Online, all-cash homebuying startup Offerpad has officially launched in Houston, Texas, the company announced today.
That marks the Arizona-headquartered Offerpad’s second operational market in Texas and 10th across the U.S. At the moment, Offerpad also operates in Phoenix, Atlanta, Tampa, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Charlotte, Tucson, Orlando and Los Angeles.
The company, which lets homesellers log onto its website, enter in details about their property, and receive an all-cash offer within 24 hours that they can take or leave, previously announced plans to open in San Antonio in the first quarter of 2019. In the coming years, Offerpad hopes to eventually expand to 25 markets across the country.
“Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are all cities we’ve had intentions of offering our service in,” said Offerpad CEO Brian Bair in a statement. “I’m confident that Texans are going to value the solutions we’ve developed to the once complicated and stressful process of selling a home.”
To provide homebuyers with regional advice, Offerpad also employs local real estate experts to advise on home valuation trends in Texas.
Texas, in particular, has had a surge of people moving there for jobs (employment grew by 3.3 percent in Dallas over the last year) and some of the fastest population growth in the country – these population changes have been one of the reasons for Offerpad’s decision to establish such a strong foothold in the state. As part of its Houston launch, Offerpad also hopes to serve 85 of the surrounding smaller cities and suburbs.
“The company has a very concentrated vision to bring our real estate solutions to millions more people this year,” Trent Capps, Offerpad’s regional market director for Texas, said in a prepared statement. “Our start in Texas, with Dallas-Fort Worth, has far and away exceeded our expectations and we anticipate the same for our other Texas markets.”
Offerpad debuted in 2015, and is now one of several competing online homebuyers in the U.S., known generally as “iBuyers,” all of which use the internet and other tech to streamline homeselling, letting sellers offload their homes for a guaranteed price at a time of their convenience, instead of listing a property on the market with an agent and waiting to see what it fetches (though Offerpad does accept referrals from agents as well). Homeowners can also ask Offerpad to reassess the home if they are unsatisfied with the offered price.
Just earlier today, competitor Zillow announced its iBuyer program Zillow Offers was coming to five more markets, bringing it to a total of 14 by the end of 2019. Knock, a startup that offers a home “trade-in” model, announced a $400 million fundraising round this week (most of it debt).
Another rival, Opendoor is currently the largest iBuyer by service area with 18 markets and planning to reach 50 by 2020. And now more traditional real estate brokerage companies including Realogy and Keller Williams are piloting their own all-cash homeselling services.
