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31% of Phoenix homebuyers make offers on houses they’ve never seen

Making an offer on a home you've never seen before, but it's pretty common.

PHOENIX - Would you buy home without seeing it? A new survey found a third of homebuyers in Phoenix do.

According to real estate brokerage firm Redfin, 31 percent of Phoenix homebuyers bid sight unseen, meaning people are purchasing homes before they even visit the property.

And while that number may seem shocking, it’s not so far off from the percentage of national homebuyers. According to Redfin, 35 percent of homebuyers bid on a home before seeing it in person in 2017.

To find that number, Redfin surveyed 1,500 people across 14 major metro areas who purchased a home in the previous year.

So what’s the reasoning for eager bidding? People relocating on a tight deadline and competitive markets may be the answer. For example, in Los Angeles, nearly 60 percent of homebuyers made sight unseen bids.

Plus, we can't overlook the house flippers in the Phoenix area who may not need to see the house before buying. For them, it's all about location. According to a study released in September, Phoenix is the hottest metro area for flipped homes.

Those reasons seem to correlate with millennial homebuyers which are likely to make offers on homes without visiting them. Redfin’s survey shows 45 percent of millennial homebuyers do so.

Here are the metro areas and the percentage of homebuyers who said they made an offer on a home they hadn't seen:

Los Angeles: 57%

San Diego: 46%

San Francisco: 44%

Chicago: 38%

Austin; 35%

Denver: 33%

Washington, D.C.: 32%

Phoenix: 31%

Portland: 30%

Sacramento: 30%

Baltimore; 28%

Dallas: 27%

Boston: 25%

Seattle: 19%

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