Amidst the seemingly endless speculation and debate about the new ways of selling—including iBuyers, buy-before-you-sell bridge solutions and institutional buyers—one important factor has been neglected.
What do sellers actually want?
At zavvie, the first complete brokerage selling solutions platform, we realized we were in a unique position to consider this question. Today, zavvie helps bring thousands of offer requests each month to verified buyers around the country. Looking at our data, we thought it would also be useful for brokerages and others in the business. That’s why we created the new quarterly zavvie Seller Preferences Report, which is available here.
This is the first quarterly report of its kind encompassing all selling solutions available to homeowners throughout the U.S. The Seller Preferences Report analyzes current iBuyer and buy-before-you-sell bridge solution-provider sales activity, including market locations, business volume and trends, and current buy boxes. The zavvie report also examines offer strength, offer acceptance rates, service fees, average concessions and time to close for selling-solution providers.
Here are the six seller megatrends we found during the past quarter:Â
– Despite the unprecedented strong seller’s market in the second half of 2020, iBuyers managed a strong rebound at the end of the year, proving that their value proposition of speed, certainty and convenience is compelling even when sellers can sell quickly for top dollar on the open market.
– Paradoxically, though iBuyer offer strength has declined steadily since COVID-19, iBuyer offer acceptance rates have increased.
– Homeowners are five times more interested in bridge offers than iBuyer offers right now.
– The average home price in a bridge transaction is 72% higher than an iBuyer purchase.
– Consumer demand for iBuyer and bridge programs is high throughout the country, including smaller markets where the national solution providers don’t yet operate.
– Consumer satisfaction with iBuyers is high, averaging nine out of 10 in satisfaction scores, zavvie research shows.
The data reveal these new selling options are aligned with consumers and will continue to become more relevant in the marketplace—and therefore, modern brokerages and agents embracing these new options will flourish. On the flip side, those who ignore the new options risk extinction. As one of our brokerage partner executives recently told us, “Most agents bring a CMA to a listing presentation. My agents bring offers.” Who do you think is going to win in the long run?
Bridge is the future of real estate and will continue to grow rapidly. It’s a sort of “magic wand” that lets homeowners and interested sellers become cash buyers with no contingencies and gives agents a chance to win more listings by offering those bridge solutions.
The zavvie mission is to connect brokerages, agents and their clients with all the new ways of selling while preserving the agent’s role at the center of the transaction. As brokerage operators ourselves, we believe passionately in the role of modern agents in serving their clients. It is our hope that the quarterly Seller Preferences Report will help brokers and agents take advantage of what we’ve learned.
Stefan Peterson is chief data officer and co-founder of zavvie, a technology company that is empowering the modern agent by making it easy to provide today’s consumers all the selling options: iBuyers, bridge and open market. For more information, visit zavvie.com.
