Buying and selling houses are big, big decisions. Not only can the process be long and complicated, but it can also be terribly stress-inducing. There are many online websites and iBuyer companies that claim to help make the process easier and quicker.
Needless to say, these websites are becoming extremely popular. Two of the more popular property sale websites are Redfin and Offerpad. Let us look into how they work, and their advantages and disadvantages in more detail.
What is Redfin?
Redfin is a Seattle-based, full-service real estate company. It was founded back in 2004. Redfin operates by charging a lower fee as compared to traditional real estate brokerages. When you sell your home with Redfin, you pay just a 1% listing fee. Redfin uses targeted advertising to make sure that home listings become popular in just the right circles. Its market experts also ensure that homeowners get the absolute best price for their property.
Redfin uses a number of advanced marketing tools. These include running digital marketing campaigns and letting potential buyers look at properties via a 3D walkthrough. Redfin also lets home sellers track their listing online and get access to real-time data. This includes knowing how popular the listing is, and how many times it has been viewed.
Advantages of using Redfin
1) You save money
Redfin reviews say using Redfin to buy a home saves you money. It is as simple as that. The brokerage fee for a house sale can hover around the 6% mark. If you buy with the help of Redfin, you get a part of their 3% buyer commission. This ‘cash back’ can be around 1% of the total purchase price of the house. So for a $300,000 home, you get a cool $3000 cashback. The amount of cashback you get is clearly mentioned in every listing.
2) You get to make the most of their high-tech online tools
From customized digital marketing campaigns to online 3D walkthroughs, Redfin uses a lot of technology and it uses it well. Their aim is to get as much information to the customer as possible and do it all online. It is a very convenient way to look up property and get a real sense of what it is in recent times.
3) Advanced real estate search engine
Another point that works wonderfully well for Redfin is the way its website and designed and its real estate search engine. Even if you choose to not go ahead with Redfin, their website allows you to do a deep dive of the real estate scene around you effortlessly. Redfin listings are wonderfully detailed and provide so much data.
What is Offerpad?
Offerpad is different in its working style when compared to Redfin. Offerpad is a typical iBuyer company in that it gives home sellers a quick, all-cash offer within 24 hours. The initial offer made by Offerpad is free of any sort of obligation and the home seller can choose to accept or reject it. Once a seller accepts an offer, Offerpad lets them close in as per their schedule.
Selling to Offerpad can be a quick and efficient process. And it works really well for home sellers who want to sell quickly without too much hassle. Apart from the standard iBuyer services, Offerpad offers some very innovative and affordable additional services. These include free local move and its extended stay option. Offerpad reviews show both these services are very popular among Offerpad customers.
Advantages of Offerpad
1) Speed and convenience
Offerpad’s process is nothing if not speedy and convenient. We are talking about an all-cash offer within 24 hours. The subsequent steps of home assessment and closing also take place at the seller’s convenience. Selling off your home cannot get quicker than this. This method of selling a home is especially suited for those who are short on time or need to move to states or countries quickly.
2) Ease of executing a contract
The platform that Offerpad operates on makes the process of requesting a contract very easy. Once you have the sale contract in your hand, the signing and executing part also go on without a hitch. Since there is no involvement of a third party, the signing of a contract remains a more or less straightforward affair.
3) Flexible closing window
Opendoor allows a very flexible closing window to the house sellers. Opendoor allows home sellers to stay in the home for 90 days (that is almost three months) while they figure out the arrangements to make the move. This flexibility is very important as lining up leaving the old house, making the arrangements to move, then finally moving into a new home can be quite the hassle.
Rise of the iBuyer
In recent times, iBuyers such as Opendoor, and Offerpad are gaining popularity. The surge in their popularity is what has been egging our traditional real estate companies to look at their business model and try and incorporate some features in their own style of working. In fact, established players in the real estate scene such as Keller Williams and Zillow have gone on to initiate their own iBuyer programs.
In fact, Keller Williams’ founder had famously said that while he did not want to start an iBuyer program, he felt compelled to.
While other companies in the business have been quick to embrace the change, Redfin has famously been cautious.
What does the future hold?
Many believe that the iBuyer model while growing by massive leaps and bounds currently, remains untested in the long run.
The launch of Opendoor in 2015 was a watershed moment for the real estate industry. The initial success and the consumer reaction to the sudden simplification of the home selling process paved the way for the sprouting of more iBuyer companies. It even made traditional real estate companies go the iBuyer way. You can check out iBuyer reviews to confirm the same.
Few companies such as Redfin have chosen to stay cautious of any major overhauls. Redfin Now, which is RedFin’s iBuyer arm, is expanding slowly and cautiously. In fact, Redfin is currently in the process of teaming up with Opendoor in Atlanta and Phoenix. It is interesting to note that every iBuyer company currently operates in these two markets.