Is Neho a digital real estate agency?
No.
Neho customers are accompanied by an experienced Neho real estate agent, who comes to your home to meet you, take stock of your property and situation and gather all the necessary information to accurately value your property. The agent will prepare the sales file, look for buyers for your property, carry out viewings, negotiate with buyers, and more. In short, everything a real estate agent needs to do to sell a property at the best possible price!
The major difference between Neho and its competitors is that Neho has developed a method as well as a number of tools, some of which are digital, to allow Neho agents to be more efficient in their day-to-day work. In particular, these time-saving tools enable Neho to offer its service at a fixed fee far below what competitors charge. Beyond efficiency, these tools enable agents to be more precise, whether in valuing the property, finding buyers, or during the bidding process to obtain the best possible price for the seller. But it's the agents who manage the whole process, from meeting the customer to the conclusion of the sale.
Neho is therefore not a digital agency, unlike some new agencies in other countries, which have decided to skip agents altogether. Neho is a human agency, adapted to its time.
Is Neho a low-cost agency?
No.
The service offered by Neho encompasses that of conventional agencies, i.e. human accompaniment by an experienced real estate agent from the valuation on site to the notarisation of the deed of sale. But there is an additional layer of service provided by the ongoing transparency it offers its customers.
Neho agents are also among the most experienced on the market. On average, they have more than a hundred sales to their credit, so they know their market inside out.
Neho has also developed methods and tools to enable its agents to be more efficient in their daily tasks. This is one of the reasons why Neho can offer a traditional brokerage service at a much lower cost than its competitors.
Furthermore, property prices have risen dramatically over the past 25 years, while conventional agents' commission percentages have remained virtually unchanged. As a result, commission sums have risen considerably, becoming increasingly disconnected from the work involved in selling a property.
If Neho's service is less expensive than that of its competitors, it is not because it offers an inferior service, as the term "low cost" might imply, but because it has invested in its efficiency.
Neho's prices are therefore not "low", but fair.
Is Neho profitable?
Yes.
Neho has been profitable in the Swiss market since 2019. Its profits are reinvested in the continuous improvement of the customer experience and the development of new offers in Switzerland and Germany.
Some new digital real estate agencies in other countries were unable to find a profitable model and had to close down. Since Neho bears no resemblance to these models, it is in a very different financial situation. The main differences are as follows:
- Neho is not a digital agency. At Neho, experienced real estate agents manage the sales process from A to Z (see point above). Neho is a "traditional" agency that has put digital technology at the service of its agents, enabling them to offer a better service to their customers.
- The international digital agencies that didn't survive offered prices that didn't allow them to achieve profitability. For some, prices were as low as CHF 1,500 per sale, a far cry from the CHF 12,000 offered by Neho.
Is Neho a start-up?
No.
Neho could be described as a start-up at the beginning, as it was initially funded to develop the tools that enable its agents to be more efficient today. However, Neho has been profitable on the Swiss market since 2019, and has over 90 employees.
The terms real estate agency or company are therefore a much better description of what Neho is today.
Was Neho publicly funded?
No.
Neho was not publicly funded. For its various innovations, which have enabled it to offer a comprehensive brokerage service at a much lower price than its competitors, it has received several awards from private organizations, some of which included a financial reward. The latest of these is the Swiss Economic Forum Award, awarded in June 2023, which recognizes not only innovation but also societal impact and the sustainability of its business model.
Do commission-based agencies achieve higher selling prices than non-commission-based agencies?
No.
An agent’s commission has no impact on selling prices. A real estate agent working on commission will be better off selling quickly and below market value, rather than struggling for several months to achieve a price 10% higher.
In fact, the difference in earnings for the agent is not significant enough to motivate a higher selling price. For a property sold for 1,000,000 at 3% commission, i.e. CHF 30,000, rather than 1,100,000, the difference is only CHF 3,000. And this is not even considering the fact that many real estate agents work for an employer and only receive a percentage of this sum, usually between 25 and 33%, which in the above example would mean a difference of only CHF 750 to CHF 1,000.
On the other hand, if the agent advises his customer not to accept an offer because he considers it too low, he exposes himself to multiple risks:
- the customer may change his mind and no longer want to sell;
- the customer could find a buyer on their own;
- the customer may never get a higher offer, and the initial buyer may withdraw;
- in the case of a non-exclusive mandate, the seller could close the deal with a buyer brought in by a competitor.
In any of these cases, the agent will lose their entire commission, an outcome that is unacceptable for the agent. Even if the outcome is in the agent’s interest, he or she will have spent a lot of additional time selling the property – time that could have been devoted to selling other properties. Whatever the outcome, it's simply not worth the effort.
For its part, Neho lives on the satisfaction of its customers. Word of mouth and excellent customer reviews are the driving force behind Neho's growth. Customer satisfaction comes first and foremost from feeling like you have obtained the best possible selling price. Neho does everything in its power to achieve this goal. The quality of the property's presentation, coupled with the highest visibility on the market through publication on more than 40 portals, plus the largest buyer base on the market generate a number of interested parties per property that is unrivaled on the market. And the more buyers there are, the better your chances of getting the best price. A sale at the best price is then achieved through a structured bidding process and your agent’s personal involvement in the success of every customer’s sale.
Does Neho charge CHF 3,000 at the beginning of the sale process?
Yes.
Because it's in the customer's interest.
The sum of CHF 3,000 covers all the work involved in marketing the property, including creating the photos and other sales materials, the listing costs on over 40 portals, as well as maintaining the seller’s environment for complete transparency and control over the sales process, which is a service that other competitors simply don’t offer.
Above all, however, this initial fee saves the customer money on the final bill.
Conventional real estate agents work without any remuneration in cases that they don’t end up selling a property for which they were mandated. That's why they have to make up for it on the properties they do sell, which is why their commission on sales is so high. By paying an average of CHF 30,000 in commissions, you pay not only for the time they've spent on your sale, but also for the time they've spent on other, less successful mandates.
Thanks to the CHF 3,000, Neho doesn't have to charge you for other mandates, which is one of the reasons why Neho's fees are two to three times lower than competitors’.
Finally, should the contract be terminated, no additional fees will be charged. This is unlike conventional sales mandates, which very often include penalties for premature termination.
Is Neho's offer modular, getting more expensive according to the options chosen by the customer?
No.
Neho has 2 offers, one at CHF 12,000, the other at CHF 14,500. The only difference is whether or not buyer viewings are delegated to the agent.
Neho has found that many homeowners prefer to carry out the viewings themselves, and has therefore created an offer to meet this demand. It also fits in perfectly with Neho's philosophy of transparency, as buyers and sellers can get to know each other in person.
Is it true that Neho has the largest buyer base on the market?
Yes.
Not only is Neho the agency that sells the most properties in Switzerland, but also the agency that generates the most new prospects every time it markets a property. As a result, we are in contact with a very large number of buyers. These buyers' details are carefully stored in a database and classified according to their individual search preferences. This has allowed Neho to build up the largest up-to-date buyer database in Switzerland.
