Perhaps you’ve heard the pitch from an iBuyer firm such as Open Door, Zillow Offers, or another firm with the word “Offers” in their name.
These companies are promoting the convenience of selling your home quickly for cash, without putting it on the market or having buyers traipse through your home, or worrying that their financing might fall through.
But what is the cost of that convenience?
My column on Aug. 22nd reported on the “true cost of selling to an iBuyer,” but you can’t know that cost personally until it’s your home. So let’s talk about your home!
The next time you get a solicitation to buy your home direct for cash without putting it on the market, go ahead and ask them for a quote. Then call us and we’ll analyze the offer for free, with no obligation whatsoever.
Here’s what you need to know about the offer you’ll receive.
1) They will tell you that you won’t pay a commission, but the contract will deduct a “service fee” which, in the case of the Open Door contract I wrote about in August, is 7%.
2) There will be an inspection contingency. They’ll tell you that you don’t have to make any repairs, but the company will do an “assess-ment” and come up with a dollar figure they will deduct from the purchase price to cover “necessary” repairs. It could amount to tens of thousands of dollars–$38,563 in the case of the Open Door contract I reviewed in August.
3) The good news is that you as seller are given the right to terminate the contract at any time prior to closing — at least according to that Open Door contract I reviewed.
Most of all, you need to know that these iBuyer firms are only buying your home because they expect to make a profit when they resell it. They will entice you with an offer that is reasonable, but in the following weeks that offer will be eroded by other provisions such as I’ve mentioned above.
Perhaps the convenience of selling a home for cash to someone who will resell it at a higher price makes sense for some sellers. My point is that you should know how much that convenience is going to cost you.
An “iBuyer” is nothing more or less than an investor who makes money by buying low and selling high, with or without making any improvements. For years I’ve been advising homeowners who receive unsolicited offers for their home to treat such an offer as the “opening bid,” and to talk to me or another Realtor about seeing how much more they can get for their home once it is exposed to the full market. That is only accomplished by putting a home on the MLS.
It’s all about maximizing exposure. The more potential buyers who learn about your home, the more offers you are likely to receive. I’m saddened to see how many homes are sold with zero days on the MLS. Those homes were sold without entering them on the MLS, and the listing agent only puts the home on the MLS after closing as a courtesy to other agents (for market analysis purposes) and/or to receive credit for the sale in terms of personal sales volume.
Consistently over the past three years, between 60 and 160 homes per month in Denver & Jeffco have been entered on the MLS only after they sold. The majority of them sold at or below the listing price, because the home was not exposed to additional buyers, and a high percentage of them were “double-ended” by the listing agent, meaning that the agent doubled his commission by not giving other agents with willing buyers the opportunity to earn their half of the listing commission.
Our policy at Golden Real Estate is to avoid selling a home before it has been on the MLS at least 3 or 4 days, during which all potential buyers have had a chance to see the home and consider making an offer. This is consistent with our responsibility under state law to put our sellers’ interest ahead of our own.
This policy is an expression of the value statement that appears on our yard signs — “Hometown service delivered with integrity.”
In my Aug. 22 column, I quoted a report on iBuyer transactions by Collateral Analytics. The final paragraph in their report is worth quoting again:
“In all, the typical cost to a seller appears to be in the range of 13% to 15% depending on the iBuyer vendor. For some sellers, needing to move or requiring quick extraction of equity, this is certainly worthwhile, but what percentage of the market will want this service remains to be seen.”
Call me or any of our broker associates at 303-302-3636 before accepting an off-market offer for your home. And remember: even if you are already under contract with an iBuyer, you may have the right to terminate the sales contract.
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