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Discount brokerage Redfin is bringing its iBuyer service to suburban Boston, marking the first expansion of a national iBuyer service to the Northeast, a region that many had previously avoided due to its widely varied housing stock.
The company announced the local launch of its RedfinNow service Thursday morning, which comes on the heels of RedfinNow launches in the Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco areas in recent months. Company spokesperson Alina Ptaszynski said the company initially plans to offer the service in parts of three suburban Boston counties with further expansions to follow. Only homes built after 1900 are eligible.
The company said it hopes to offer homeowners a compelling alternative to the traditional listing process, particularly move-up buyers worried about finding a home in the tightest housing market in living memory. Sellers are able to pick a closing date between 10 and 90 days from when they accept a RedfinNow offer and the company also offers a limited leaseback period.
“RedfinNow gives homeowners certainty and control over exactly when they sell with a strong cash offer that lets them avoid the stress of home prep and repairs and clearing out for open houses and home tours,” Jason Aleem, vice president of RedfinNow, said in a statement. “Boston home prices grew by double-digits in March, but this hot market is a double-edged sword for sellers who also need to buy. RedfinNow makes it easy for our customers to get a strong offer for their current home so they have the money to buy their next and the flexibility to line up their closings so they only need to move once.”
RedfinNow uses local insight and its proprietary machine-learning algorithms to make a competitive cash offer based on the home’s location, condition and the cost of repairs or upgrades, with total fees for both listing and upgrades at around 5 percent of the total sale price, Ptaszynski said. Redfin agents work for much lower commissions than the typical real estate agent, with some agents working for listing fees as little as 1 percent of the home’s price.
The company also offers a Concierge service for sellers working with Redfin agents, who want help making upgrades to their properties before selling. Fees for that service start at 2 percent of the sale price, the company said.
RedfinNow enters a market that already has a limited presence of iBuyer-like services, including William Raveis’ new Raveis Purchase service, in addition to longstanding home-flipping services like HomeVestors. However, big-name iBuyer services like Zillow Offers and RedfinNow had previously avoided markets like Boston, where the housing stock ranges in age from 400 years old to brand-new, making it much harder for the algorithms iBuyers use to rapidly and cheaply price homes compared to Sun Belt suburbs’ large tracts of newer homes.
“In general, we’ve gotten better, we’ve gotten more precise with our process to be able to extend this option to less homogenous housing in expensive markets in Boston,” Ptaszynski said.
