On the same day that its homebuying solution launches in Dallas, iBuyer Offerpad is planting its roots even more firmly in Texas by announcing launches in Houston and San Antonio for early 2019.
On Thursday, Offerpad officially launched in Dallas-Fort Worth, its ninth market after Phoenix, Atlanta, Tampa, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Orlando and Los Angeles.
Launched in 2015 but officially open for business in 2017, Offerpad is one of a number of companies that hope to bring technology to the process of buying and selling homes — prospective homesellers visit the company’s website, enter information about the home they wish to sell, and then receive an all-cash offer on their home within days at the cost of a service fee.
This solution, which has proven particularly popular with those who want to move quickly with a guaranteed offer, is going to be available in Houston on Jan. 15, 2019 and in San Antonio later in the first quarter of the year. The Arizona-based company is also expanding in its home state with a Tucson launch in December of this year.
As Texas has both a flourishing economy (employment grew by 3.3 percent in Dallas in the past year) and some of the fastest-growing population in cities across the U.S., it seemed like a natural place for Offerpad to bring its homebuying solution. By launching in Houston and San Antonio, it hopes to also reach and service 121 cities in the markets’ surrounding areas.
“We’ve seen interest in the Offerpad solution from Texans for quite some time,” Michael Hosier, Offerpad’s vice president of market expansion, told Inman in an email.
“The Dallas-Fort Worth area has been seeing encouraging real estate and economic factors. There has been favorable industry growth there especially in the financial, technology and defense industries,” he added.
Offerpad hopes to eventually reach 25 markets and 2,189 cities across the country. That said, the company is expanding at a time when competition for homeowners who want to sell fast but at a lower price is growing — iBuyers like Opendoor, Knock, Zillow and now more traditional companies including Realogy and Keller Williams have all been making strides in the all-cash offer space.
“Real estate consumers in Texas have been limited in their options for selling and buying,” Hosier said. “Offerpad’s new availability there will give them another avenue that will make their homebuying and selling experience much more fluid than ever before.”