The Sandberg Team @ St. Augustine Key Realty

Real Estate Sales & Service in Nocatee, Ponte Vedra & Jacksonville, Florida

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Zillow Shutters Zillow Offers, it’s Direct Home Buying Division

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What it means for home sellers and buyers

Home Buyers and Sellers

Zillow jumped into the direct home buying space in 2018. The company joined a number of ibuying startups like Opendoor and Offerpad. But recently, the company announced it would shutter its Zillow Offers direct home buying division.

Buying and selling homes directly certainly seemed like a smart play for the company. Zillow has strong awareness among consumers, and a trove of homes sales data gleaned from public records, Multiple Listing Services (MLSs) and user-submitted information. These data are what make up the company’s ubiquitous Zestimates, its proprietary automated home valuation model. We can only assume these Zestimates were the primary data point being used when the company made an offer to purchase a home.

Sounds like a slam dunk for Zillow. So what went wrong? A couple of assumptions:

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4 Tips for Showing Your Home Safely During the Pandemic

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A few simple steps can help minimize potential exposure to Covid-19.

Tips for Showing Your Home Safely During the Pandemic

As the world continues to adapt to the pandemic, home buyers and sellers are doing the same. We’ve already seen real estate agents pivot to more virtual showings and virtual tours. But, ultimately, buyers will need to see a home they hope to purchase in person. Which means sellers must be ready to open their homes to strangers, which can feel counterintuitive during these times.

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COVID-19 & the State of the NE Florida Real Estate Market

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How social distancing, and the economic outlook, are impacting real estate sales in northeast Florida…and beyond.

NE Florida Real Estate & COVID-19
Photo by Markus Spiske

The coronavirus is having a big impact on real estate–and every other industry–around the world. What’s happening locally, here in northeast Florida? Let’s take a look at a few current data points that help tell the story.

Suspending Open Houses
realMLS, our local Multiple Listing Service (MLS) here in northeast Florida, is temporarily disabling the Open House feature in our MLS system. This means open houses will not be officially marketed via MLS, nor will they automatically appear on syndicated websites such as Zillow, Realtor.com, this website and the like.

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Finding a New Home from Your Current Home

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How to continue your home search while practicing “social distancing”.

The coronavirus has given us all a stark new reality, for a while, at least. And while we’re all hunkered down working from home and avoiding any unnecessary errands/travel, what do you do if you need to buy a home in the near future?

Search for homes with virtual tours.

Not just any virtual tour, however. Many of the tours you’ll see online are simply slide shows of still photos, with a zooming and panning effect applied. Some tours, however, are more immersive in nature, providing a 360º view of rooms in the home, as well as “hot spots” you can click on to take you to the next room…a great way to get a feel for the flow of a home.

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3 Ways to Save When Listing Your Home

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With a little foresight and planning, you may be able to save on closing costs and other expenses when you sell your home.

How to Save on Closing Costs

Closing costs are additional fees associated with selling real property. Fees include things like deed stamps (essentially, a tax on the value of the property), title insurance, appraisals, courier fees and the like. Both buyers and sellers have closing costs they will need to pay, and those costs can range anywhere between approximately 2% and 6% of the sale price.

Fortunately, there are a few things you can do as a seller to reduce your closing costs:

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