The independent record of what your home-sale program really costs.
ReloClarity models the BVO, AVO, GBO, and lump-sum options your relocation program runs, benchmarks every fee against an anonymized market panel, and writes the result into an audit-grade transparency record. It never executes, finances, brokers, or files any part of the transaction. Independence here is architecture, not a promise.
One benchmark, three sides: corporates license the transparency, RMCs certify against it, agencies compete on it. Every figure is computed by a deterministic engine and stamped with its engine and dataset versions.
Program risk is now hyper-local and time-varying. Point-in-time policy reviews age in weeks.Data as of June 2026
Read the 2026 fall-through briefing →Three sides of the same transaction. One benchmark.
Relocation home sales have three parties who cannot currently verify each other: the corporate paying, the RMC executing, and the agency listing. ReloClarity gives all three the same independent reference layer, which is exactly why it works for each of them.
Model BVO, AVO, GBO, and lump sum against your own policy tiers and file mix. See every fee category on one ledger, including the streams that never appear on an invoice. Benchmark your per-file costs against anonymized market percentiles, and keep an append-only record your auditors and procurement team can rely on.
Your RMC stays the executor. ReloClarity is the reference layer you both read.
Request a program baselineThe industry's own leaders write openly about opaque pricing. If your files hold up against the market, an independent, benchmarked transparency certificate turns that into a sales asset: third-party proof you can put in front of clients and inside RFP responses, backed by percentile positions, not self-declared claims.
Issued from the benchmark engine with version-stamped provenance. Never a ranking, never a league table.
Preview the certificateRelocation referral fees typically take 35 to 40 percent of the agent's commission, documented to 46 percent, and the selection logic behind them is invisible. Panel membership puts your fee terms and performance into a benchmarked view that corporates and RMCs actually consult.
Read-only visibility. ReloClarity never brokers, lists, or takes a referral fee.
Apply to the panelThe fee anatomy nobody can see from an invoice
The opacity of relocation pricing is not a critic's claim; the industry documented it about itself. HomeServices Relocation's white paper on relocation pricing states that most corporations do not know how RMCs earn revenue, because years of "no fee" competition pushed income into supply-chain commissions, rebates, and markups that are paid by the employer but never displayed on invoices. WHR Global goes further, writing that corporations would never allow their own procurement officers to take kickbacks from suppliers, yet undisclosed supplier rebates are the norm in relocation, and difficult to identify even if a client knew to look. Altair Global's white paper traces how the pricing model evolved into this shape. Three RMCs, saying it in their own marketing. The problem is a pricing-model legacy, not misconduct, and it is structural.
The magnitude is documented too. Inside every managed home-sale file, the assigned real-estate agent typically pays the RMC or relocation department a referral fee of 35 to 40 percent of their commission, documented as high as 46 percent, up from a historical 15 to 20 percent, and invisible to the corporate client whose program generates it. Because home-sale-adjacent charges often flow through taxable categories, every 100 dollars of padded pass-through can cost the employer 150 to 155 dollars after gross-up. And the option choice itself moves five figures per file: benchmark data shows average home-sale cost per file of $36,631 under GBO/AVO programs versus $23,852 under BVO, and total homeowner file costs of $79,649 versus $56,447. A 2025 estimate puts a homeowner move at about $45,500 without a BVO and about $93,000 with one, because the employer absorbs the entire selling transaction.
Meanwhile the risk moved. Roughly 1 in 7 US home sales were falling through as of April 2025, against a historical BVO fall-out rate of about 2 percent, and corporate clients have been surprised by sudden liability for tens of thousands of dollars in capital loss and carrying costs when conforming BVO deals collapsed into inventory. The standard corporate defenses cannot see any of this: an RFP every three to five years costs $30,000 to $40,000 or more per cycle and compares bids whose revenue sits in undisclosed streams, and invoice audits cannot find rebates that never hit the invoice.
None of this makes RMCs the villain. It makes the reference layer missing. The same benchmark that shows a corporate where its program sits lets an RMC prove its files are fairly priced, with an independent certificate instead of a self-declared claim.
Model. Benchmark. Document. Certify.
- 1Model the options.
Load your policy tiers and file parameters. The deterministic engine computes employer cost per path for BVO, AVO, GBO, and lump sum: transaction costs, gross-up exposure, carrying-cost scenarios, referral share. Every figure is stamped with the engine version, dataset version, and an inputs hash, so any number is reproducible point-in-time. AI can explain a comparison in plain English; it never produces a figure.
- 2Benchmark against the panel.
Your per-file costs land against anonymized market percentiles, cohort by cohort. Benchmarks respect a strict k-anonymity floor: a percentile is only shown when the cohort holds at least five moves, otherwise the engine widens the cohort or says "insufficient data". Nobody is ranked. Nobody is named.
- 3Document with version history.
Every model run, fee entry, and benchmark position is written into an append-only transparency record. When the dataset updates, the history shows what changed and why. The record prints as a clean document of record for auditors, procurement files, and RFP annexes.
- 4Certify (for RMCs).
An RMC whose benchmarked positions support it can issue a transparency certificate: an independent, version-stamped attestation of where its program economics sit against the market, honest about scope and about what the benchmark can and cannot attest at current panel density.
The instrument, part by part
BVO, AVO, GBO, and lump sum, computed side by side for your actual file profile: transaction costs of about 8 percent of home value, gross-up of 50 to 55 cents per dollar where tax protection does not apply, carrying and inventory exposure where it does, and the referral share embedded in each managed path. The engine recommends nothing it cannot show its work for, and it never touches the transaction it models.
See how the options compare →What happens if mid-level homeowners move from GBO to AVO? If new hires shift to lump sum? The sandbox recomputes program cost live as you move the tiers, using the same deterministic engine as the record, so the what-if numbers and the audit numbers can never diverge.
Explore the sandbox →Program fees, referral shares, van-line and supplier commissions, title and closing spreads, interim carrying charges: the ledger gives each documented fee stream a line, a source, and a provenance drawer showing exactly how the figure was computed and from what. It is the itemization the industry's own RFP guides say clients need and rarely get.
Read the fee anatomy →Anonymized per-file benchmarks by cohort: option type, price band, market. A market band shows where your cost sits between the 25th and 75th percentiles. The k-anonymity floor of five moves per cohort is not configurable downward, and the engine suppresses any cohort that would expose a participant. This is the moat, and it is also the guardrail: the benchmark exists to locate programs, never to rank providers.
How the benchmarks work →Append-only, version-stamped, and printable as a document of record. When benchmark datasets update, the version history shows every reprojection: what the figure was, what it is now, and which dataset version moved it. Three years from now, your procurement team can replay exactly what was known at decision time.
See a sample record →The certificate states, with version-stamped provenance, where an RMC's benchmarked program economics sit by scope category, and it is explicit about what it does not attest. Trippel's satisfaction surveys are today's only independent scorecard, and they measure sentiment, not cost fairness. The certificate covers the other half: an independent answer to "prove your pricing is fair" that does not require opening the books to every prospect.
The certificate, explained →What exists today, and what none of it does
Every existing answer to program transparency does its job, and each misses a side. Consultants and independent advisors run policy benchmarks and RFP support, and the good ones save clients real money, but these are point-in-time engagements, and most advisors also execute moves. Reference-data firms (AIRINC, Mercer) sell the policy and cost-of-living data corporates use to sanity-check policy, but neither audits actual per-file home-sale execution economics against a live panel. RMC dashboards and program reviews hold the richest data of all, and several RMCs market transparency sincerely, but a self-report cannot be an audit, whoever writes it. Trippel's surveys are genuinely independent, and they measure satisfaction, not cost fairness.
Point-in-time, and most also execute moves.
Policy-level data, not per-file execution economics against a live panel.
Rich data, but a self-report cannot be an audit.
ReloClarity is the missing shape: continuous rather than point-in-time, per-file rather than policy-level, independent rather than self-reported, and structurally unable to execute. It does not replace your RMC, your consultant, or your data subscriptions. It is the reference layer they can all be read against, and the certificate is how the parties who perform well get credit for it.
Continuous, per-file, independent, and structurally unable to execute.
Three sides, three ways in
Corporates take an annual program license: modeling, ledger, benchmarks, and the audit-grade record for their relocation program. RMCs subscribe for the benchmarked transparency certificate and the analytics behind it. Agencies pay a panel fee for benchmarked visibility. Pricing follows program size and panel scope, and the honest first step is the same for everyone: request a baseline and see the product against your own numbers, not a rate card.
Request a program baselineFrequently asked questions
What is a Buyer Value Option (BVO)?
A home-sale structure where an outside buyer's bona fide offer sets the price at which the RMC, as the employer's agent, buys the employee's home and then separately resells it to that buyer. Done correctly, employer-paid commissions and closing costs are not taxable to the employee.
What is the difference between BVO and AVO?
AVO adds a guaranteed appraised-value floor before marketing; BVO has no floor. AVO is Situation 2 of Rev. Rul. 2005-74, and both use the same two-sale close.
When do companies offer a GBO?
Mostly for executives and critical moves: the employer guarantees purchase at the average of two independent appraisals, accepting inventory, carrying-cost, and resale-loss risk in exchange for certainty.
What does a home-sale program cost the employer?
Roughly 8 percent of home value in transaction costs before tax effects. Benchmark data shows about $23,900 (BVO) to $36,600 (GBO/AVO) in home-sale cost per file, and total homeowner packages averaging about $63,700 to $93,000.
What referral fees flow inside these programs?
Assigned agents typically pay the RMC or relocation department 35 to 40 percent of their commission, with documented cases up to 46 percent, up from 15 to 20 percent historically, and the fee is invisible on corporate invoices.
How common are home-sale benefits?
About 60 percent of companies in WHR's benchmark offer home sale and/or purchase benefits; vendor claims run as high as 95 to 98 percent offering some homeowner benefit. Lump sums dominate the lower tiers.
How risky is a BVO right now?
As of April 2025, roughly 1 in 7 US sales fell through versus about 2 percent historical BVO fall-out. Median time on market was 29 days in May 2026 with 4.5 months of supply and rates in the 6.4 to 6.5 percent range, so amended-value deals that collapse become employer inventory.
Did the NAR commission settlement change relocation programs?
The August 17, 2024 practice changes (no buyer-agent compensation offers on the MLS, mandatory written buyer agreements) restructured how commissions are negotiated. Early data shows commissions largely stable, but the referral-fee pool now rests on negotiated, disclosed agreements, which raises the documentation burden in relocation files.
Is my RMC financially stable?
A fair question since 2024: Sirva's August 2024 restructuring handed ownership to a lender group, and Cartus's parent Anywhere is merging into Compass (announced September 22, 2025, expected to close in the second half of 2026). ReloClarity reports structural facts like these neutrally, with sources; it does not rate providers.
How do the benchmarks stay anonymous?
Every reported percentile requires a cohort of at least five moves; thinner cohorts are widened or suppressed, and the engine never produces provider rankings. Anonymity is enforced by the engine, not by editorial policy.
Your next RFP is years away. Your fees are moving now.
An RFP cycle costs $30,000 to $40,000 or more and answers the question once every three to five years. The market that prices your program moved every month of 2025 and 2026. Send us your policy tiers and a recent file profile, and get a modeled baseline: option costs per tier, a fee ledger against benchmark percentiles, and your market position, documented in a record you keep. Read-only from the first minute: we never touch the transaction.
engine 2.7.1 · dataset v4.2