72Sold Founder, iBuyer Home-Flipping Critic Joins Fray

Greg Hague, a staunch critic of ibuyer home-flippers, has flopped.

The founder of Scottsdale-based 72Sold, which pledges to sell a home in eight days, has created a firm especially designed to flip homes, the Phoenix Business Journal reported.

Only the new company, Homes2X, will allow the seller to pocket the profits, minus a fixed fee of 1.5 percent for the service. Launched three weeks ago, the company has signed up 22 homeowners across the state, according to its owner.

“For years, I have been an outspoken critic of the home flipping business,” Hague, a real estate broker and attorney, told the Business Journal. “The whole home-flipping model and these companies like OfferPad and OpenDoor, their business model is not one designed to serve people.

“It’s designed to profit on people.”

So why did he set up a platform designed for fast-buck home churners? The home-flipping model is to buy low, sell high, usually after some renovation.

“There are a lot of people who own a home who don’t have a good sense of what their home is really worth,” Hague explained. “Many times these people end up leaving an incredibly large amount of money on the table that they could have had in their pocket.”

How Homes2X works: A home flipper hires a third-party appraiser to appraise the home, whose fee is reimbursed by Homes2X, if the owner moves forward. Homes2X then buys the home for about 80 percent of the appraised value, without charging fees or commissions.

Picking up all the carrying costs, Homes2X pays off the loan, covering the cost of pool service, yard maintenance, property taxes and homeowner insurance, Hague said.

Then a 72Sold agent markets the home using the 72Sold process, aiming to sell it for its appraised value or higher.

Once a deal closes, the profits go back to the seller, Hague said. The seller also retains the right to reject an offer if it’s not high enough within the first 30 days.

“If we don’t sell it within a month and close within 90 days, then any additional carrying costs are on us,” he said.

Hague, an entrepreneur, founded 72Sold in 2018 with a now widely televised model that allowed homeowners to sell their home using an auction-like process, initially within 72 hours, according to AZ Central. In 2022, it operated in 22 U.S. markets.

Last fall, he launched another company called Just 990, which offers home sellers a service for a flat $990 fee, according to the Business Journal.

— Dana Bartholomew