hundreds of homes to hit Orlando market – WFTV
ORLANDO, Fla. — The yellow five-bedroom house on East Harding Street sits empty and unassuming, attracting little attention in the middle of Orlando’s Hourglass District. Though the windows are dark, the lot is maintained. The lawn is cut, and the paint is clean. A basketball hoop hangs over the driveway, dripping in the late autumn rain.
For months, though, this home has been the talk of the neighborhood. A sign outside the front door offers the first clue.
“Owned by Zillow,” it reads, in the company’s signature blue-and-white color scheme, displaying phone numbers and additional information to would-be buyers.
No one is interested in the home. In fact, the East Harding Street house signifies the collapse of the budding real estate empire and offers a warning lesson to those who would try to use computer code to predict a future established by humans.
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Cash is king
For years, Zillow has been a household name in the real estate world. The website has become a go-to place to check a property’s value, compare it against neighbors and find potential candidates to tour with a real estate agent.
A few years ago, the company entered the business known as iBuying. Companies, rather than individuals, placed offers on properties by using an algorithm to predict what the home was worth and what it could sell for.
The offers are enticing — all cash, and quick, in exchange for a slightly lower offer than normal. A seller wouldn’t have to deal with buyers, tours, agents or renovations. Homes sold as-is for as little effort as a click of a button.
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“They don’t buy old, they don’t rent for the most part,” Keller Williams real estate agent Ray Lopez explained. ‘They’re going to flip your house. They’re going to buy it today, put some paint, carpet, fix this and fix that, not a lot of money, and then put it back on the market a month, two, or three later and sell it.”
Zillow was not the first. Other companies like Offerpad, Redfin and Open Door also compete against ordinary real estate agents every day. However, the company’s scale set it apart, Lopez said. Backed by billions of dollars and a desire to become the biggest player in the game, Zillow pushed the limits, offering better deals to sellers in an effort to acquire as many homes as possible.
“Zillow came on like gangbusters because they were paying top, top dollar,” Lopez recalled, adding that the homes could sometimes be priced 5% to 10% above the seller’s listing.
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Sometimes, the numbers were eye-popping.
The East Harding Street home was originally listed by its owner for $285,000, neighbor John Miller recalled. Miller had looked at the property when moving to the Orlando area, but decided the layout wasn’t ideal. He bought the property next door.
The chatter in his community…