Zillow Scouring Atlanta For New Homebuying Division's Regional HQ

Zillow has chosen the Metro Atlanta area for a regional operations hub that could potentially hire hundreds of new employees.

Seattle-based Zillow is in the market to potentially lease upward of 100K SF for a Southeast hub for its Zillow Offers division, company spokesperson Viet Shelton confirmed to Bisnow.

“We would like to find space that could handle a potential expansion of several hundred jobs,” Shelton said. “We're hoping Atlanta becomes a sort of Southeast regional hub, in addition to Phoenix.”

Zillow Offers is the division of the online listing giant that makes cash offers for a seller's house and, if accepted, allows the seller to choose a closing date for a fee, Shelton said. That avoids a seller having to do things such as host open houses or clear out when potential buyers come for a tour, Shelton said.

Zillow Offers began service in Atlanta last September, its third market outside of Phoenix and Las Vegas. As of today, the platform has been launched in six markets, including Denver, Charlotte and Raleigh. Shelton said the company plans to be operating Offers in 14 markets this year.

'We've had a tremendous amount of demand from the markets we go into,” he said.

Shelton declined to reveal Offers' performance data for Atlanta, but the division has sold 36 homes in Phoenix and Las Vegas of the 168 houses it purchased, according to Zillow's Q3 financial presentation. The company reported $11M in revenues on $10.2M in costs in selling houses in its Offers division, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  

The company reported it expected to have up to 550 houses in its inventory with revenues of upward of $40M by the end of 2018.

“Demand for this service in our new markets is already exceeding our expectations, and the Denver launch was the most successful start so far,” Zillow officials wrote in the presentation. “On average, during the third quarter, homes were sold well ahead of our 90-day target.”

Shelton declined to give details on its Atlanta search.

“We do plan on probably making a very large regional hub for the program and so we are actively looking, nothing is settled yet,” he said.

The company may look to lease a new Atlanta office by this summer, with plans to grow into it, Shelton said.

Zillow does already have a presence in Atlanta; Industrious houses the 50 current Zillow Offers Atlanta employees. Zillow's Bridge Interactive division, with a couple of dozen employees, has an office at Eleven Hundred Peachtree in Midtown.

While Zillow Offers has fewer than 200 employees, it is on a hiring spree, according to a report in Thinknum Media.