boston condominium that was listed at $589,900.  

“I think this was a case where people had lost out on a few and saw an opening there to take it down,” said Kevin Caulfield, Final Offer’s other co-CEO and a managing director at Compass in Boston. “It was a win for everybody. The buyer got the house, and the seller got more money than he probably would have gotten in a traditional setting.” 

Potential Fair Housing Fix 

Final Offer raised $3 million in seed money largely from top real estate agents in Boston, Florida, and Washington, D.C., according to a company release earlier this year. The company anticipates a wider rollout of its platform this summer.  

The company obviously needs broker buy-in, as sellers would have to agree to list their home on Final Offer for it to take off. It isn’t meant to be a replacement for multiple listing services, nor should it be seen as a job-killer for the broker community, both Caulfield and Quirk say.  

Instead, it’s a time saver for those same brokers juggling a high level of interest for a listing as they don’t have to personally handle each offer. It also screens out unqualified buyers, as users must be pre-approved via Guaranteed Rate to access the platform.  

The platform appears as though it would immediately appeal to motivated sellers looking to quickly offload a piece of real estate as well as buyers who want a more level playing field when it comes to buying a home. 

“It aligns with fair housing,” Caulfield said. “There’s no pictures. There’s no love letters. It’s just who’s got the best offer with the best terms.” 

Disruption isn’t always received well by established players in any industry, but agents unaffiliated with Final Offer appear to see merit to the platform. 

“Sometimes listing agents in a competitive market might not even get back to the buyer’s agent on what happened because they got so many offers, and that further discourages the buyers,” said Morgan Franklin, of the Morgan Franklin Group with Coldwell Banker. “I think this definitely unveils more of a level of transparency for buyers that otherwise might be discouraged and helps them feel more confident about the offers that they’re putting in.” 

Money on the Table? 

The only question some may have is whether Final Offer could leave money on the table for certain sellers. After all, it was only last year when a house went for nearly $1 million over asking in Cambridge. Nearly 160 homes in Boston sold for at least $100,000 over their respective list prices in the first six weeks of this year, according to Redfin. 

Sellers might be impeding their own profit margins by putting a “Final Offer” ceiling to their home’s potential sale price.  

“It’s an industry that, for a lot of reasons, hasn’t seen disruption the same way that other sectors have,” Franklin said. “But I would be interested to see how it plays out for the seller’s side because I think that a lot of the times when a listing agent is in a situation where there’s multiple offers, it can sometimes feel a little like a game of poker.” 

The Final Offer team recognizes these over-asking bids – even if some are extraordinary outliers – do happen and are working on a way to accommodate such a deal. For now, they recommend sellers think big when it comes to what they want their final offer price to be to take their home off the market.  

“We’re trying to encourage people to put an aspirational number,” Caulfield said. “But we’re working towards a second version that will solve for that as well.”