ST. LOUIS — Online real estate company Offerpad is planning to start buying and selling houses later this year in St. Louis, which the company expects to be one of its top markets.
Offerpad, headquartered in Chandler, Arizona, will be opening a local office in St. Louis later this year at the same time it expands to Kansas City; Columbus, Ohio; and Columbia, South Carolina.
Offerpad said it would be available in more than 200 cities and towns in the St. Louis market, in Missouri and Illinois. The company’s launch in St. Louis should come in either the third or fourth quarter of this year, following a July debut in Indianapolis, Communications Manager David Stephan told the Business Journal.
Like other iBuyers — tech-enabled residential real estate buyers and sellers — Offerpad buys houses direct from homeowners through its website by computing a cash offer within 24 hours. But Offerpad will also list houses on its site to sell, essentially serving as the real estate agent in the online transaction. Using licensed real estate agents, the company takes an average 7% fee instead of the 6% divided between the buyer’s and seller’s agents for a more traditional transaction.
The company was founded to fix the frustrating aspects of buying or selling a house, including allowing sellers the option to choose the closing date and knowing the selling price ahead of time.
Offerpad was already in 17 cities before its latest expansion. But the company expects St. Louis to be one of its top markets and likely its top performer in the Midwest, Stephan said.
“We have a whole long list of new markets, but St. Louis is one of the first ones that we’re hitting later this year just because it’s ranking well in our key indicators — which are everything from average home price, to appreciation rates, employment, affordability, the fact that it’s a hot seller’s market like most markets in the country right now,” Stephan said. “(St. Louis) seems to fit with what we have going on, what we can offer.”
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