April 5, 2022 By Carol Britton Meyer
Hingham-based Final Offer is an innovative new online platform that empowers top real estate agents to provide a more transparent offer and negotiation experience to their clients -- both sellers and buyers -- in the residential real estate market.
The platform allows sellers to clearly outline their desired price and terms while offering buyers an opportunity to make a winning offer on the home of their dreams in a way that's "fair" and more transparent than the traditional way of negotiating real estate sales, Tim Quirk, one of the four company founders, told the Hingham Anchor.
Final Offer is what its founders call "a hometown tech start-up story, involving not only themselves, but also 25 Hingham families who have invested in the company to help prove this new concept in the real estate market. The Final Offer office is located in the Hingham Shipyard.
Quirk and Hingham resident Kevin Caulfield serve as Co-CEOs of the company, with Hingham resident Judd Hoffman in the role of Chief Investment Officer and Danko Fatovic as Chief Innovation Officer.
Quirk has been in the technology field for 20 years; Caulfield -- with 20 years in the real estate industry -- is one of the top real estate brokers in Massachusetts with Compass; and Hoffman and Fatovic have worked together for 25 years in the technology and recruiting industries.
"Judd and Danko ran their own recruiting company in the past and built an enterprise software platform for their recruiting company," according to Quirk.
Final Offer is also partnering with top real estate brokers -- mainly in the greater Boston area, and other strategic metropolitans around the country.
"There is a lack of transparency today in the way real estate is bought and sold," Quirk said. "The list price on a home has no meaning and no function other than being a target or suggestion at best, while buyers have no certainty as to what it will take to make an offer that will be accepted."
He noted that there are currently only 20 homes on the market in Hingham out of a stock of more than 8,000. "Imagine a family trying to move into this beautiful town with its fine school system trying to figure out how to get the house they want," Quirk said. "Our ethos is that transparency leads to better outcomes. Everyone knows upfront the price and terms of the sale, with the seller committing upfront to sell his or her home to the person who makes the highest offer at the end of a set timeframe."
Buyers can see the current highest offer and full history before making an offer. "Buyers compete knowing exactly what it takes to make the highest offer," Quirk said. "Our platform benefits the seller, buyer, and real estate agent."
The fundamental difference with Final Offer, according to Quirk, is that "in today's market, many people would be willing to pay more money for the certainty that they would get the house they want in the end. For that reason, there's a secondary aspirational price set by the seller for every home listed on Final Offer -- which means that if a buyer makes an offer for that price, the property is put under contract immediately. We call this making the Final Offer."
All offers are made online and are effective immediately. The sellers, buyers, and agents receive real-time notifications of competing offers, questions and answers, and more.
These days, Quirk said, people want access to information 24/7, which Final Offer provides. "This platform has created a level playing field for everyone involved, and the home is sold to the buyer who will pay the highest price and agrees to the seller's terms, with no bias whatsoever."
The Final Offer vision is to bring "full transparency and certainty" to the process -- one its founders say has been the same "for more than 100 years," with the understanding that sellers want to maximize the sale price of their property; buyers want to know "exactly what it takes to make the winning offer"; and real estate agents want a "better experience" for their clients and themselves.
Quirk said the response to Final Offer has so far been "overwhelmingly positive," noting that both real estate brokers and consumers alike see the value in transparency of the real estate transaction.
Final Offer will go live with its first listing at 10 Taurasi Road on Wednesday, April 6.
For more information, visit https://www.finaloffer.com/