What Are iBuyer Companies, and How Do Their Offers Really Work?

How iBuyer Companies Actually Price a Home

An iBuyer company generates its purchase offer with an automated valuation model, not a walkthrough. A seller answers a short online questionnaire about the property's condition, size, and location, and the algorithm returns a preliminary number, often within minutes to 48 hours. That number is not final. Every major iBuyer company follows up with an in-person or virtual home assessment, and the price gets adjusted downward for repairs the algorithm couldn't see: an aging roof, a water stain, an outdated HVAC unit. On top of that adjustment, iBuyers charge a service fee that industry pricing studies put between roughly 5% and 9.5% of the sale price, separate from any repair deductions. A 2019 Collateral Analytics study, reported by Forbes, found the combined cost of iBuyer fees, repair credits, and closing costs ran 13% to 15% of a home's sale price, compared to 5% to 7% total cost through a traditional agent-listed sale, a gap that can run close to $20,000 on a $200,000 home. That study is now several years old and individual iBuyer pricing has shifted since, but the structural pattern it identified — an appealing headline number that shrinks after assessment — is the same mechanic sellers report running into with iBuyer companies operating in Florida today.

The iBuyer Timeline: From Online Request to Closing

The iBuyer process typically runs in five steps: the seller submits property details online (about 5 to 10 minutes), receives a preliminary offer within 24 to 48 hours, schedules an in-person or virtual home assessment, picks a closing date, then closes and receives funds by wire. Closing windows for the largest iBuyer companies generally run 14 to 60 days from acceptance, with some offering an expedited close in two to three weeks when a seller needs to move fast. That's meaningfully faster than a traditional listing, where the Florida market average from list date to closed sale typically runs 45 to 60 days, and that clock only starts once a buyer with financing is under contract, not from the day the seller decides to sell. The tradeoff is that this speed comes bundled with a pricing structure where the preliminary online number gets adjusted downward once an in-person assessment turns up repair needs, so accepting an iBuyer's initial number means agreeing to a process, not a locked price.

Which iBuyer Companies Are Still Buying, and Which Ones Quit

The iBuyer companies still actively operating include Opendoor (founded 2014, the largest, buying in dozens of U.S. markets), Offerpad (founded 2015, known for extended move-out windows after closing), Orchard (a trade-in model that pairs an iBuyer-style purchase with buy-before-you-sell support), and Knock (bridge financing through a program it calls Home Swap). Two of the biggest names in the space already left it: Zillow shut down its Zillow Offers iBuying program in November 2021 after publicly stating its pricing algorithm couldn't reliably predict home values at scale, and Redfin closed its RedfinNow program in 2022. Both exits happened after each company had spent years and significant capital trying to make the algorithmic-pricing model profitable, a signal that the automated-offer business model is harder to run at scale than it looks from the outside, even for companies with a national brand and deep data on home values. A Florida seller comparing iBuyer companies today is choosing among a shorter list of survivors than existed five years ago, which is itself worth knowing before assuming any one company's number represents the whole market.

Comparing iBuyer Companies, a Traditional Listing, and Cash Flow Deals

Every option a Florida seller has — an iBuyer company's automated offer, a traditional agent-listed sale, or a novation-based sale through a company like Cash Flow Deals — trades speed, price certainty, and cost against each other differently. An iBuyer company offers speed and a hands-off process, but the number a seller sees on day one is not the number they net at closing once the service fee and post-assessment repair deductions are applied. A traditional listing can net a higher sale price but comes with showings, staging costs, financing contingencies that can fall through, and a 45-to-60-day timeline that resets if the first buyer's loan doesn't close.

The gap between an iBuyer's opening number and a seller's actual net is well documented: total costs — fees, repair credits, and closing costs combined — have been measured at 13% to 15% of a home's sale price for iBuyer companies, versus 5% to 7% for a traditional agent-listed sale. Cash Flow Deals is built around closing that specific gap by fixing the net price before repairs are scoped, rather than adjusting it downward after an assessment.

Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that locks in a net price for a seller's house before repairs are scoped, using a novation-based, flat-fee process arranged through its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty — not a traditional listing, and not a brokerage itself.

The Cash Flow Deals process runs in three steps:

1. Cash Flow Deals reviews the property and responds with a net price within 24 hours, based on the home's current condition rather than a post-assessment markdown.

2. The seller and Cash Flow Deals sign a single novation agreement that names the real end buyer — an FHA, conventional, VA, or DSCR purchaser — so the seller isn't waiting through multiple re-negotiations after signing.

3. Closing happens on the seller's schedule, in as little as 10 business days when the seller needs to move fast, with the net number set before repairs were priced rather than adjusted afterward.