I’m closing on a Zillow-owned house this week. The property had been sitting on the market for about 30 days, so we started with an offer $10k under list. Zillow came back saying they weren’t considering anything under list price. After some back-and-forth, we decided to offer full list since it was still within our budget and we really liked the house. Zillow accepted, but they did require us to pay all closing costs.
The house itself had a partial flip. Zillow’s crew put in new flooring, repainted, replaced some of the kitchen appliances, and made a few small fixes. The kitchen and bathrooms still need updating, and the water heater is very old, but we were fine with taking that on ourselves. For disclosures, they gave us the previous owner’s report along with a list of all the work their crew had done.
Our inspection didn’t reveal any major issues. We asked for credits for a few minor problems, and Zillow agreed to some nominal amounts—exactly what I expected after hearing about how they usually handle repairs. The appraisal came back $10k over our offer, so no problems there either.
Overall, the process has been pretty smooth from our perspective, but I don’t think our agent enjoyed working with Zillow much. Their communication was slow and they insisted on using only their own paperwork templates. For example, when their agent accepted our offer by email, they still required our agent to rewrite it on Zillow’s official template before they would formally sign. Our agent had to jump through extra hoops, but he handled it well and never complained to us.
Even though I wasn’t thrilled about buying from a big corporation, the reality is this market is tough, and my family doesn’t have the buying power to compete in bidding wars. At the end of the day, we’re just grateful to have found a house we like and can afford, and the process—while sometimes annoying—got us there.