Experiences with Zillow Offers / Redfin Now / Opendoor?

zovall

Well-known member
These companies will give you a cash offer and be flexible with the closing date (up to 90 days). They will give you a lower offer as they will do repairs, stage, and flip it after you close. Not having to do any showings is a plus especially during a pandemic.

Has anyone used one of these services to sell your home? How did it go?
 
I remember them offering 10 or 15% below market value of the home at the time. They automatically account for 5-7% of home value that they anticipate spending in repairs. If the home does not require lot of repairs, zillow offer will be a bad deal.
 
Cornflakes said:
I remember them offering 10 or 15% below market value of the home at the time. They automatically account for 5-7% of home value that they anticipate spending in repairs. If the home does not require lot of repairs, zillow offer will be a bad deal.

Unless you need to liquidate your property quickly, Zillow offers is not a good deal.  I suspect that goes for the rest of the companies as well.
 
If the price isn't too far off, I think the benefits are:
- No showings or dealing with contractors to get repairs done or stagers, etc
- When making an offer on a new home, you aren't as contingent because you have in escrow with a cash buyer

From what I've found with Zillow Offers, they will close escrow and give you up to 3 days to move out.. It would be nice if they let you rent back for a bit in case you want to get some work done on your new place.
 
As an update, we did go through the process of selling with Zillow Offers.
- They gave a Preliminary Offer online using 3 comps.
- They then sent someone out to inspect the home and this person took pictures/video/measurements which took about an hour.
- A few days later they presented their Offer which was the Preliminary Offer minus ~1% of repair costs based on their inspection. They also charged ~5.5% in fees (agent fees - they partner with John Hart, closing costs, Zillow fee).
- They let us pick a closing date up to 90 days after they present their offer. We opted for the full 90 days and then adjusted when we had a date for closing on our new home.
- They did a final walk through just before closing.
- They let us stay in the home up to 3 days after Close of Escrow. They do not allow any rent back so you can't stay longer even if you wanted to pay for that option.

It is very much a take it or leave it thing. They did not negotiate at all on anything. If we didn't take it, we could start the process all over (new Prelim Offer, inspection, new final Offer) as long as a month had passed.

We were pleasantly surprised with the price they offered (thank you Martin/USCTrojanCPA for your take) and though the itemization of the repair costs was BS, we felt that we would have had to spend at least that much to fix it up and stage it if we were going to sell it ourselves. And we did not want to do that while we lived in it. We also felt that showing we were In Escrow on our current home made us stronger contenders on homes we were making offers on.

I liked that there was minimal disruption for our day-to-day. It was just the initial inspection and the final walk-through. Everything else was online.

I did not like the take it or leave it aspect. They only gave $1000 as their deposit (whereas 3% is typical). I was concerned about this because if they decided to not go through with it at the last minute, I would be SOL. All the closing services, which are typically selected by the seller, are through Zillow as well.

At the time, Redfin Now and Opendoor were not available to me. Ideally, you'd want to get offers from all of them so you can pick the best one.
 
Was the price they gave you higher than the comps they used?  I think that's the main downside of going with Zillow offers/redfin/Opendoor when the market is super hot and every house that gets sold is higher than the previous one (by 2-3%).

 
zovall said:
As an update, we did go through the process of selling with Zillow Offers.
- They gave a Preliminary Offer online using 3 comps.
- They then sent someone out to inspect the home and this person took pictures/video/measurements which took about an hour.
- A few days later they presented their Offer which was the Preliminary Offer minus ~1% of repair costs based on their inspection. They also charged ~5.5% in fees (agent fees - they partner with John Hart, closing costs, Zillow fee).
- They let us pick a closing date up to 90 days after they present their offer. We opted for the full 90 days and then adjusted when we had a date for closing on our new home.
- They did a final walk through just before closing.
- They let us stay in the home up to 3 days after Close of Escrow. They do not allow any rent back so you can't stay longer even if you wanted to pay for that option.

It is very much a take it or leave it thing. They did not negotiate at all on anything. If we didn't take it, we could start the process all over (new Prelim Offer, inspection, new final Offer) as long as a month had passed.

We were pleasantly surprised with the price they offered (thank you Martin/USCTrojanCPA for your take) and though the itemization of the repair costs was BS, we felt that we would have had to spend at least that much to fix it up and stage it if we were going to sell it ourselves. And we did not want to do that while we lived in it. We also felt that showing we were In Escrow on our current home made us stronger contenders on homes we were making offers on.

I liked that there was minimal disruption for our day-to-day. It was just the initial inspection and the final walk-through. Everything else was online.

I did not like the take it or leave it aspect. They only gave $1000 as their deposit (whereas 3% is typical). I was concerned about this because if they decided to not go through with it at the last minute, I would be SOL. All the closing services, which are typically selected by the seller, are through Zillow as well.

At the time, Redfin Now and Opendoor were not available to me. Ideally, you'd want to get offers from all of them so you can pick the best one.

Jesus Christ you got bamboozled. Talk about a cautionary tale. Thank you for posting for others reading this to know to stay away.
 
woodburyowner said:
Was the price they gave you higher than the comps they used?  I think that's the main downside of going with Zillow offers/redfin/Opendoor when the market is super hot and every house that gets sold is higher than the previous one (by 2-3%).

There were no exact plan matches. There were two comps from the same tract but larger plans (extra bedroom) and the price was in between those. They also used a comp from a different tract and the price was $7k less than that.
 
I think if the offer is close to what you were looking for, these type of transactions are preferred as you can plan your next purchase.

Yes, in a seller?s market you can get more but these offers might be closer to what you are comfortable with without the hassle of selling. The last time we sold our house, we stayed with some relatives because the time before that we felt it was too intrusive and cumbersome to keep the house staged.
 
Congrats on the successful txn with zillow.

Not knowing all the numbers, I would venture to guess that the seller left anywhere between 2 to 8% of the home value on the table for zillow to pick up. In exchange, the seller got peace of mind and convenience. One may put 1k or 10k or 100k value to that comfort depending on their lifestyle.
 
Definitely money left on the table.. but I think it was more based on where prices have gone since December rather than the price that Zillow offered.
 
zovall said:
Definitely money left on the table.. but I think it was more based on where prices have gone since December rather than the price that Zillow offered.

Yeah... that's how I felt when we sold. We set a list price above what our target was, no movement so we did a price drop and hit our target. Then not long after, it probably could have sold for above list.

Right now, I can't believe how much it can sell for because I thought there was a ceiling for the size of our home in Irvine... guess not.
 
How did the final offer compare with the 'Zestimate' prior to contacting Zillow?

zovall said:
Definitely money left on the table.. but I think it was more based on where prices have gone since December rather than the price that Zillow offered.
 
freedomcm said:
How did the final offer compare with the 'Zestimate' prior to contacting Zillow?
The Zestimate was $10k higher than the Prelim Offer. The Prelim Offer price 'held' through to the Final Offer except for the 1% in repairs.
 
Zestimates are generally speaking 10-15% above or below actual appraised values. They post their range of accuracy on their website here: https://www.zillow.com/z/zestimate/ Scroll down a bit to "Off Market" then find LA / OC.

Zillow/Redfin Now/OpenDoor are problem solver products - Don't want to fix? Don't want buyers trampling through your home? Need to make a non-contingent offer?, or  _______________ Insert Reason Here - these cash buy out programs move problems to the sideline faster than traditional "hard money lending".

Are they relatively expensive compared to traditional methods of sale? Sure. That said, there is no universal set price for ease of mind.
 
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