Colorado-based Brokerage Launches Local iBuyer to Compete with National iBuyers
Boulder-based start-up 8z Real Estate cites advantages its program will have over those offered by national programs.
8z Real Estate, a Colorado brokerage with 15 offices and over $1 billion in real estate sales in 2018, announced it has launched 8z Offers, a cash instant-offer service for home sellers on Colorado’s Front Range. This includes Colorado Springs, Greater Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins and Greeley.
8z Offers provides the opportunity for homeowners to get a quick cash offer on their home from a trusted local company. Instant Offers removes the uncertainty of selling a home, replacing it with a guaranteed offer and significantly reducing the time it takes to close.
National iBuyers have emerged as today’s consumer wants convenience, speed and predictability, and iBuyer instant offers have emerged to meet those demands in real estate. Instant offers are designed to get transactions done quickly at competitive, even market-beating, prices. While iBuyers represented only 0.2 percent of home sales nationally in 2018, or some 15,000-plus homes, they are growing exponentially. In Denver, for example, market share is accelerating rapidly — Opendoor has purchased over 100 homes in the Denver market in the last six months.
The real estate market in Colorado remains robust, but there are signals that the market is shifting. According to the data provided by market-tracking firm InfoSparks, the median days to contract on a home on the Front Range is 11 days, and the average days to close is 44. On average, Front Range homes are selling at 99.9 percent of list price.
The strong Front Range market makes the speed and surety of a sale on the open market comparable to accepting an instant offer from an iBuyer. That said, a significant difference between selling via instant offer and selling on the open market is convenience. The median number of showings before a final offer in Colorado is 11, versus skipping the hassle of home showings completely by working with an iBuyer.
8z Offers markets itself as being uniquely qualified to service home sellers in the communities in which it operates. It doesn’t have the same parameters that national iBuyers are bound by, such as age of home, type of home, value of home and geographic location. In addition, iBuyers typically will not make offers on homes with values greater than $600,000. This results in less than 50 percent of the homes being eligible for an instant offer.
In its announcement, 8z Offers says it is “laser-focused on local market conditions,” allowing them to make fair market offers on more expensive and older homes outside of the national iBuyers’ local footprints and parameters.
8z has a multi-million-dollar iBuyer fund, giving it a unique market advantage and allowing it to hold multiple properties at a time. 8z Offers, in only a few months, has made more than 50 offers on Front Range homes, with multiple homes under contract, and its first instant-offer purchase closed in April.
“Like the other major iBuyers, 8z Offers is making fair market value offers,” says Lane Hornung, founder of 8z Real Estate. “Even still, the vast majority of homeowners are choosing to list with an 8z Real Estate agent on the open market in order to maximize their sales price and proceeds they pocket.”
In order to best maximize the consumer experience, 8z Offers has partnered with zavvie, the industry-leading instant-offer aggregator. zavvie delivers technology, market-specific data and a seamless consumer experience for their select broker partners around the country. zavvie allows the home seller to begin their experience online and connect with a person who will walk them through all their options, including getting multiple offers from national iBuyers and a local iBuyer – like 8z Offers.
By utilizing the zavvie Offer Optimizer, the consumer has an easy-to-navigate, side-by-side comparison of all options, including working with an agent to sell their home on the open market. The zavvie Offer Optimizer is the first online tool that gives home sellers three key insights: what it looks like to sell to a national iBuyer, a local iBuyer and on the open market.
“zavvie is the Kayak of Instant Offers,” says Stefan Peterson, zavvie co-founder and chief data officer. “It is the leading iBuyer aggregator in the real estate space, delivering market-specific data and adding transparency to the instant-offer process from start to finish for the consumer.”
Ryan Carter, president of 8z Real Estate says that prior to zavvie, agents would “manually sort through the maze of iBuyer offers.”
“Most homeowners think all instant offers are the same, but they’re not,” Carter says. “Most homes are not even eligible for an instant offer. zavvie Offer Optimizer opens the curtain to reveal unique market insights. Consumers get 100 percent transparency, multiple offers on their home and the ability to make the best choice that’s right for them.”
zavvie Offer Optimizer also provides a detailed breakdown of the various costs and fees — which differ among iBuyers — as well as the typical timeframe for a sale to be completed. In Denver, the technology behind zavvie Offer Optimizer features calculations based on actual transactional data specific to the Denver market where national iBuyers compete.
