Zillow Offers – the Seattle tech giant’s consumer-facing program to give homesellers no-obligation, all-cash offers over the internet – is coming to Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina this winter, it was announced on Monday.
The expansion marks the fifth market for the program, which is already live in Phoenix, Las Vegas and Atlanta and coming soon to Denver. It also puts Zillow’s rapidly expanding homebuying and reselling program up against competing iBuyers such as Knock and Opendoor.
“Since we launched the Zillow Offers program, tens of thousands of consumers have requested a Zillow Offer, and we’ve been able to deliver a hassle-free home selling experience for many of them,” said Jeremy Wacksman, president of Zillow Brand. “Soon we will be able to offer this experience to potential home sellers in two fast-growing cities in North Carolina, providing them with a new way to sell their home that is convenient and less stressful – all on their timetable.”
Figuring out the timing of the sale of an existing home against purchasing a new home is a top concern for sellers, according to a recent consumer report released by Zillow. The same report found that 61 percent of sellers are buying at the same time, which Zillow says can add stress and financial complexity to the process.
Through Zillow Offers, however, home sellers can request and receive an all-cash offer in a few business days.
“Zillow Offers does more than give home sellers a no-obligation cash offer,” Wacksman said. “The program is designed to give consumers more choices and control, tailoring the home-selling experience to their unique circumstances, regardless of how they ultimately choose to sell their home.”
As the company has done in previous markets, Zillow will work with local agents and brokers for every buying and selling transaction – at an undisclosed commission rate, negotiated separately with each agent.
Agents in the area that advertise through Zillow’s Premier Agent program will also be connected with the sellers that request a Zillow Offer, but opt instead to sell their home traditionally. Zillow will announce the partner brokers and Premier Agents when Zillow Offers goes live in those markets.
Mike DelPrete, a tech entrepreneur and Inman contributor, recently analyzed Zillow Offers’ third-quarter numbers in Phoenix and found, based on his proprietary data set for Phoenix, that the company sold 30 properties for $9.3 million in revenue – ahead of its $2 to $7 million projection.
The company has purchased over 150 properties and has 30 to date, according to DelPrete, and its September homes bought-to-sold ratio was 0.14. Opendoor’s ratio for the month was 1.01 and Offerpad’s was 0.95. Zillow hasn’t been operating its iBuyer program for as long as Opendoor and Offerpad, launching only in April of this year.
