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Zillow Offers launches in South Florida
It plans to expand to Tampa and Jacksonville next
Zillow Group is rolling out its iBuying program for homes and condos in South Florida, starting in Miami and Fort Lauderdale.
Sellers in South Florida can check if their property is eligible by typing their address into Zillow’s website, according to a press release. Zillow will have English and Spanish speaking representatives to guide sellers through the process. A Miami-based broker will represent Zillow in each transaction.
The Seattle-based company launched Zillow Offers in Phoenix last year and has since expanded to more than a dozen markets: Las Vegas, Nevada; Atlanta, Georgia; Denver, Fort Collins and Colorado Springs, Colorado; Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina; Houston and Dallas, Texas; Riverside, California; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Orlando, Florida; Portland, Oregon; and Nashville, Tennessee.
The program, which buys and flips homes, boosted Zillow’s revenues in the second quarter, up 84 percent to nearly $600 million. But the new product also had a cost for Zillow, which saw its losses come in at $72 million in the second quarter, versus $3 million in 2018.
Since Zillow Offers launched in April 2018, more than 170,000 homeowners have requested an offer from Zillow. If the seller accepts Zillow’s offer, they can choose their closing date and move on their schedule, between five and 90 days after acceptance. Zillow then prepares the house or condo for sale and puts it on the market.
Zillow co-founder and CEO Rich Barton said in the second quarter earnings call that Zillow Offers is on track to hit an annualized run rate of $1 billion in revenue.
Next, the listings giant plans to begin offering its home buying program in Tampa and Jacksonville, Florida; Austin and San Antonio, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Sacramento and San Diego, California; Cincinnati, Ohio; and Tucson, Arizona.
Other firms have taken note.
Earlier this year, Keller Williams announced it was launching its iBuyer program, Keller Offers, in Dallas this May.
Last month, Opendoor, the $3.8 billion SoftBank-backed instant home buyer, and its competitor Redfin Corp. announced they are teaming up. That followed the news that RE/MAX and Redfin joined forces in March. Redfin, which already has its own iBuying division, would be willing to expand the Opendoor partnership into markets it’s already in.