RALEIGH, CHARLOTTE, DURHAM – Technology-enabled real estate companies, including those known as iBuyers, for making instant offers to purchase a homeowner’s property based on algorithms, are the most active in the Raleigh and Charlotte real estate markets, found a new analysis by Redfin on the current state of the national housing market.

The analysis tracked public records data on home purchases and sales from Redfin Now, Opendoor, Zillow Offers, Offerpad, and Bungalo.

According to the analysis, iBuyers are increasingly active in the real estate markets where they’ve set up operations, following a period in the second quarter of 2020 where very few transactions occurred, as companies paused purchasing operations in response to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic amidst uncertainty.

 

Entering, expanding in blazing Triangle housing market: real estate companies focusing on tech

 

“Business really started ramping up in January and February. Since then, we’ve just had a constant barrage of deals,” said Allister Booth, an acquisitions specialist at RedfinNow in Los Angeles.  “We’re back to full speed and are buying more homes than we were last year. After we buy and renovate those homes, we know we’ll be able to sell them because there are so many more buyers in the market right now than there are homes available.”

Still, the overwhelming majority of real estate transactions are occurring outside of iBuyer purchases.  Raleigh, the top market for iBuyer activity, saw 2.9% of all homes sold in the first quarter acquired by an iBuyer.  2.7% of homes sold in Charlotte were acquired by an iBuyer, and 2.6% of homes sold in Durham were acquired by an iBuyer.

Compared to market averages, iBuyers are buying homes for lower than median price.  For instance, nationally, the median price iBuyers paid in the first quarter was $302,050, compared to a national median purchase price of $320,000 across the entire real estate market, and the Redfin analysis of market data found this across every local market in which an iBuyer is operating.