Terra Vista Realty Review: Is it Worth It?

Jessica Johansen's Photo
By Jessica Johansen Updated April 11, 2024

SHARE

Terra Vista Realty Review

Overall rating | Customer experience | Agent quality | Brand visibility and reach | Service value | Locations | Methodology

✍️ Why trust us: We strive to provide objective recommendations and advice. Learn more about how we research.
Show more

Terra Vista Realty is a small real estate brokerage that serves buyers and sellers in Charlotte, North Carolina.

A discount real estate brokerage founded in 2006, Terra Vista offers rebates to buyers and low listing fees to sellers (under certain conditions). Below we’ll analyze Terra Vista Realty in four main areas and help you decide if they’re the best fit for you.

Bottom line: Do we recommend Terra Vista Realty?

Although Terra Vista Realty's offerings seem to provide great savings — its rebate to buyers is very generous, and its 1% listing fee for sellers is competitive — compared with similar companies, it’s difficult to find information on the quality of its services. But there are no third-party reviews or social media accounts, and the few testimonials on the Terra Vista website have been clearly curated to give the company a positive image.

That doesn’t mean Terra Vista has bad service. It’s actually quite admirable that, in this digital age, a company of this size can rely on word-of-mouth marketing and a good local reputation to bring in customers. Just keep in mind that you may not know how well the company treats clients until you actually work with them.

🏡 Compare agents, save money! Try Clever’s free agent matching service. Choose from top local agents from the best brokerages, get built-in savings. Learn more.
Show more

Terra Vista Realty: Our in-depth breakdown

Reputation and customer experience

📊 Our rating: 3.0/5

  • No public online reviews for the brokerage
Show more

We couldn't find public reviews for Terra Vista Realty on any of the traditional third-party reviewing sites, such as Google, Realtor.com, Zillow, or the Better Business Bureau. The testimonials on the brokerage's website don’t offer a balanced view on the company’s strengths and weaknesses.

Agent quality

📊 Our rating: 3.0/5

  • Hard-to-find agents' career information
  • Longer-than-average agent experience but fewer annual transactions
Show more

We know that the agency is fairly young (founded in 2006) and that broker-in-charge Tom Palmer has at least 16 years of experience with Terra Vista. That alone is higher than the industry standard of 8 years in the business. In the past 12 months, Terra Vista has completed 28 transactions, which comes out to 9.3 per agent. This transaction number is low compared to the average of 12 transactions per year per realtor.

Besides Tom Palmer, only three agents are featured on the company website, and none have their years of experience listed. So we strongly recommend conducting an initial interview before you decide to work with a Terra Vista agent: ask for their sales numbers, years of experience, and references from past clients.

Brand reach and visibility

📊 Our rating: 4.0/5

  • Huge volume of monthly website visitors
  • Strong local network
Show more

Brand reach is a brokerage’s marketing strength: how visible it is online and how well it attracts new traffic and clients. In this area, Terra Vista Realty has decent market exposure.

Around 9,000 people search for "Terra Vista Realty" and other branded terms on Google each month. That’s fairly low compared with similar brokerages. In spite of this, the brokerage’s webpage gets over 129,000 visits every month — very impressive for a company of this size.

Terra Vista has over 5,000 active listings in Charlotte, North Carolina, spread across its three agents. Serving only one market helps keep the network tight-knit and dense, so buyers and sellers can connect faster.

Service value

📊 Our rating: 5/5

  • Buyers and sellers get full service
  • Buyers get approximately 0.5% in a cash rebate
  • Sellers get a reduced, 1–1.5% listing fee
Show more

Terra Vista Realty appears to provide exceptional value: a full suite of standard services, plus multiple opportunities to save money.

Unlike many brokerages of equal size, Terra Vista offers buyers a rebate on most home purchases. The exact amount of the rebate isn’t specified and is supposedly determined on a home-by-home basis. But a random sampling of 10 active listings showed the rebate to be exactly 0.5% of the home value every time.

Sellers can save money on brokerage fees and real estate commissions. If you only sell through the brokerage, your listing fee will be 1.5% of the home’s final sale price. But if you both buy and sell, Terra Vista will reduce its listing fee to 1%. That's a good deal, but you should still shop around to make sure the agent you work with is the right fit.

For comparison, here are the state average real estate commission rates for North Carolina:

» MORE: Average Commission Rates Across the U.S.

💰 Top agents, big savings:

Clever’s free service matches you with top local realtors from the best brokerages (like John L. Scott) but negotiates big savings.

Sellers save thousands on listing fees. Buyers can get cash back after closing.

View agents

Terra Vista Realty local office and contact information

General contact info (corporate office)

📍 Address 18330 Woodlands Trail Drive

Davidson, NC 28036

☎️ Phone (704) 780-1448
📱 Social media None
Show more

Next steps: Start interviewing agents!

Interview multiple agents (ideally two to three) to ensure you get the best fit and value. Remember: always hire the agent, not the brand. When you’re ready to start searching, check out our guide on how to choose the right real estate agent. Clever’s free agent-matching service makes agent shopping fast and easy, and it can save you money on realtor fees.

🚀 Ready to get started?

Sign up below to get matched with top-performing agents in your area! Compare options, choose the best fit, and save money.

  • Sellers get a pre-negotiated discount on listing fees (avg. seller savings is $9,600.)
  • Buyers can get a rebate after closing

Clever is 100% free with no obligation. Give it a try today!

View Agents Near You

Rating methodology

We evaluate brokerages based on four core criteria we think will help readers make informed decisions. We broke those criteria down into discrete metrics so we could make the score as objective as possible. Here’s a quick breakdown of that criteria and methodology:

Customer experience

Do most people who work with this brokerage have a generally positive experience? Are there any red flags?

What we looked at:

  • Average customer ratings across various third-party review sites, like Zillow, Realtor.com, and Google
  • The content of those reviews, via sentiment analysis tools and manual reading, to pull out key positive and negative themes and summarize key risks and benefits
  • The Better Business Bureau profile for formal complaints

Overall agent quality

How strong is the agent team? What are the chances of ending up with a solid realtor that will meet different needs, preferences, and availability?

What we looked at:

  • Total number of agents vs. offices to gauge how wide the selection is
  • Average experience of the entire team, based on public agent data on sites like Realtor.com and Zillow
  • Average annual transactions per agent, sourced from RealTrends or brokerage-provided data, compared with the industry average

Visibility and reach

How much "brand power" does this brokerage have? Does it increase awareness and get more eyes on your listings, more showings, or quicker offers?

What we looked at:

  • Social media presence across all major consumer-facing social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram)
  • Online audience size through web traffic volume and monthly Google searches for the brand name
  • Marketing reach, like listings on all major MLSs and populator listing sites like Zillow and Realtor.com

Value and service quality

How does the brokerage compare with other conventional brokerages? How does it compare with the market rates for commission (~3% listing fees)? Are you getting too little, the right amount, or more service for the tentative fee?

What we looked at:

What we consider "full service" for a real estate brokerage:

  • Professional home valuation
  • Advice on how to stage your home
  • High-quality professional photography
  • Listing on a multiple listing service (MLS) and home-buying websites
  • Open house management
  • Negotiation
  • Assistance with paperwork

Authors & Editorial History

Our experts continually research, evaluate, and monitor real estate companies and industry trends. We update our articles when new information becomes available.

Better real estate agents at a better rate

Enter your zip code to see if Clever has a partner agent in your area
If you don't love your Clever partner agent, you can request to meet with another, or shake hands and go a different direction. We offer this because we're confident you're going to love working with a Clever Partner Agent.