Zillow continues to roll out plans to buy and sell homes in additional markets. 
Zillow announced the expansion of its Zillow Offers program into the Houston market this week. This represents the fifth market where Zillow Offers is available. The program began in Phoenix back in April 2018 and now is operational in Las Vegas, Atlanta and Denver.
Zillow expects that Zillow Offers will also be operational in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina within the next few months.
The concept of Zillow Offers is that Zillow will present a no-obligation cash offer to purchase the home. Should the sellers accept the offer, Zillow directly looks to market the house and prepares it for showing.
According to a number of sources, Zillow has already seen nearly 20,000 homeowners request an offer from Zillow to purchase a home.
The functionality of Zillow Offers is that it looks to provide a quicker process for the seller and Zillow brokers can begin to market the property on their own timeline.
Zillow’s program does not look to compete with local real estate agents. Zillow works with local real estate agents during every part of the transaction and pays a commission to local agents when it buys and sells each home.
The Zillow Offers program is looking to promote its Premier Agent, which allows real estate agents the chance to acquire new listings by connecting them with motivated sellers who have taken direct action to sell their home.
As Zillow completed its acquisition of Mortgage Lenders of America, it continues to integrate additional components of the real estate process into its growing platform. Zillow expects to rebrand Mortgage Lenders of America.
The appointment of Allen Parker as chief financial officer, effective Nov. 16. Mr. Parker joins from Amazon.com Inc., where he served in various finance roles, indicated that Zillow is definitely on track with building-out it current platform model.
If you have any questions about this information or title insurance, please contact Ralph Aponte: 732.914.1400.
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