Zillow Offers — the real estate tech giant Zillow’s new service to buy homes from sellers for all-cash, make minor renovations and repairs, and re-sell them on the market — is coming to Houston in early 2019.
Zillow announced that Texas’ largest city will join Phoenix, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Denver and soon Charlotte and Raleigh as markets where prospective homesellers can go online, fill out a few property details, and receive an all-cash offer within days.
“Zillow Offers launched just seven months ago, and we’ve already seen nearly 20,000 homeowners request an offer from Zillow to buy their home,” Jeremy Wacksman, brand president of Zillow Group said. “Consumers desire a more seamless experience and the ability to sell their home on their own timeline – something Zillow Offers can provide. We’re excited to start working with Houston sellers, giving them more flexibility and certainty in one of the greatest financial transactions of their life.”
As it has in the past, Zillow will select a real estate brokerage to represent it in all transactions as a homebuyer and seller, as well as multiple brokerages to partner with for lead generation.
If a consumer opts not to take Zillow’s quick-close cash offer, the consumer is then referred to an agent at one of its partner brokerages, who also must be a member of Zillow’s Premier Agent paid advertising program (where agents pay to have their information appear on Zillow listings).
The brokerages that will work with Zillow will be announced when the program goes live, early next year.
Zillow will have some competition from other fast cash, online homebuying companies (aka “iBuyers”) in Houston: the well-funded and rapidly expanding startup Opendoor is already live in the market and Offerpad will also be launching in Houston in early 2019.
