I happened to stumble on something from Bilt that suggested buying a home with an EXP Realty agent would earn 1/2pt per $1 of the home purchase price. I'm an EXP agent and never heard of this program. There doesn't seem to be anything on the Bilt website about it with much detail for agents, or any contact options to learn more.

Has anyone done this before, or heard of it? If it's true, I would start running ads in my market to promote it given our average home price is over $1M in my market, that is a bucket load of points I could deliver to my clients.

Edited to add: I found a group inside of the EXP intranet - I am going to join, gather details and I will share them here if the program is real

Press release, November 2024: https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...Home-Purchases

BILT FAQ: https://support.biltrewards.com/hc/e...165-Buy-A-Home

I'm getting more details - it seems from my initial review of the internal messaging and training at EXP, you go through Bilt's home search portal and your information is collected and routed to the EXP affinity team. And that's a problem. They will send your information to a random agent you do not get to choose - usually from the affinity team's cabal of 'buddies' - and you'll need to complete the purchase with that agent to get the points, even if you don't like them or feel comfortable working with them.

I have an unhappy conversation that will be happening with the affinity team on this topic as we should be able to offer this option to anyone we market to and not lose the client to another random agent. So it's a very problematic implementation.

Anyway, more to come as I uncover details.

Are those selected Agents offering a kickback in turn for receiving the leads? Would make sense that bilt is getting a small % of the commission in exchange for providing buyers to agents.

It's not a kickback - that's illegal - but there is a referral fee charged by Bilt which covers the cost of the points. No different math-wise if I had the option to go out to Amex and purchase X MR points to reward a customer who bought or sold a home a with me. With Bilt, it just happens behind the scenes.

I just had another email exchange with my internal team - a few more questions need to get answered and I will have full clarity on whether or not I can offer this option to FT members living in Southern California and how I can refer FT members living in other US cities, and if it's even worth it for consumers.

Bottom line - there should be no cost to the buyer unless under the new compensation process the seller of the property elects to refuse to pay any buyer agent compensation. In this case, the buyer would need to pay their agent, but would receive a rebate of that cost in the form of points. As an agent, if a seller refuses to pay any compensation regardless of how we structure the offer, I would be advising my buyer to move on and look for another home especially in the current market environment as it appears the seller will be unwilling to negotiate on anything, including repairs and will just create a difficult environment for everyone.

OK I have an update. Can a moderator help me understand which - if any - forum or thread I can post a summary of the offer to a wider audience without violating TOS? I'm not sure if there is a 'marketplace' forum or something similar.

1. I am able to bypass the required registration process with Bilt and their forced random agent assignment - as long as a home buyer or seller is in my market (Southern California), I can register them directly and be the agent of record. This also means you do not need to use the Bilt home search portal and I can customize the home search through my own website as well as access private/pocket listings
2. While not a published benefit officially, I can register a client to earn Bilt rewards with a home sale as well as purchase - giving the opportunity to double dip. The sale side is still in the works officially, but I was told by my backoffice I can register clients for it
3. There is no minimum or maximum home price for the rewards program - so yes, a $18 million Beverly Hills home will earn 9,000,000 points, for example
4. If you're not in Southern California, I can try to find a Bilt-program approved agent in your area and do a direct hand-off after interviewing them to make sure they are a good fit (better idea), or you can register through the portal and take your chances with whoever gets assigned (worse idea)

So, yes, with a little tweaking behind the scenes, this is an easy way to earn a potentially massive amount of transferable points without any additional cost as part of a home purchase or sale. Everything will happen behind the scenes with the brokerage back office, escrow and Bilt Rewards.