Dwelling on the dollars
Redfin's new service now helps San Antonio home sellers score quick cash
![Money stacked next to a house](https://sanantonio.culturemap.com/media-library/money-stacked-next-to-a-house.jpg?id=31481866&width=2000&height=1500&quality=65&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0)
Real estate brokerage Redfin is opening the door for homeowners in the San Antonio area to get all-cash offers for their houses.
Through its RedfinNow program, the brokerage will a buy a home directly from a seller without the need to prepare it for showings or open houses, and with the ability to pick the move-out date. For a home that qualifies for Redfin, a seller can get a cash offer within 48 hours and wrap up the deal within seven days.
“RedfinNow makes home-selling simple so you can focus on what’s next in your life. Skip the repairs, showings, and uncertainty of a traditional home sale and move on your timeline,” Kari Ledgerwood, Austin and San Antonio market manager for RedfinNow, says in a release. “Sellers love the convenience and certainty of an instant offer, and the service is especially popular with move-up buyers who are able to use the cash from their first home to buy their next.”
The company does charge a service fee of 7 percent off the sale price. A full-service listing through a Redfin agent in the San Antonio area comes with a 1.5 percent listing fee in addition to a 3 percent commission for the buyer’s agent.
Aside from San Antonio, RedfinNow is available in Austin, Dallas, Denver, and Southern California. The Seattle-based Redfin launched the service in 2017, and in the second quarter of this year, RedfinNow generated revenue of $39.9 million.
Real estate companies that purchase homes directly from sellers is a growing trend and include big-name companies like Zillow, Opendoor, Offerpad, Knock, and Keller Williams.
“Though they may not be right for everyone, a convenient and hassle-free sale is worth the price of admission for certain buyers,” Forbes.com says of direct-offer deals.
Direct-offer buyers charge sellers a “convenience fee” of 6 percent to 9.5 percent, with some of them tacking on fees of 1 percent or more that typically are paid by buyers when a sale closes, according to an August 2019 report from real estate data provider Collateral Analytics. Overall, the cost to a seller in a direct-offer deal ranges from 13 percent to 15 percent, the report says, compared with the typical 5 percent to 9 percent in combined costs for the seller and buyer through a traditional sale.