Should I sell my home with an iBuyer? (Zillow, Offerpad, Opendoor)

The iBuyers tradeoff is this: For less than you will sell at retail you get to choose your closing date. That is the value proposition. They do not do this for free. While it is not a commission per se, they do price their profit into the offer they make you.

As a Realtor, I regularly sell homes to clients for significantly more than Opendoor’s offers. More than enough to offset my commission. How do I know? Because I regularly contact OpenDoor for offers on my listings! Why fight them when I can usefully use them?

Here’s an example from a Jungle Terrace home. Opendoor offer: $427,400. After all their service charge and cost of repairs, it actually ended up above $400,000.

Meanwhile, I sold that same house at $448,000 and after all closing costs and commissions ended up at $417,000.

Also, the main value proposition of being able to choose your closing date is not that great of a benefit as in the current market you can really dictate your timeline. Plus as I said, I do engage OpenDoor for offers regularly, and I have access to many other iBuyers such as KW’s own Keller Offers.

The one thing they are still really good for is buying absolutely terrible and falling to pieces houses too…. which is why Zillow lost so much money and got out of the game.

I’d be happy to answer any questions you or anyone else here has about it.