FSBO.com, one of the longest-running “For Sale By Owner” platforms in the United States, has been acquired by NEXA Lending Founder and CEO Mike Kortas, alongside Brad Rice, CEO of Homepie, Inc., according to a company announcement
Founded more than 19 years ago, FSBO.com built its brand around helping homeowners sell independently. Under new ownership, the platform will undergo a full modernization aimed at updating both its technology and its strategic role.
Kortas confirmed he will retain full operational control of the company and plans to name Rice president. Homepie will hold an ownership stake in the new entity, though financial terms were not disclosed. Kortas also declined to share the purchase price, stating the contract is confidential.
A Lead Aggregator With Teeth
In an interview with National Mortgage Professional, Kortas made clear the acquisition is also a distribution play. “We're going to use it as a massive, massive lead aggregator,” he said. “We're expecting a significantly massive boost in lead traffic for our folks, obviously.”
He noted that Rocket owns a competing FSBO platform that generates substantial monthly traffic without paid advertising. NEXA, he said, intends to invest in both search optimization and paid ads to scale visibility. Unlike traditional lead sites, NEXA plans to embed mortgage intake directly into the platform.
Kortas suggested loan officers could begin receiving leads almost immediately after technical integration. “I'm gonna be opening up leads to them as early as one or two days, if I could,” he said.
The acquisition is framed, per the company’s press release, as a modernization of a legacy FSBO brand with a consumer-focused redesign.
“At its core, this is about removing fear from one of the biggest transactions of someone’s life,” Kortas said. “Buying or selling a home shouldn’t feel intimidating or inaccessible. Our goal is to make the process simple, guided, and understandable for everyday people without stripping them of control.”
The redesign will center on what leadership describes as a "guided, agentic AI experience," simplifying contracts into plain-language steps, guiding negotiations collaboratively, and clarifying responsibilities without removing autonomy.
“This isn’t about replacing people,” Kortas added. “It’s about removing unnecessary complexity so consumers can focus on making good decisions.”
Rice added that the issue for many sellers is not capability, but complexity.
“Most people don’t avoid selling their home themselves because they’re incapable — they avoid it because the process feels overwhelming,” he said. “When you simplify the contract, the communication, and the steps, you give people confidence. That’s what this platform is about.”
Real Estate Crossover
Kortas also sees opportunity on the listing side.
"For sale by owners notoriously list with Realtors eventually, either by flat-fee listings or other arrangements,” he said. “I’ve always used a very creative listing agreement on for sale by owners back in my day. That makes it a no-brainer, and we plan to reintroduce that listing agreement to it. And so we anticipate that probably 75% of every home listed as for sale by owner on the site will also, in one format or another, be listed as a listing as well.”
Affiliated real estate professionals would receive early access, provided they pay “commercially acceptable rates,” he added.
The structure suggests FSBO.com could operate as both a consumer transaction platform and a pipeline feeding mortgage and real estate professionals inside NEXA’s ecosystem.
Part Of A Broader Push
Kortas confirmed that FSBO.com is one of several transactions underway. “I'm buying IMBs, I'm buying brokers. I’m buying mortgage platforms," he said. “If they have loan officers, I’m interested in buying those companies.”
He said many of those purchases are connected to joint ventures with “multiple, very large real estate companies, teams, builders — small builders as well.”
Some acquisitions, he suggested, are intended to provide structural flexibility, particularly where licensing and agency approvals are already in place. “So that I can immediately support and start doing non-delegated correspondent with them,” he said.
He also described interest in partnerships with other large lead aggregators and consumer platforms, referencing examples such as “Zillow and Homes.com” and other organizations with significant lead capacity.
Within that framework, FSBO.com would function as both an owned traffic source and a model for how NEXA integrates consumer-facing technology, embedded mortgage intake, and non-delegated execution within its platform.
Kortas framed the acquisition as foundational. “This is a long-term play,” he said. “We’re building something that respects where FSBO.com came from while preparing it for where consumers are going.”
By combining consumer-facing transaction tools, embedded mortgage intake, and a scalable non-delegated platform, NEXA is positioning itself to capture borrowers at the earliest stage of the home-selling process and retain control through loan execution. Its success will depend on whether FSBO.com can generate sustained traffic and convert it into meaningful production within NEXA’s growing ecosystem.
