iBuying Almost Non-Existent in the DC Area Last Quarter

• March 1st 2022

by Nena Perry-Brown

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While iBuying's effect on the nationwide housing market garnered a lot of attention last year, a recent report suggests the new homebuying trend is not a factor in the DC area.

Zillow's latest iBuyer report states that just four properties in the DC area were instant-bought in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to 44 in the third quarter, the lowest iBuying volume for a metro area in the U.S.

iBuying, short for "instant buying" is essentially a method of institutional home flipping whereby an entity offers a homeowner a pre-determined "market rate" offer for their off-market home in order to flip it for a profit. This activity is usually concentrated in larger, high-demand markets. 

Interestingly, Zillow's aggressive iBuying last year caused significant losses for the company and led to job cuts, although there has been some rebound since that crash.

As for iBuying in the rest of the country, 21,523 homes sold across the 38 largest iBuyer markets nationwide on Offerpad, Opendoor, and Zillow Offers in the fourth quarter of 2021. These sales accounted for 1.7% of all homes sold nationwide in Q4; the homes usually spent 98 days off the market before being resold and were marked up by a median of 1.1%.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/ibuying-almost-non-existent-in-the-dc-area-last-quarter/19330.