RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market: your full guide

Are you deciding between a traditional brokerage like RE/MAX and The Housing Market for selling your Iowa home? You’re not alone—both are licensed brokerages that will list your home, negotiate your offers and get you to closing. The Housing Market has become a preferred choice for Iowa sellers, offering the same coverage, published prices, and a ceiling on what the sale can cost. If you’re still on the fence, here’s what you need to know to make the full RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market comparison.

A note on how this is written. RE/MAX offices are independently owned and every agent sets their own rate, so no one can quote you “the RE/MAX commission” — and this article does not. Where a percentage appears it is the published Iowa average of 5.84%, from a February 2026 survey of 533 agents, applied to the $325,000 median Iowa City sale price. Commission is always negotiable.

RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market feature comparison

A traditional brokerage and The Housing Market share many key functions, but how do they compare, and what should you expect your favorite parts of the process to look like on The Housing Market?

1. How the price is set

• Traditional brokerage: You are quoted a percentage of the sale price, agreed in the listing agreement before anyone knows what the home will sell for. Iowa’s average is 5.84% in total — 2.96% to the listing side and 2.88% to the buyer side. On the median Iowa City home that is $18,980.
• The Housing Market: You are quoted a list of services with prices printed on a public pricing page. You pick the ones you want, and a seller’s total cost to sell comes to $10,000 or less no matter which combination you choose. The number does not move because your home is worth more.

2. What the listing agreement covers

• Traditional brokerage: One percentage covers everything, bundled. That is genuinely simple, and it also means you cannot decline the parts you do not need, or find out what any single part was worth.
• The Housing Market: Each stage is its own line item — listing and advertising, offer management, inspection coordination, title and deed, closing. Take all of them or take three; the ceiling holds either way, and you can see what each one costs before you agree to it.

3. Photography and marketing

• Traditional brokerage: Professional photography and marketing are standard at a full-service brokerage, paid for out of the commission. What is spent, and on what, is at the agent’s discretion.
• The Housing Market: Professional photography, listing copy, syndication to every major IDX feed and targeted digital advertising are what listing and advertising buys, with à la carte add-ons if you want more. Closing services add handoff photography and a 3D virtual tour.

4. Showings and buyer traffic

• Traditional brokerage: Your agent fields showing requests through the MLS and their own network. Buyer traffic comes from the portals and from other agents’ clients.
• The Housing Market: Requests arrive through the listing page attached to a registered buyer, and land in your dashboard for approval. Buyers use this platform with no commission and no service fee, so some of the traffic is people who came here specifically to avoid paying one.

5. Offer management and negotiation

• Traditional brokerage: Your agent brings you the offers and advises on the counters. This is the part of a full-service brokerage that most clearly earns its money, and the reason a percentage has survived as a pricing model.
• The Housing Market: Offer management puts every offer in one inbox with a side-by-side comparison of price and terms, gives you a QR code buyers can use to offer directly, and comes with counter-offer support. Same job, priced as a line item instead of a percentage.

6. Inspections and repair requests

• Traditional brokerage: Your agent coordinates the inspection period and advises on the repair requests, drawing on whichever inspectors they usually work with.
• The Housing Market: Inspection coordination books vetted local inspectors, tracks every repair request against its deadline, and reviews the report with you. The partner bench is published, so you can see who is being sent before they arrive.

7. Title, deed and closing

• Traditional brokerage: Coordinated by the agent and the title company, and covered by the commission you have already agreed.
• The Housing Market: Title search and clearance, deed preparation and legal review, and coordination with every party are handled as their own stages, and closing services add document management and a review of the final numbers before you sign them.

That table is deliberately unexciting. Both routes do the whole job — this is not an article arguing that a traditional brokerage cuts corners. The difference shows up in the next three sections, which are about price, risk and timing rather than scope.

8. If the home doesn’t sell

• Traditional brokerage: Commission is contingent on a sale, so an unsold listing generally costs you nothing in fees — though you are usually tied to the listing agreement for its term.
• The Housing Market: Sellers pay nothing until the home closes, so an unsold listing costs you nothing either. The home price evaluation happens before you commit to anything at all.

9. When you pay

• Traditional brokerage: Deducted from your proceeds at closing, as a percentage of the final sale price.
• The Housing Market: Also at closing — but as a known figure you agreed to in advance, capped at $10,000 whatever the home eventually sells for. If your home sells above asking, that is entirely yours.

10. Who represents you

• Traditional brokerage: A licensed agent under a licensed broker, with a fiduciary duty to you. A good one is worth a great deal, and plenty of them are very good.
• The Housing Market: An Iowa-licensed brokerage, with the same duty, working from a published price list instead of a percentage. The pitch is not that agents are overpaid; it is that a specialist working to a fixed ceiling is a different product from a generalist paid a share of your sale price.

The Housing Market–exclusive features

When comparing RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market, The Housing Market stands out with things a percentage-based brokerage is not structured to offer. Here is what you get here that you will not find on a standard listing agreement.

• A published ceiling: A seller’s total cost to sell is $10,000 or less. On the median Iowa City home that is $8,980 less than the 5.84% Iowa average.
• Prices you can read before you call anyone: Every stage and its price is on the pricing page. No listing appointment required to find out what it costs.
• Buyers who pay no commission: Buyers pay no commission on this platform, which widens the pool of people looking at your home.
• À la carte stages: Decline the parts you have covered. If you already have a title company you trust, do not buy that stage.
• The whole sale in one dashboard: Evaluation, listing, offers, inspections, title and closing are stages on one timeline, with every document and signature stored against the transaction.
• A vetted local partner bench: Inspectors, loan officers, closers, photographers, stagers and movers, all Iowa names you can look up before they turn up.

Where a traditional brokerage wins

No comparison is worth much without the other side of the ledger, so here it is.

• Homes under about $171,000: Below roughly $171,000, 5.84% of the sale price is less than the ceiling. A percentage is the better deal on a lower-priced home, and the chart at the top of this article shows exactly where the lines cross.
• A specific agent you already trust: If you know an agent who has sold your neighbors’ homes well, that relationship is worth real money and no pricing model replaces it.
• You want one number and no decisions: À la carte means choosing. Some sellers would genuinely rather agree a single percentage and never think about it again, and that is a legitimate preference rather than a mistake.

How the Iowa City brokerages compare

RE/MAX is the name in the title, but the same comparison applies to every full-service brokerage working the Iowa City and Corridor market. The table below is not a claim about anyone’s rates — it is a claim about whether you can find them out before you sit down with an agent.

Support and resources at The Housing Market

The Housing Market is committed to providing real support from real people. You work with an Iowa-licensed brokerage, and the partners booked on your behalf are vetted local businesses rather than a national call center. If something goes sideways in week three, the person you call is in the same time zone and knows the street.

The stage-by-stage walkthrough is on how it works, the full menu is on the pricing page, live Iowa listings are on browse listings, and the contact details for a real conversation are on the about page.

RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market pricing comparison

Understanding what each route costs is the key to making sure you get the best value for your sale. This section breaks down both on the median Iowa City home at $325,000.

On the full 5.84% comparison, the ceiling saves a seller $8,980 on the median Iowa City home. Against a listing-side-only commission of 2.96% the two are close — $9,620 against a ceiling of $10,000 — with the difference being that the percentage keeps climbing as the sale price does and the ceiling does not.

Wrapping up

Choosing a brokerage is choosing how your sale gets priced. In the RE/MAX vs. The Housing Market debate, a traditional brokerage wins on homes below about $171,000 and on the strength of a specific agent you already trust. The Housing Market sets itself apart with the same full coverage of every stage, prices published in advance, à la carte stages you can decline, and a seller’s total cost to sell of $10,000 or less — $8,980 below the Iowa average on the median Iowa City home, and further below it on every home worth more. Ready for a brokerage that tells you the price before you sign? It’s time to try The Housing Market.