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> this appears to be an identical article

Check the authorship: "Bloomberg." This is a syndicated article, you can find the original here: https://archive.md/gND5q

After getting purchased by Condé Nast, ArsTechnica similarly began reprinting articles from sister publication Wired: https://arstechnica.com/author/wired-com/

> The schadenfreude is real for me seeing this. A company like Zillow getting into flipping seems questionable to me. The customers are no longer aligned with the company on goals with something like this. It's like when the realtor offers to buy your house... they obviously feel like they can make more than you, when they're supposed to represent you!

I've personally dealt with selling real estate within the past calendar year. Having someone willing to offer me an option highly likely to close quickly at a small discount to the prospective market rate would have been a pretty attractive option. Otherwise it can take months upon months to close a sale. Months in which I'd really like to have that money and perhaps be thousands of miles away.

Do they think they can make more money than me? I have no doubt. Am I as patient or able to invest as a business much larger than me? Probably not. The real estate market is not always a particularly liquid or quick one to operate in.

Where do you live that it takes "months upon months" to close a sale? Usually the complaint is that the market moves so fast people have to make risky snap purchasing decisions.

In the very hot markets only. Anecdote that matches your experience: I sold a house at the beginning of this year (sf east bay), and it was on the market for a few days and closed ~30 days later. More than a dozen offers, most with no contingencies. Top offer was more than 120k over ask.

I bought in Northern Virginia this year, and lost 3 or 4 offers to competitors that were 15-20% over asking. Standard was always no contingencies (no inspection, no financing, nothing) and settle as fast as the mortgage company could underwrite you. You had to really trust your mortgage broker and your agent to pull through. Probably saw 50 houses before getting lucky on an offer because our agent had a connection. It was a pretty awful experience and you were forced to make a terrifying decision very quickly. I still remember the surreal experiencing of clicking the DocuSign button that evening that would result in me being on the hook for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars...

A national average is about two months, from what I can find, depending greatly on where you are and what you're selling. That standard deviation can be quite a pain. It's certainly challenging to plan around an unknown and potentially unbounded number of months. The ability to make that into a known number might thus be valuable to some people in some situations.

You're absolutely right, of course. There's no shortage of stories about markets moving fast! That said, it's been my personal experience that people don't generally share their stories about a house or condo moving slow. Perhaps complaints and stories might not be an ideal guide to reality in this instance?

> Where do you live that it takes "months upon months" to close a sale? Usually the complaint is that the market moves so fast people have to make risky snap purchasing decisions.

IIRC, when I bought my home, the closing date was about two months after we'd made the deal with the seller.

But that's not as long as it seems: there's stuff you have to do in that time, like getting the inspection done, haggling over any issues found, and getting ready to move in/moving out.

Buyers frequently waive the inspection contingency in hot markets with limited supply. Sellers are more likely to accept offers with fewer contingencies.

You're not wrong. However, even if you make an all-cash offer and remove every single contingency, you're still looking at roughly 2 weeks minimum to close. You're making the assumption that title companies are competent (they are not) and move quickly (they do not). Wire transfer takes a few days, need to find a notary to sign all of the closing docs, and title companies are slammed with all of the other home purchases happening as well.

Mortgage company's fax machine has 3-day queue!

> Zillow getting into flipping seems questionable to me. The customers are no longer aligned with the company on goals with something like this

I'm currently looking to buy a house. Having a Zillow in between the seller and myself (as a dealer, not a broker) wouldn't be a slam dunk, but it would be worth some non-zero premium to me. (Just offering a counterpoint to the "uselessly driving up prices" narrative.)

Can I ask why? I'm also looking to buy a house and the Zillow offerings, from what I've seen, are not particularly competitive. They don't seem to care much about the quality of their housing stock. I'd also be leery of dealing with someone removed from the initial seller. It sounds like a great way to "launder" issues with the home where Zillow can say "eh, we didn't know about that."

> Can I ask why? I'm also looking to buy a house and the Zillow offerings, from what I've seen, are not particularly competitive.

I agree. (I'm not buying from them.) I am having to deal with sellers who change their ask at the last minute, have past financial issues (if something goes wrong and I have to sue, will they have assets?), want to stay through the winter, et cetera. In most home purchases, expedience isn't the most important thing for the buyer. For some, it is, and in those cases something like Zillow's offer in theory makes sense. (Counterpoint: homes aren't fungible.)

Checking if the seller has assets in case you have to sue is just bizarre. That's not how residential real estate works.

> Can I ask why?

john q homeowner (probably) generates significantly more counterparty risk in transactions than giant corporation's house flipping algorithm.

no shortage of stories of home sellers doing all sorts of weird shit, that zillow et al just wouldn't have time/energy to engage in.

I'm looking to do this- I'm going to move out of state, and having a counter-party buying my house that is likely to offer maximum flexibility as I'm looking for another house elsewhere is valuable.

Not only that (it's true though) but what if they committed to a certain $ figure of upgrades/renovations for the house in question? Seems valuable in terms of property values even if it costs the seller/buyer some additional premium up front

As someone selling to Zillow, they do retain a certain amount ($x thousands) from the seller for repairs and cleaning, at least for relatively new construction. I imagine it's a larger number depending on how old the house is and how much repair they think they need based on their appraisal/final walkthrough.

You can also just refuse their offer too if they want to take too much off the top.