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From the article: > Unlike traditional home-flippers who bet they can make money on home appreciation, Zillow plans to profit by charging sellers a fee in addi

• subpixel 9y ago
  So they plan to make offers on houses near market rate, invent a "fee" to account for the fact that they won't actually be paying market rate, and then turn around and sell the same house at market rate, pocketing the fee. For this to work at scale a lot of people must be in a situation where they can't afford the holding costs associated with waiting for their house to sell for what it's worth. Or a lot of people's houses have appreciated sufficiently that Zillow's fee is a non-issue. If anyone knows if this is true, I guess Zillow would.
  • hshehehjdjdjd 9y ago
    In almost every US housing market except the Bay Area, houses can sit on the market for quite some time waiting for the right buyer. I’m looking at apartments right now in nyc and we saw a very nice place that has been on the market for half a year. It’s not exactly right for us at this time, and perhaps it is a little over priced, but it’s not hard to picture this making the owner antsy.
    • subpixel 9y ago
      Every situation is unique: maybe the sellers need a certain price for financial calculations that are wholly separate from the apartment they are selling. My argument is that Zillow is always going to come in under-market. That's their whole model, and in order for it to work a lot of sellers need to be in a financial situation that allows them to say 'fuck it, I'll take the Zillow price and be done with this'.