Opendoor vs Zillow Offers – How Do They Compare?

News: “Zillow is getting out of the iBuying business and will shut down its Zillow Offers division.”

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Selling your home can be a long and stressful process. To speed it up and ease your mind, consider requesting an instant cash offer from an experienced iBuyer. Among the most popular instant home buying programs are from Zillow and Opendoor. To help understand the differences between the two companies, here is an overall comparison of Opendoor vs Zillow Offers.

Overview of Zillow Offers vs Opendoor

Opendoor’s competitive advantage is being the market leader and first mover with entrepreneur Eric Wu starting the iBuyer in 2014. Along with buying homes, Opendoor formed a brokerage recently and debuted cash-backed offers which help buyers purchase homes. Zillow is well-known by consumers and has a history of pricing properties with its Zestimate. With 2.2 billion visits to its website during the fourth quarter of 2020, Zillow has the scale, profitability and web traffic to draw buyers and sellers.

What Homes Qualify for an Offer

Opendoor and Zillow Offers buy single family homes, townhomes, condos and duplexes (in certain markets). Prefabricated or mobile homes do not qualify with either company at this time. Based on the value of your home, Zillow looks in the $200,000 to $400,000 range, but it may vary depending on your city and current market conditions. Opendoor generally buys homes with a valuation between $100,000 and $600,000, but could be as high as $1,400,000 depending on the market.

Available Markets

Opendoor and Zillow have limited available markets for providing offers to buy your home. Before wasting time working with a company that isn’t available in your area, check to see if Opendoor vs Zillow Instant Offers has services in your house’s location. 

Both of the two companies provide offers to buy your home in the following markets: Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; Colorado Spring, CO; Dallas-Fort Worth, TX; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; Las Vegas, NV; Los Angeles, CA; Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN; Nashville, TN; Orlando, FL; Phoenix, AZ; Portland, OR; Raleigh, NC; Riverside, CA; Sacramento, CA; San Antonio, TX; San Diego, CA; Tampa, FL and Tucson, AZ. 

Zillow also services the Cincinnati, OH; Fort Collins, CO and Miami, FL housing markets. The additional markets serviced by Opendoor are: Asheville, NC; Boise, ID; Corpus Christi, TX; Greensboro-Winston, NC; Greenville, SC; Kansas City, KS; Killeen, TX; Northern Colorado; Prescott, AZ; Saint Louis, MO and Salt Lake City, UT.

How Long It Takes To Get a Cash Offer

To receive a cash offer from Opendoor or Zillow Offers, you need to provide some basic information about your home and property. Be prepared to provide the address, description including year built and square footage, and details about any upgrades or renovations. Opendoor also requests a picture of your house. 

After submitting your request for an offer, Opendoor sends you a free, no obligation offer within 24 hours. Then, you can schedule time with a dedicated Experience Partner to review your offer and go over your selling options. Opendoor offers are valid for seven days. After providing information about your home to Zillow Offers, it takes around two business days to prepare an offer. You have five business days to respond to the offer before it expires.

How the Closing Process Is Handled

Whether you choose Zillow or Opendoor, there are a few things you should do to make the closing process go quickly and smoothly. Like the majority of home buyers, both companies require a home assessment by an official estimator. Prior to the estimator visiting your home, ensure the property is in the same condition as described in the offer. A deep clean is not necessary; simply remove any trash, debris or personal items from the interior and the exterior of the property. 

Make sure your utilities, such as electric, water and gas, are still active. Estimators need access to all rooms in your house. The final offer to buy your home is based on this estimate and any repairs or issues reported by the estimator. Once the final offer is accepted, you can select an available closing date. Depending on circumstances, closing can be completed anywhere from seven to 90 days after the contract is signed.

Closing Costs and Additional Fees

Whether you sell your home the traditional way or sell to an iBuyer, there are nearly always closing costs associated with the sale. Closing costs are the various fees paid by buyers and sellers at the close of a real estate transaction. According to Realtor.com, total closing costs range from about 1% to 7% of the sale price. Costs fluctuate depending on the different fees and legal requirements of each state and municipality.

Typical closing costs you should expect to pay include title insurance, home inspection, appraisal, survey and transfer taxes. Other expenses you may need to incorporate into your budget are real estate agent commissions, moving costs and any home repairs requested in the offer. Items that are broken or in poor condition should be fixed, along with anything that affects the safety, structure or functionality of the house.

Zillow Offers and Opendoor both charge a small service fee to cover their expenses of the home sale. The service charge helps provide a streamlined experience from instant cash offer to closing. Each situation is unique, thus the actual service fee charged by the iBuyer varies for each property. Zillow charges a service fee ranging from 1.5% to 9% with an average of 2.5%. Opendoor’s charge typically falls between 5% and 8% and goes no higher than 14%.

Maximum Proceeds to Home Seller

The maximum proceeds available to the home seller is dependent on a variety of factors, but the basic computation for net proceeds is the sell price minus all associated costs. To maximize the proceeds from your home sale, you want a high sale price and low costs. Ways to get a higher price for your home are adding unique features and making quick upgrades like a fresh coat of paint. You can lower costs by doing a FSBO (for sale by owner) sale instead of using a real estate agent and completing home repairs yourself.

When it comes to Zillow vs Opendoor, they each have advantages and disadvantages. While Opendoor services more markets, Zillow has a lower average service charge. To get an instant estimate and see what kind of cash offers iBuyers are willing to pay for your home, enter your address in the convenient iValuation tool.