Redfin is growing its direct homebuying program beyond California, as the online real estate brokerage announced Monday that it has begun buying houses in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
Redfin launched its direct homebuying program in the first quarter of 2017, but did not make the program public until later in that same year. RedfinNow began as an experiment, launching in the Inland Empire region of Southern California in January 2017 before expanding to San Diego in June 2017. Redfin later expanded the direct buying program to Orange County.
Then, late last year, Redfin said that it was “deepening its investment” in its direct buying program and is planning a “long-term” expansion of the program beyond its first few markets.
And now, Redfin is expanding its direct buying program to Texas.
According to Redfin, it actually began buying houses “quietly” in Dallas in December, but it is officially rolling out the program now.
Through RedfinNow, homeowners can get a no-obligation cash offer for their home. If they accept, they can pick their move-out date, and then Redfin turns around and sells the house back into the market.
RedfinNow charges a service fee of 7% to buy the home directly from the homeowner. Redfin typically charges sellers a 1% listing fee on a traditional listing.
According to Redfin, the company bought six houses in the DFW area in December.
But that’s not the only expansion that Redfin is planning for Texas.
The company also announced Monday that it plans to expand its Dallas operation, opening a new office in the growing northern suburb of Frisco. Along with continuing to grow its local brokerage business and Redfin Mortgage, the company’s Dallas-based mortgage operation, Redfin will also hire engineers in Dallas.
Title Forward, the company’s title and settlement services provider, also plans to hire title and settlement staff in Dallas.
With that combination of services, homeowners can sell their homes to Redfin through RedfinNow, buy and sell homes with Redfin agents, obtain a mortgage through Redfin Mortgage, and get title and settlement services with Title Forward.
“Our rapidly growing presence in Dallas will have engineers working alongside our agents and mortgage and title teams, to bring together technology and service to deliver a complete home-buying and selling solution,” said Adam Wiener, Redfin’s chief growth officer.
“As RedfinNow gets more efficient at buying and selling homes by integrating our mortgage and title services, we can lower the overall costs of a real estate transaction and pass additional savings on to our customers in the form of lower fees,” Weiner added.
Redfin also said that it plans to bring RedfinNow to other markets this year.
