Zillow Offers To Sign Long-Term Deal At Three Ravinia Drive
The homebuying unit of residential search site Zillow has landed at Three Ravinia.
Seattle-based Zillow has agreed to lease permanent space at iconic office tower Three Ravinia Drive in Central Perimeter for its Zillow Offers Southeast hub, company spokesperson Viet Shelton confirmed to Bisnow.
Zillow is currently in temporary space in the 817K SF, pagoda-like tower, but its future office will ultimately house several hundred employees, Shelton said. Earlier this year, Bisnow first reported Zillow was searching for upward of 100K SF in Metro Atlanta.
“We're still in conversations about what the final size and footprint will be,” Shelton said.
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. That avoids a seller having to do things such as host open houses, pay to stage their home or clear out when potential buyers come for a tour.
Zillow Offers began service in Atlanta in September 2018, its third market after Phoenix and Las Vegas. For the six-month period ending June 30, Zillow reported a revenue increase of $428.6M — or 69% — from the same period in 2018, primarily attributable to its Zillow Offers business. During the three months ending June 30, Zillow spent $240.7M buying and renovating 786 homes that were then sold through the Zillow Offers division, according to the company's latest quarterly report.
Zillow also had $266.2M of homes under contract as of June. The rollout of Zillow Offers has required the company to borrow more than $400M from a revolving credit facility, which has a maximum borrowing capacity of $1B, according to information filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The expansion of Zillow Group's purchase of homes in the Zillow Offers program and sale of homes on the open market continues to have a significant impact on our liquidity and capital resources as a cash and inventory intensive initiative,” officials said in SEC documents.
The Atlanta office for Zillow Offers will cover the Southeast market, including South Florida, Orlando, Tampa, Charlotte, Raleigh and Atlanta, Shelton said.
"We have a number of markets in the Southeast. Atlanta and Georgia have really been a stellar market in terms of consumers," he said.
CORRECTION, OCT. 15, 5:45 P.M. ET: A previous version of the story misstated the number of employees in Zillow's Atlanta office. The story has been updated.
