When you buy your home with EstateBlock, we share our commission with you. Every listing on the site shows the exact rebate for that exact property — no guessing, no haggling, no fine print you have to dig for.
On almost every MLS® sale in British Columbia, the seller pays a commission that is split between the listing brokerage and the brokerage representing the buyer. If you walk into a showing unrepresented, that buyer's side does not disappear — it simply goes somewhere else.
EstateBlock is a licensed brokerage. When we represent you on a purchase, we collect that buyer's side and give half of it back to you as a cashback rebate, paid after closing.
The cashback meter on a real listing — your current rebate, and the maximum available for that home.
Most rebate programs advertise a vague “up to” number and make you book a call to find out what you actually get. Here is the whole formula. You can check it yourself against any listing on the site.
| Purchase price | $709,000 |
| Buyer's commission — 3.2% of the first $100,000 | $3,200 |
| Buyer's commission — 1.15% of the remaining $609,000 | $7,003.50 |
| Total buyer's commission on the sale | $10,203.50 |
| Your maximum cashback — 50% of that | $5,102 |
That $5,102 is not an illustration. It is the figure EstateBlock displays on that listing today.
Because the commission itself is tiered. The rich 3.2% band only ever applies to the first $100,000, and everything above that earns 1.15%. So while your rebate in dollars always climbs with price, your rebate as a percentage of the purchase price gently declines — from about 0.78% on a $500,000 condo to about 0.60% on a $5,000,000 house. The chart below shows both at once.
Pink bars are the cash in your pocket. The dashed line is that same rebate expressed as a share of the purchase price, read against the right-hand axis.
Maximum cashback by purchase price. Figures computed with the formula above and verified against live EstateBlock listings.
| Purchase price | Maximum cashback | As % of price |
|---|---|---|
| $500,000 | $3,900 | 0.78% |
| $750,000 | $5,338 | 0.71% |
| $1,000,000 | $6,775 | 0.68% |
| $1,500,000 | $9,650 | 0.64% |
| $2,000,000 | $12,525 | 0.63% |
| $3,000,000 | $18,275 | 0.61% |
| $5,000,000 | $29,775 | 0.60% |
For scale: the median detached home in Greater Vancouver sits comfortably in the range where the rebate is worth more than a year of property tax on the same home.
Enter the price you are shopping at. The calculator uses exactly the formula above — the same one behind the meter on every listing.
Estimate only. Your actual rebate depends on the final purchase price, the commission offered on the specific property, and the missions you have completed. See the fine print.
Your rebate is not all-or-nothing, and it is not a flat rate either. It is split across 21 missions — ordinary steps of a home search. The more of the search work you do yourself, the larger the share of the commission that comes back to you, while your REALTOR® still handles the offer, the negotiation, the subjects and the closing.
Creating a free account is mission one, and it is worth 5.00% of your maximum rebate on its own — $255 on that $709,000 New Westminster condo, before you have done anything else.
Each mission is worth a fixed share of your maximum rebate. Dollar amounts shown for a $709,000 purchase, where the maximum rebate is $5,102.
A mission is worth a percentage of your maximum, so the same completed mission is worth more on a more expensive home. Mission one is 5.00% — $255 on a $709,000 condo, $339 on a $1,000,000 house.
Missions add together. Complete the sign-up, the Hot Deal module and a saved search and you are at 10.00% — and the meter on every listing moves the moment each one is approved.
Each mission carries a status — pending until we confirm it, then approved. Only approved missions count toward the amount shown on your listings.
Read as a group rather than a list, the 21 missions fall into five buckets, and the weightings say plainly what is being rewarded. Just over a third of the pool — 35% — sits behind working with us: booking a showing, signing an exclusive buyer's agency agreement, and listing your own home with us. A further 20% sits behind a single mission, referring a friend who actually closes, which ties with selling your home as the largest item on the board. Using our recommended partners for the mortgage, insurance and notary accounts for 19%, and the entire reviews-and-social group comes to 19% as well — eight separate missions each worth between 1% and 5%. The remaining 13% is simply getting set up.
That shape is worth understanding before you start. The social missions look tempting because they are quick, but all eight of them together are worth less than the two missions that involve actually transacting. If you want to move the meter fast, the order is: sign up, save a search, book a showing, sign the buyer's agency agreement, and use the recommended mortgage broker — that alone is 33% of your maximum.
Every mission, its weighting and its approval status live on one page in your account, under Rebate Cashback. The dial shows what you have unlocked against the full 106%, colour-coded mission by mission, and the table underneath shows exactly where each one stands. Below is that dashboard with the five fast-route missions completed.
| # | Rebate item | Percentage | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sign up on Estateblock.com | 5.00% | Approved |
| 4 | Create a saved search on Estateblock.com | 3.00% | Approved |
| 5 | Book a Property Showing with us | 5.00% | Approved |
| 9 | Sign an Exclusive Buyer’s Agency Agreement with us | 10.00% | Approved |
| 6 | Get a mortgage through one of our recommended brokers | 10.00% | Approved |
| 13 | Leave a Public Review in Google | 5.00% | Pending |
| 11 | Refer a friend who successfully buys or sells with us | 20.00% | Pending |
| Unlocked so far — on a $709,000 purchase | 33.00% | $1,684 | |
Your account dashboard at 33% — the five highest-leverage missions approved. On a $709,000 purchase that is $1,684 of a possible $5,102, with 16 missions still open.
This is not a rounding artefact — the individual weightings genuinely sum to 106.00%, and the account page says so. In practice it means there is deliberate slack in the board: you do not have to complete all 21 missions to reach your full rebate. A buyer who never sells a home through us can still get there. Whether the payout is capped at 100% of the maximum is the one detail worth confirming before you count on it.
You never have to ask what your cashback is worth. Open any property on EstateBlock and the meter is right there in the sidebar, showing four things at once:
What you would receive on this property, at your current mission progress.
What the same property pays out if you complete every mission — your headroom.
A running count out of 21, so you always know how much is still on the table.
The meter updates as you complete missions — on every property, instantly.
The bigger number on the meter is not marketing — it is the ceiling you are working toward. Seeing your current amount sitting well below it is the whole point: it tells you, on this specific property, exactly how much money is still unclaimed.
On a $709,000 listing, signing up alone moves the meter from $0 to $255 of a possible $5,102.
Most people buying a home in Greater Vancouver are also selling one. If you list your current home with EstateBlock and then purchase your next one through us, the rebate applies to that purchase as well — so a single move earns cashback on the buy side while your sale is handled by the same team that knows your file.
You also get the full listing service: preparation, photography and marketing, showings, negotiation, and all the paperwork.
Start with a free evaluation at estateblock.com/evaluation.
It is a fair question, and the honest answer is: the search legwork, which the site is built to make easy anyway. What you are not giving up:
Full-time, licensed, local agents — not a call centre. They write the offer, run the comparables, negotiate, and manage subjects through to closing.
Our agents speak Mandarin, Cantonese, French, Punjabi, Tagalog, Urdu, Russian and more. Negotiating a home is hard enough in a second language.
Sold history, school catchments, crime and demographic layers, climate risk, cashflow and mortgage calculators — the tools that make self-directed searching actually work.
The seller pays the commission whether you bring an agent or not. Choosing EstateBlock does not add a cost to your purchase — it redirects money that was already being spent, back toward you.
Rebate terms are a contractual and regulatory matter, so nothing here has been invented. The points below are the questions this section should answer — please supply the real answers and they will be written up in the same voice as the rest of the page.
When is the rebate paid, and in what form? · Must a buyer's agency agreement be signed before the first showing? · Are pre-sales, assignments, private sales, FSBO and commercial excluded? · What happens if the listing offers a below-standard buyer commission? · Is there a minimum rebate or minimum price? · Does the lender need to be told, and does it affect the down payment? · What voids eligibility?
Yes. Commission rebates from a brokerage to its own client are permitted in BC, and are offered by a number of brokerages. EstateBlock operates as Renanza Realty Inc., a licensed BC brokerage.
No. The price you agree with the seller is the price you pay. The rebate is a separate payment to you out of the commission our brokerage earns on the transaction.
The rebate is an arrangement between you and your own brokerage. It does not change the offer you submit or the commission the seller has agreed to pay.
A commission rebate to a buyer is generally treated as a reduction in the cost of the property rather than income, but treatment depends on your circumstances — particularly for investment or rental purchases. EstateBlock is not a tax advisor; please confirm with your accountant.
New construction and pre-sale developments are searchable through the EstateBlock New Homes centre. Whether a rebate applies to a particular development depends on the commission the developer offers, so confirm with your REALTOR® before you register with a sales centre — registering directly can affect representation.
Tell us before you attend, or at least before you register at the door. Once you have signed in at an open house or registered directly with a developer, the listing brokerage may claim you as their own client, which can affect whether we are able to represent you on that property.
No. Missions are weighted, and each one you finish adds its share to your rebate, so you can stop at any point and keep whatever you have unlocked. There is also slack built in: the 21 missions add up to 106%, not 100%, so no single mission is mandatory. Practically speaking, five missions — signing up, saving a search, booking a showing, signing the buyer's agency agreement and using one of our recommended mortgage brokers — get you to 33% of your maximum on their own.
Open the listing. The meter appears in the right-hand sidebar on every property page, showing your current amount, the maximum for that home, and your mission count. Start searching.
