Housing-News-Report-October-2017

HOUSINGNEWS REPORT

THE OFF-MARKET HOUSING MARKET

Opendoor homes all day everyday. When buyers are ready to purchase a home, Opendoor delivers a streamlined experience, offering mortgage and title services, a home warranty and a 30-day money-back guarantee.” The Opendoor model includes brokers. As an example, Moore explained that “if an agent is representing someone who needs to both sell and buy, they’ll often bring an Opendoor contract on the home they need to sell so they have the selling part of the process taken care of up front, giving the client control over their timeline, more leverage on their purchase, and a longer time to search.” The company reports that more than 8,500 customers have bought and sold with Opendoor since launching in 2013. This has been achieved in just four markets — Atlanta, Dallas Fort-Worth, Las Vegas, and Phoenix — but the company expects to enter the Orlando and Raleigh markets before the end of the year. No doubt with more markets, more exposure, and with substantial

“Instant Offers is designed to attract sellers before they call you. Zillow will then try to influence those sellers to list with a Zillow agent… instead of you.”

STOPZILLOW WEBSITE

capital direct sales and purchases will increase.

2017. He said most of the 9,000 homes that the company’s franchisees are on track to buy this year are purchased off the MLS. “We buy direct from the home owner, without hitting MLS,” Hicks said. “And the people we’re buying them from, they don’t want a Realtor or anyone else traipsing through their house. … They got cats or they got smell. Those are the houses we are buying.” Hicks said the company’s growth stems in part from strong demand from real estate investors wanting to buy rental properties.

Old-School Off-Market Expansion It’s not just disruptive startups like Opendoor and Offerpad that are expanding off-market purchasing, however. HomeVestors, a 21-year-old company known for the “We Buy Ugly” houses signs, has exponentially expanded the markets it operates in since the housing bust, according to CEO David Hicks. Hicks said the number of HomeVestors franchises has grown from 165 in 2009 to 870 in 140 cities across the country in

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OCTOBER 2017 | ATTOM DATA SOLUTIONS

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