Iggys House Down for the Count
June 28, 2008 – 1:52 pmIt appears Iggys House is no longer online. The site has been down for many days. Their sister companies BuySideRealty and BuySideMortgage also seem to be down.
Iggys House provided sellers with a free MSL listing service and the ability to post the property on their site for free. These free services drove traffic to their other fee-generating operations.
In 2007, Iggys House had revenues of $224,631 and a net loss of $1,300,873.
In January, Iggys House pulled its IPO that was expected to raise between $15 and 18 million.
From their Form S-1 with the SEC:
We have a history of losses and may be unable to generate sufficient net revenue in the future to achieve or sustain profitability.
We have had losses for each quarterly and annual period since our inception in April 2005. We experienced gross losses in each period since our inception, resulting in net losses of $1,166,731 for the period from April 11, 2005 (our inception) to December 31, 2005, $5,135,668 for the year ended December 31, 2006 and $1,300,873 for the quarter ended March 31, 2007. As of March 31, 2007, we had an accumulated deficit of $7,603,272. We may continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future. Further, we expect to make significant future expenditures related to the development and expansion of our business, and as a public company, we will incur significant legal, accounting and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company. As a result of these increased expenditures, we will have to generate even more revenue to become profitable
Our failure to raise additional capital or generate the cash flows necessary to expand our operations and invest in our service offerings could reduce our ability to compete successfully and adversely affect our results of operations.
There is no confirmation that Iggys House has closed shop but if someone knows otherwise please let us know.
17 Responses to “Iggys House Down for the Count”
WOW!
I do not see how they can sustain with those kinds of losses.
By Robbie on Jun 28, 2008
Talk about perfect timing! I listed my house with Iggy’s. They did actually do a fairly competent job of getting me on MLS …. for free.
Now the kicker. I have an offer on my house, but we can’t get it finalized until the buyer’s realtor sends the contract thru Iggy’s because Iggy’s is my “broker”. And Iggy’s is not responding to phone, email or FAX.
What am I supposed to do now?
By Janice on Jun 30, 2008
Can’t you have the offer rewritten as a straight FSBO with no selling broker? Considering IggyHouse.com isn’t up and they don’t answer their fax or phone, I’d think this is a breach of the seller/broker agreement. We used Iggy’s House also for free MLS. Our home is still listed … I wonder if a broker folds/quits what happens to the listings.
By Jim on Jun 30, 2008
I have gotten offers from my MLS/Iggys listing sent straight to me. You should be able to get the buyer’s agent to send the paperwork directly to you.
By Dale on Jun 30, 2008
Does this mean that those who signed an agreement with Iggy\’s House are now legally free to select a legitimate realty firm to represent the sale of their homes?
By A George on Jul 1, 2008
Re: Dale\’s comment
All written offers for our house have also come directly to us. But there is a page in the pile of paperwork where our agent/broker, in this case Iggy\’s House, needs to sign. I will just work with the buyer\’s agent to change this to the homeowners since Iggy\’s is offline, maybe permanently.
Re: A George\’s comment
I presume that Iggy\’s House inability to provide the services promised in the broker/seller agreement means we\’re released from that contract - but I\’m no lawyer. And, yes, I think we are legally free to select new paths towards selling our homes that may or may not include traditional realty professionals. There are many sites and even agents that offer flat fee MLS listing for very modest fees, e.g. $400. If you\’ve already staged your house, set a reasonable price, can show the house yourself, and can handle negotiations, all you need is advertising like MLS, Craig\’s List, Kijiji, local newspaper ads, etc. I realize this is a lot of work and many can\’t do it due to lack of time but for those who want to try, there\’s nothing wrong with full and partial FSBO efforts.
By Jim on Jul 1, 2008
If you need to pull down your listing, one thing you can do is try contacting the MLS provider for your area and see if they have some process to intervene and take down the listing for you, so you can relist with another broker. I need to update the price on my listing and can’t because Iggy’s House is down. So I’m stuck. In my case, my MLS (MRIS) is not being very helpful in this situation.
If that doesn’t work, one thing you can try is listing your home with another broker and putting an A after your house number so it comes out as a different address. I don’t think you can have two active listings for the same address at the same time for sales (I’m sure most MLSs prevent that from happening)
By JC on Jul 1, 2008
They did go out of business, I know someone who worked there. The CEO laid everyone off via a mass conference call then sent an email confirming it. Not sure what you should do if you have a listing through them, strange that they decided not to notify all their customers of the closing. They also didn’t pay their employees, saying they ran out of money!
I’d think the MLS can assist you in canceling the listing but can’t say for sure. Maybe contacting a realtor can help, they might know what to do.
By NM on Jul 1, 2008
I would contact a real estate attorney in your state.
That will roll the ball much faster for you.
Sorry to see such a mess from a company like this.
Very irresponsible people IMO.
By Robbie on Jul 1, 2008
I haven’t yet seen any messages from Iggys House clients who are on the buyside. This is our situation. We used Iggys as our broker. We’re set to close this month. Everything’s in place except we don’t know how we’ll get the commission rebate from Iggys. We can apply the rebate to the closing costs but need a letter from Iggys to do so. The other alternative is for the entire commission to go to Iggys (through the listing agent) and to get a rebate check from them within two weeks of closing. Since Iggys is probably headed toward bankruptcy, we certainly don’t want the latter to happen.
It would be much better to get the rebate as a credit at closing. Iggys is contractually obligated to make it effort to do this if we request it. But where is Iggys — it doesn’t seem to have any presence in the material world any more than it does online. There’s no way to reach anyone. And it seems as if there’s no one to reach.
Any ideas about what our options are for making sure we don’t lose the rebate? By the way, we do have an attorney. He says he’s never seen a broker go out of business mid-way through a deal. This is an unusual situation — people don’t know how to deal with it. He reminds us of the contracts that are in place, but the party to our contract has vaporized. Does it matter that Iggys is not fulfilling its obligations?
It’s maddening that Joe Fox and his collaborators won’t step forward and follow up with their clients.
By Jean on Jul 2, 2008
I have my property listed through Iggy’s House in Massachusetts. The phone number, email address and website all go no where, but the MA MLS still has them listed as an “active” broker, and won’t take down my listing without “broker approval.” Has anyone had any luck getting in touch with anyone at Iggy’s? It seems clear they have vaporized at this point.
By Lindsay on Jul 10, 2008
I had my house listed with Iggy’s, and now the MLS listing has disappeared. Odd that I still want mine up and it’s gone, but several people want to take their’s down and can’t.
By Lauren on Jul 13, 2008
iggyshouse.com is up again… not sure whether it’s business as usual though… I hear that the San Diego and Chicago offices were closed!
By bob ondiss on Jul 15, 2008
Yeah I would love it if my listing was still up my local MLS, sadly it disappeared early last week.
I had to re-upload my pics for my listing on iggyshouse.com but it appears now everything about my listing is gone. With all this talk about the company folding, I dont think its wort it to re-type everything.
By Alex on Jul 20, 2008
Oh, the old pump and dump brothers. Unfortunately it did not work this time. LOL
By mike graff on Jul 31, 2008
I had my house listed with Iggy’s House. I’m not surprised that they went under. Really, I feel sorry for them. It’s a terrible time to start an innovative approach to real estate. My experience with realtors was so bad, when I moved I got my own license. So, now I’m a licensed realtor in the state of VT. I must say, love my job. I just hope I’m the kind of realtor that wouldn’t send people screaming and running to the nearest FSBO site. Maybe when the market turns, someone else will follow this model.
By Renee on Feb 24, 2009
I use to work for Iggy’s House as a developer for about a year Feb. 2007 to Jan. 2008 and I was one of the lucky ones to get let go and get my last paycheck before they started stringing employees along with the promise of bonuses on top of their back pay. The CEO was a real blow heart, making all these large predictions for the company, like they’re doing something no one else is and they are the future…blah, blah, blah. I felt sorry for my friend there that was hanging with them because he believed the hype to not have been paid for 3 months worth or work.
By MDK on Apr 29, 2009