Bilt recently launched a new partnership with eXp Realty which rewards you with bonus Bilt points based on your home’s purchase price. Seeing as it’s earned based on the price of the property you buy rather than having to go through a specific mortgage provider at a higher interest rate, this is an intriguing earning opportunity if you’re planning on buying a new home.
The Deal
- Earn 1 Bilt point for every $2 of your new home’s purchase price when using an eXp Realty agent.
Quick Thoughts
When I first saw that Bilt was going to be offering points when purchasing a home, I was assuming it was going to be something akin to Rocket Mortgage’s partnerships with United and Spirit that reward you when taking out a mortgage with that specific company. While that can work out well if Rocket Mortgage offers a competitive rate and fees, earning bonus miles or points could prove to be costly if you end up with a higher mortgage rate than you could’ve gotten via another bank.
That’s not the case with this Bilt earning opportunity though. Instead, you earn 1 Bilt point for every $2 you spend on a new home provided you use an eXp Realty agent. That means that you can still (presumably) use any mortgage provider you want in order to obtain the lowest possible rate, so this partnership shouldn’t end up costing you more long term.
I’d not heard of eXp Realty before this and, when looking at their website, I was left with more questions than answers as their Help page for home buyers didn’t address some of the things I was curious about. As a result, I reached out to Bilt and they answered the following questions that I had.
Q1: Is there a cap on how many Bilt points someone can earn on a home purchase? e.g. If someone buys a $2 million house, will they earn 1 million Bilt points?
Answer: There’s no cap on how many Bilt points can be earned through this partnership.
Q2: From what I can tell, most eXp Realty agents work remotely, so they won’t be able to show a house/apartment to a homebuyer in person. Is that indeed the case? If so, would buyers be reliant on selling agents showing them properties?
Answer: eXp agents are nationwide and will show homes in person. They have over 70k agents. Members should definitely connect with an agent in person and use them when negotiating a purchase.
Q3: Is there a certain point in the research process where a potential buyer will have to sign a buyer’s agent agreement with eXp Realty? If so, at what stage is that?
Answer: Yes, since the latest NAR settlement, every agent that represents a buyer is required to ask for a contract to be signed. It has become fairly typical to ask for that to be signed prior to the first tour.
(Side note: if you’re wondering why I’d asked this question and what the NAR settlement mentioned in the answer relates to, you can read more about it here (this is a gift link, so you don’t need an NYT subscription to read it.))
Q4: If the agent does work remotely and the buyer finds that that support is inadequate for their needs, do they have any recourse to choose a non-eXp agent in the event that they’ve signed a buyer’s agent agreement with an eXp agent? (n.b. This ended up being somewhat moot due to the answer from Q2)
Answer: Yes, if they need to switch agents, they can ask their agent to have eXp assign someone else, or contact our support team.
Q5: Does eXp Realty have a set fee for their services, or are buyer’s fees negotiated directly with the agent?
Answer: No set fee. What we’ve been hearing is that buyer’s agents are still getting between 2-3% commissions in almost every market. If buyers don’t agree to that, many agents will just walk away. Our agents aren’t required to set their commission at a certain point, it is up to their standard practice.
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Based on those answers, this looks like it could be a great way to rack up Bilt points provided you’re happy with the eXp agent that gets assigned to you. It shouldn’t cost you more to earn the Bilt points provided the buyer’s agent fee percentage you negotiate is the same that you’d have paid to a different agent.
It’s also one of the easiest ways to earn Bilt status. As a reminder, here’s how many points you need to earn to obtain Bilt status:
- Silver = 50,000 points
- Gold = 125,000 points
- Platinum = 200,000 points
That means that a home purchase of $100,000, $250,000 or $400,000 will earn you Silver, Gold or Platinum status respectively. Seeing as Bilt transfer bonuses have, for the most part, been tiered based on your status level, that could get you even more value from the points you earn from your home purchase.
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“so this partnership shouldn’t end up costing you more long term.”
Wrong. And this article is seriously bad advice.
The points you get are paid for by the the agent, so your agent commission is increased by that cost. For example, assume an offer price on the house of $1m. You get 500k points. If the agent paid 3c/point for these, they must charge you $7.5k, or 0.75% commission, just to cover the cost.
You can walk into Redfin and they will drop the formerly standard, now common, 3% commission to 2% just for you opening the door. That is more than the BILT discount (based on the numbers above).
Better still, do not use a buyer’s agent. Save the full amount. At 3% on that $1m house the $30,000 savings will do a nice remodel.
Given the inaccuracy in the article and the apparent sexiness of this offer, I urge Mr. Pepper to publish a complete new article putting the new BILT benefit in context.
There’s no guarantee that you’ll be paying more commission to your buyer’s agent though. If a local agent is charging 3% or you could pay 3% to an eXp agent and earn Bilt points, you’re better off with the latter option in terms of commission paid vs rewards earned.
Buyer’s agent commission fees are negotiated now, so it might be possible to get fees lower than 3% with eXp – it presumably varies depending on the agent. Let’s say you negotiate the fee down to 2.5%. If you value Bilt points at only 1cpp (and many would value them far higher than that), that’s worth 0.5%, effectively dropping the commission to 2% – the same percentage you quoted for Redfin. In addition to that, you could potentially earn Bilt status (depending on the home value), so that makes it an even better prospect than Redfin. If you value Bilt points at greater than 1cpp, you’d do much better with eXp than with Redfin.
I’m certainly not saying everyone should use eXp and other commenters have given reasons why you might want to avoid them. But giving a blanket statement that you’ll be worse off by trying to earn Bilt points is wholly inaccurate.
Your math seems off as well. You said that the agent would pay 3c per point for 500,000 points and that would cost them $7,500. For starters, they’re not going to be paying 3cpp; even if they did, that would be $15,000 rather than $7,500.
As for not using a buyer’s agent – sure, you could obviously save money that way if that’s something you’re comfortable with. However, I’d venture that most people aren’t comfortable with that. For those that are happy to forego a buyer’s agent, they’d do that regardless of whether they’d earn 0.5% back in Bilt points, so it’s a moot point.
With regards to the part of my post that you quoted, the full paragraph was:
That means that you can still (presumably) use any mortgage provider you want in order to obtain the lowest possible rate, so this partnership shouldn’t end up costing you more long term.
That reference to long term was in the context of your mortgage and the fact that using an eXp agent has no bearing on your mortgage interest rate. The buyer’s agent fee is paid up front and isn’t rolled into the cost of the mortgage in most cases, hence why I said using an eXp agent wouldn’t cost you more long term.
“Your math seems off as well. You said that the agent would pay 3c per point for 500,000 points and that would cost them $7,500. For starters, they’re not going to be paying 3cpp; even if they did, that would be $15,000 rather than $7,500.”
Sorry. Typo. That was for a 500k house. No material impact.
“Buyer’s agent commission fees are negotiated now, so it might be possible to get fees lower than 3% with eXp – it presumably varies depending on the agent. Let’s say you negotiate the fee down to 2.5%. If you value Bilt points at only 1cpp (and many would value them far higher than that), that’s worth 0.5%, effectively dropping the commission to 2% – the same percentage you quoted for Redfin. In addition to that, you could potentially earn Bilt status (depending on the home value), so that makes it an even better prospect than Redfin. If you value Bilt points at greater than 1cpp, you’d do much better with eXp than with Redfin.”
You may be great at describing mileage runs but this subject is an economic issue. THE AGENT HAS TO PAY FOR THE POINTS, so their costs are higher than an agent who does not. The BILT points are not an “extra” you get with this agent that you don’t get elsewhere. YOU HAVE TO PAY THE AGENT FOR THEM.
Your ‘journalism’ would have been much more useful if you had got your readers the price the agent pays per point. I bet it is around 3c. Let us know.
I’ve no idea exactly how much eXp is paying to Bilt for them funneling home buyers to them, but I can give you a 100% cast iron guarantee that they’re not paying 3cpp. The exact amount isn’t going to be information that Bilt nor eXp would be willing to disclose but 3cpp most certainly isn’t even in the ballpark.
Also, with this setup you’re not paying the agent for the points. That’s simply not how this arrangement works. Now, they might not be as willing to negotiate their commission, but you’re not paying them, say, 3% commission plus the cost of the points on top which seems to be what you’re insinuating (but perhaps I’m misreading what you wrote).
You said that the Bilt points aren’t an extra that you don’t get elsewhere, but that’s precisely what this is. If I contacted a Keller Williams agent and agreed to pay 3% commission, I’d pay that 3% and get nothing back. If I agreed to pay 3% to an eXp agent, I’d pay 3% commission but get the Bilt points back. That’s the extra you get that you don’t get elsewhere.
“I’ve no idea exactly how much eXp is paying to Bilt for them funneling home buyers to them, but I can give you a 100% cast iron guarantee that they’re not paying 3cpp.”
You can’t. That statement is a total non sequitur.
I don’t know the precise amount, but there’s no way that they’d be paying 3cpp.
“Also, with this setup you’re not paying the agent for the points.”
Then where does payment for them come from? The points fairy?
It presumably comes out of the agent’s commission. It’s similar to how Redfin agents might accept a lower commission of 2% – you’re not paying 3% plus the value of the points.
“You said that the Bilt points aren’t an extra that you don’t get elsewhere, but that’s precisely what this is. ”
You have invented a money-machine. Ask them for a Bentley while you’re at it.
How is this a money machine? The agents are, in effect, accepting a lower commission in return for having business funneled to them. Bilt members who buy a home and use an eXp agent get to benefit from that.
“so this partnership shouldn’t end up costing you more long term.”
It does. You have to pay for the points! The transaction without the points is cheaper. You don’t pay less than the points are worth. In your world BILT is going out of business.
You aren’t paying for the points though. I think you might be misunderstanding how this partnership works. The transaction without the points isn’t cheaper unless you happen to negotiate a lower commission rate with a completely different agent. That could work out better out of pocket, but that depends on how you value the Bilt points you’re missing out on and, like I said previously, it doesn’t add to your long term cost the way that a higher mortgage rate would.
This Bilt thing is not a good deal. Use a cash back realtor instead (or, better yet, negotiate the same deal with your realtor of choice). Anywhere offers programs branded by AARP and Military Real Estate Benefits. These pay CASH back 0.5%-0.6% (and it costs the buyer’s agent about 1%+ of their commission, so the realtor should be happy to give you 0.6%+ cash back). Plus, what Jeff says is true, so I would seek go with seeking the matching deal from the realtor of my choice. We recenty went through this process and looked in 11 locations (so worked with 11 realtors), and the quality of agent was highly variable. On average, I would say the group of 11 was below average. Our final agent was above average.
I am now going to buy a house that is $400,000 on eXp every year just so I can maintain my Bilt Platinum Status 😛
Does any part of the transaction have to be paid with Bilt card? The down payment (fully or partially)?
No, you don’t have to have the Bilt card
Choosing the right realtor is way too important to do it based on points. I would never do this unless the agent I choose just happens to be an Exp agent, which seems unlikely. Failing to get a good agent can cost you the opportunity to buy a home, especially in a tight market, or cost you a lot of money. Bad idea.
I think you looked up the wrong NYT lawsuit
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/realestate/sexual-misconduct-exp-realty.html
If you get a good eXp agent, great. But the company is an MLM per the NYT article.
“Usually, real estate agents work in a brick-and-mortar office and earn income — and accolades — solely by selling homes. But eXp has no physical offices, and is structured as a multilevel marketing operation, like Herbalife, Amway or Mary Kay. They are an accredited brokerage, but critics refer to it as a pyramid scheme, pointing to a required fee of $85 a month — amounting to over $7.4 million each month in revenue for eXp — that all agents must pay.”
Plus, ya know… all the sexual assault
Thanks — that is a very important point.
thanks for sharing this honestly it sounds like a horrible company to work with.