As residential brokerage websites like Zillow and Redfin up their online home selling platforms, a growing new service largely known as iBuying, one Orange County firm is looking to bring the instant-offer model to the commercial real estate world.
Irvine-based commercial brokerage WindWater Real Estate recently launched WindWater Instant Offer, which allows owners of area commercial properties to receive an all-cash offer for their buildings.
“We are focusing on the future of real estate, and using technology to create new strategies for interested owners and investors,” Chief Executive Rudy Caamaño told the Business Journal.
“It’s a dynamic product that will create more liquidity in the market and streamline the selling process.”
Tech Platform
The product has been in development for several years, according to Caamaño.
It uses an algorithm that provides sellers of the primary commercial product types—office, retail, and industrial—with a price offer range.
On the back end, WindWater will work to secure an interested buyer.
“We underwrite properties from the perspective of knowing what buyers are willing to pay, and we match each opportunity with an investor that has already been prequalified,” Caamaño said.
If one isn’t readily available, WindWater will acquire the property on the previously agreed terms, “holding the property until we find the right investor.”
The platform is launching exclusively in Orange County for the time being.
WindWater hasn’t specified how much it plans to invest in the service, but Caamaño said the company has backing from private investors and is in discussions with institutional partnerships.
On a national basis, iBuying is picking up steam, particularly for home sales, where there’s been a 25% uptick in that type of sales transaction over the past year, according to industry reports.
Opendoor, one of the first national firms of its type, said it bought over 10,000 homes in 2018, and has expanded to 20 cities across the United States. Zillow, which has a large operations base in Irvine, has been expanding its iBuying services for homes in and around Orange County over the past year.
Access
Caamaño has experience on the acquisition front; he was once half of local firm Kelemen Caamaño Investments, one of the area’s top investors and developers of creative office spaces. The firm’s principals split their operations into separate units more than a year ago.
WindWater has since been brokering deals on behalf of that investment firm, which has been shedding the remainder of its legacy portfolio in recent months.
“We are a brokerage that has a proven track record in this market,” Caamaño said.
“At the end of the day, our goal is to provide the maximum exposure for buyers and sellers, open up the market and make it transparent so everyone has access to different options.”
