Guide · September 18, 2026 · 8 min read
Sell my house to Zillow? You cannot, and here is what a Utah seller can do instead.
Zillow has not bought a house since it closed Zillow Offers in November 2021. What is left on its site is a listing, a referral, and a partner’s cash offer, and each of those is a different road with different arithmetic.
No. You cannot sell your house to Zillow, because Zillow stopped buying houses when it wound down Zillow Offers in November 2021. Today Zillow gives a seller a listing, a referral to a partner agent, and a cash-offer request that goes to a partner company. A Utah seller who wants cash sells to a local buyer or to an iBuyer.
Can you still sell your house to Zillow?
No, and that has been true for several years. Zillow does not buy houses in Utah or anywhere else. The sell button on its site does not end with Zillow writing you a check. It ends with a choice between listing through an agent Zillow refers you to and requesting a cash offer from a company Zillow partners with. On either road Zillow is the introduction, not the buyer.
The ads above the results for “sell my house to Zillow” are mostly not Zillow either. They are agents, iBuyers and cash buyers paying for the phrase.
What was Zillow Offers, and why did it stop?
Zillow Offers was Zillow’s own home-buying arm. It priced houses with software, bought them for cash, did light repairs, and resold them, which is the business model people now call iBuying. On November 2, 2021, Zillow’s board decided to wind the program down, and the company said so in a filing with the SEC. The reasons it gave were home-pricing unpredictability, capacity constraints and operating problems made worse by the pandemic and a tight labor and supply market. The wind-down was expected to take several quarters and cut roughly a quarter of Zillow’s staff.
The lesson is not that cash buyers are a bad idea. It is that pricing a house from data without walking through it is hard, even with Zillow’s data. A local buyer who walks the house prices what is actually there.
What does Zillow do for a seller now?
Three things. It lists your house, whether an agent posts it or you do, and puts it in front of the buyers who browse the site every day. It refers you to a partner agent, who pays Zillow for the introduction. And it lets you request a cash offer through a partner. As of this writing that partner is Opendoor, so the number, the fee, the assessment and the contract are all Opendoor’s, not Zillow’s.
Zillow does not charge you to list, as of this writing. The money moves at the end, in the commission you pay the agent or in the service fee the cash-offer partner takes. Read both in dollars before you pick a road.
How does a local Utah cash offer compare with the iBuyers still operating?
The main iBuyer along the Wasatch Front, as of this writing, is Opendoor. The difference between its offer and ours is what comes off the number after you say yes. An iBuyer prices from data, then adjusts after an assessment and takes a service fee. We price after one walkthrough, and the written number is the number the title company wires.
| Line | Listed on Zillow with an agent | Opendoor (as of this writing) | Local cash buyer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days to close | 60 to 120 from listing to funds | 21 to 60 or more, on their schedule | 7, or your date |
| Fees | Commission, commonly 5% to 6% | A service fee, which Opendoor calls competitive with a commission | None |
| Repairs | Buyer asks after the inspection | Deducted from the offer after their assessment | None. The condition is already in the price |
| Certainty | Depends on the buyer’s loan and appraisal | Offer is finalized after the assessment | The written number holds |
| Who looks at the house | Every buyer, at showings | A video or in-person assessment | One walkthrough |
| Likely price | Highest, on a house that shows well | Near retail before fees and deductions | Below retail, nothing off afterward |
The last row is the honest one. On a newer house in good condition inside a zip code it covers, an iBuyer can pay more than we can, and a listing can beat both of us. The fee-by-fee version, and the case where you should take the iBuyer’s number, is on our comparison with an iBuyer. Before you sign with any buyer, us included, run through the seven questions on companies that buy houses.
How much less than the Zestimate should you expect from a cash offer?
It depends on the house, and the Zestimate is the wrong starting point anyway. A Zestimate is a model’s guess at a listed sale price, built from public records and nearby sales by software that has never seen your kitchen. A cash offer starts somewhere else. It begins with the repaired value, then subtracts the repairs, the buyer’s holding and resale costs, and a margin.
Take a Herriman house with a Zestimate of $520K, a roof at the end of its life and a furnace from the 1990s. Suppose the two repairs come to $30K. Here are the three roads it could take, with example numbers, not a quote.
- Listed through an agent. You fix the roof first or you take an inspection credit for it. Suppose the house sells at $520K. Off that come the commission and closing costs, at the 5% to 6% and 1% to 3% ranges we use on our cash buyer vs realtor page. Then the $30K of work, and three months of mortgage, taxes and utilities while it sits. On these example numbers the seller nets roughly $440K, and that is when the buyer’s loan and appraisal both hold.
- Opendoor. The first number starts near the model’s figure. Then the service fee comes off, and after the assessment the same roof and furnace come off as deductions. The net is their offer minus both, and you only know it after the assessment.
- A local cash buyer. One written number with the roof and the furnace already inside it, and nothing off afterward. On this house, expect our number to come in under that $440K listed net, because what it costs us to fix and resell it comes out of that same price.
How far under has no fixed answer. It depends on the work, the street, and how quickly the house will resell. A house that needs $5K of paint sits close to the listed net; a house with a failed foundation sits far from it. The only honest way to find out is to get the number in writing and set it beside the listed net, not beside the Zestimate. How to test the three figures behind an offer is on our cash offer page.
When is listing on Zillow the better choice?
Whenever the house is in good shape and you can wait. A market-ready house in a strong Wasatch Front neighborhood, Herriman included, will usually net more listed on Zillow through an agent than it will from any cash buyer, us included. That holds even after the commission comes out. A listing puts the house in front of every buyer in the county at once, and competition is what lifts a price.
List it if most of these are true:
- The house would photograph well for a Zillow listing after a weekend of cleaning and paint
- Another quarter of payments, taxes and insurance would not hurt you
- Nothing about your timing depends on a closing date
- Nobody is living there who cannot leave for showings
Get a cash number if one of these is true instead:
- The inspection would find work you cannot fund before listing
- The date is set for you: a trustee sale, a move already booked, a job that starts soon
- The house is part of an estate or a divorce, or it has a tenant in it
- It is sitting empty and every month costs you money
If the first list describes you, list it. That is the answer you would get from us on a call as well.
Questions people ask
Does Zillow still buy houses?
No. Zillow wound down Zillow Offers, its home-buying program, starting in November 2021, and it has not bought houses since. A cash offer requested on Zillow’s site today comes from a partner company, not from Zillow.
Which iBuyers operate in Utah?
As of this writing, Opendoor says it buys houses in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area. Others have come and gone, and coverage is by zip code and changes without notice. Put your address into the company’s own site rather than trusting a list, including this one.
How accurate is the Zestimate for a cash offer?
Not very useful for that. The Zestimate estimates what a listed sale might bring, from records and nearby sales. A Zestimate is an estimate, not an appraisal, and it is built without anyone seeing inside the house. A cash offer is priced from the condition of the house and the cost to resell it, so compare it with the net from a listing, not with the Zestimate.
Is a Zillow cash offer the same as a cash buyer’s offer?
No. As of this writing, a cash offer requested through Zillow comes from Opendoor, an iBuyer, and it carries a service fee and deductions that are set after an assessment. A local cash buyer’s offer is one number with the condition already priced in. Both are cash and both skip the lender. The difference is what gets subtracted after you say yes.
Does Zillow charge a fee to sell?
Not to you directly, as of this writing. Zillow is paid by the agents and partners it refers you to. What you pay is the agent’s commission on a listing, or the partner’s service fee and deductions on a cash offer. Ask for either one in dollars before you sign.
One last thing, said plainly. If the house shows well and you can carry it for three months, list it on Zillow with an agent and take the higher number. We lose that comparison on most houses in good shape, and we say so on the phone. Where we win is the house a listing would struggle with: the roof, the tenant, the date, the estate. If that is yours, get your cash offer in writing and hold it against the listed net rather than the Zestimate. The number costs nothing and stays yours to use as a benchmark, whether or not you ever sell to us.
Find out what your house is worth in cash. Free, and no strings.
One phone call, or one short form. You'll have a real number by this time tomorrow.
Tell us about the house
Where the house is, your name, and a number we can reach you on. We call back within one business day, and you're free to say no.