Redfin Commits to Buying Homes Directly From Owners

Online Real Estate Brokerage Committing to Home Buying Program With Redfin Now

It’s been a week of disrupters doing what they do best—disrupt. Zillow announced the purchase of a mortgage company and received an Arizona brokerage license and now Redfin is deepening its investment in Redfin Now, the service whereby Redfin buys homes directly, letting sellers move on with cash-in-pocket.

Originally an experiment in the Inland Empire region of Southern California in January 2017, and then expanding to San Diego in June 2017, Redfin will now expand to Orange County.

redfin now

Redfin Now adds a home-selling choice to the company’s established brokerage service, which charges most customers a 1% listing fee for a full-service listing product. With Redfin Now, homeowners can get an offer within 48 hours of a Redfin Now buyer visiting the home, and receive their cash in as few as seven days of accepting the offer. Redfin Now then prepares the home for market and Redfin lists it online, with the goal of selling it at a profit.

“After more than a decade of selling homes through a combination of local service and technology, Redfin has become one of the best in the business at getting a high home price for a low fee,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. “Most institutional buyers don’t have the online audience we do, and pure websites don’t have as much operational expertise. All of this should let us give homeowners more money, and buy and sell more homes. As more and more homeowners look to choose between an immediate sale and a brokered sale, offering both choices ourselves is how we can be the first company homeowners call when considering a move.”

Redfin Now is slated to launch in two additional markets by the end of the year, and a few more in 2019.