Opendoor’s founder and CEO, Eric Wu, bought his first house at 19 and was instantly hooked. He bought 20 homes within the next three years and went on to start two real estate technology companies. After selling the second company to Trulia, he served as head of product and had the opportunity to talk to people every day about their experiences buying and selling homes. He heard time and again that people craved more convenience and certainty; a problem he was convinced could be solved using the advances in machine learning, data science and on-demand technologies.
Opendoor
• Address: 317 S. Sixth St., Las Vegas
• Phone: 702-710-3787
• Email: [email protected]
• Website: www.opendoor.com
• Hours of operation: 24/7 online
• Owned/operated by: Opendoor Labs
• Local Manager: Akilah Rogers, general manager, Las Vegas
• In business since: 2014 (2017 locally)
Tell us about Opendoor.
Opendoor is changing the way people buy and sell homes by moving the transaction online. Home sellers visit our website, fill out information about their home and get an offer within 24 hours. This eliminates the hassle of keeping a home show-ready and the period of uncertainty before receiving an offer. Opendoor also has transformed the home-shopping experience, making it possible to visit homes for sale all day, everyday using our mobile app. The on-demand viewings make it possible to view homes multiple times before making an offer.
Who are your clients?
Our customers include retired couples looking to downsize, young married couples looking for a bigger house and families looking to move to a different school district. The common link between all of our customers is they crave the simplicity, certainty and control they get when working with Opendoor.
We recently commissioned a study to better understand Las Vegas homeowner sentiment about the process of moving. We learned that over 40 percent of residents would move to a bigger house if selling a home were easier. That speaks to the pent-up demand that exists among homeowners for a simple, instant service like Opendoor.
What is your business philosophy?
Our philosophy is the customer experience should be simple, it should be instant, and it should be exceptional. One of our core values is to start and end with the customer, a value that is now deeply ingrained in the fabric of Opendoor. We use it as the guiding principle when making decisions on everything from product to operations to partnerships.
Why did Opendoor choose Las Vegas and where are you expanding in the future?
Las Vegas is a town that is busy, booming and transient, all at the same time. Given Las Vegas homeowners stay in their homes only three to four years on average, shorter than the seven-year national average, it was a natural fit for Opendoor. Las Vegas also has one of the nation’s highest rates of nonowner-occupied homes, which poses a logistical challenge when the owner wants to sell that home. You’re not there to paint the house, show it and, ultimately, sell it. Opendoor can help those sellers quickly and easily, even from afar.
We’re expanding across the country, and have also launched in Dallas-Fort Worth, Atlanta, Orlando and Raleigh-Durham, with many more cities in the pipeline.
Where do you see your company in five years?
We expect Opendoor will be available across the country, with even more products and services. Our vision is a one-click home-buying and -selling experience, and we won’t stop innovating until we get there.