Is Zillow offers a good deal?

Zillow Offers does not exist anymore, so in 2026 this is not a decision you have to make. Zillow announced on November 2, 2021 that it was closing the program, and it spent the following months selling off the homes it had already bought. Amanda and Allyson both flagged that in this thread and they are exactly right. The question is really what to do instead, and that part has changed a lot since 2022. Here is where things stand now. Two large instant buyers are still operating. Opendoor is the bigger one and charges a flat 5 percent service fee. Offerpad is smaller and its service fee generally runs somewhere between 5 and 8 percent. Both make a cash offer on your home, both deduct a repair or condition allowance after they inspect, and both let you pick your closing date. Coverage is market by market and it moves around, so before you spend any time on this, check whether either of them actually buys in the Imperial and greater St. Louis area right now. If they do not, the whole conversation is academic. There is a wrinkle that surprises people. Zillow did not get out of this entirely. Since a partnership announced in August 2022, Zillow routes sellers in select markets to an Opendoor cash offer shown side by side with an open market estimate from a Zillow Premier Agent partner, and Zillow collects a referral fee if you take the cash offer. So you can start on Zillow and end up with an Opendoor offer, which is probably the source of a lot of the confusion still floating around about whether Zillow buys houses. Keith made the core point already and it holds up. Any company buying your house with its own money has to earn a return on it, so the number will come in under what an open market sale would produce. Third party comparisons have put Opendoor's offers averaging in the neighborhood of 9 percent below what those homes later resold for, and Offerpad's closer to 14 percent. Treat those as directional, not as a promise about your house. The thing almost nobody explains is that speed and certainty are not the only products for sale here. If your real problem is that you need to buy your next house before you sell this one, there is a whole separate category built for exactly that, and it is usually cheaper than handing your equity to an instant buyer. Knock, Orchard's Move First, Homeward, and Flyhomes all let you make a non contingent offer on the next house while this one is still on the market. Knock has run a flat program fee around 2.25 percent with no interest during its standard six month term. Flyhomes prices its bridge financing at a market rate APR, recently around 10 percent. Those numbers move, so confirm them directly. So compare it honestly. Get the cash offer, and separately get a real listing plan from a good local agent with comparable sales behind it. Then put the two side by side as net proceeds, not as headline prices. Cash offer price minus service fee minus the repair allowance they come back with after inspection, against likely sale price minus commissions minus concessions minus the carrying cost of however many extra weeks it takes. Sometimes the spread is small enough that certainty is worth it, especially if the house needs work you cannot fund or you are managing a deadline you do not control. Often the spread is large, and that is real money. One caution. The initial offer is not the offer. The number that matters is the one after the inspection and repair deduction, and that is the point at which a lot of sellers back out. Ask what the cancellation terms are before you sign anything. I am a real estate professional, not a lender or a CPA, so run the tax and financing side past the right person before you commit. Full disclosure on where I sit. I am Zoltan Peresztegi and I work the Los Angeles South Bay and the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which is about as far from Jefferson County, Missouri as you can get and still be in the same country. I am not your local agent and I would not pretend to be. What I can do is connect you with a strong listing agent in the St. Louis area from my referral network, someone who will run both numbers for you without steering you toward the outcome that pays them more. If that would help, say the word. Zoltan

Any iBuying platform has to make a profit, so naturally the offer is a quick sale offer, which is lower than market value.

Zillow actually shut down their home-buying program ("Zillow Offers") in 2021 because they lost too much money.

no, a good agent can help you see and not have you leave all that money on the table with true comps. also no hidden fees .

Zillow offers is no more. They lost a ton of money and they closed up that side of Zillow. There are others like them, but you leave so much money on the table. A good agent can help you make so much more without all the hidden fees.

Jamila - it depends on your situation. Working with a hard working agent can result in you getting top dollar for you home. Having someone with boots on the ground is important!