After hitting the pause button in March because of the coronavirus pandemic, several iBuyers have announced plans to resume buying homes, including Offerpad, Opendoor, Redfin and Zillow.
Offerpad said home sellers, buyers and real estate agents can resume requesting no-obligation offers beginning May 8 in more than 800 cities across the country. It said its safety procedures have been certified by HealthVerify, a health safety organization which help businesses implement measures that minimize transmission of infectious diseases.
“We are pleased to assist Offerpad in their attention to public health as they continue business in these unusual times,” HealthyVerify’s Head of Infectious Diseases Physician Ana Moran said in a release. “The procedures, specifically planned for Offerpad's unique operations were thoughtfully designed to reduce the risk of viral transmission.
“By properly disinfecting common areas, limiting the number of people in homes, and handling nearly all processes remotely, Offerpad customers can feel confident in their well-being – and that of others – when working under Offerpad's new HealthyVerify-certified business procedures,” Moran said.
Opendoor, meanwhile, announced three initiatives to help people buy and sell safely with fully digital, contact-free experiences. Those programs include Sell Direct, a contact-free way to sell instantly to Opendoor; Home Reserve, a new way to reserve and move into a new home while Opendoor lists your current home; and Safer Touring, the ability to virtually tour or self-tour homes.
“We gathered as a company, and worked to develop new solutions, new products, and new experiences for consumers,” co-founder and CEO Eric Wu wrote on the company’s website. “We talked about a safe, on-demand, and fully digital experience to buy and sell a home because we knew Opendoor was one of the few companies that could deliver on this. And we believed this experience was needed now more than ever.”
Opendoor said Sell Direct and Home Reserve became available in Phoenix on May 4 will begin in Raleigh-Durham on May 11. It said Self Touring is available in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Dallas and Riverside, Calif., with additional cities in the coming weeks.
Redfin said it would resume making offers on homes in select markets in May. The company also plans to resume television advertising with new ads in select markets.
“We were the first major broker to encourage homebuyers to tour homes via video-chat, on March 3; the first to warn the public of a possible housing-market downturn, on March 4; the first to cancel all open houses to protect public health, on March 16; and the first to offer homebuyers self-service access to the listings being sold by our customers, on April 23,” Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman said in a release.
“And there are still so many firsts ahead of us,” Kelman said. “The reason we’re working so hard is to bring back all the colleagues and friends we lost in our April furlough.”
Zillow co-founder and CEO Rich Barton said the company expects to resume home buying within the next few weeks.
“There are number of factors we are considering that will influence the timing of the impasse, including one, the health and safety of our employees, customers and partners; two, local orders and public health concerns; three, local housing market sectors; and four, confidence in our ability to price and transact,” Barton said.