Home Shopping Networkers

Opendoor bids for houses sight unseen and buys them fast. Sellers can get a fair price in cash for their property in as little as three days. The idea is already upending real estate markets in the Southwest— and it’s set to go national.

- Amy Feldman

In the summer of 2015, Ranjit Bosu, a 46-year-old systems administrator at General Motors, got the opportunity to transfer from Phoenix to Austin, Texas. He and his wife, Natasha, 41, put their home on the market, asking $335,000. Three months passed, as potential buyers came and went without making an offer. The Bosus tried cutting the price to $320,000. “Our Realtor kept telling us, ‘It’ll sell, it’ll sell,’ but then it was already September, and it was too late,” Natasha says. The failure to sell their home meant they had to pass on the transfer.

A year later they decided to try again. This time they contacted Opendoor, a San Francisco-based startup that buys homes for cash based on a black-box pricing algorithm. The Bosus filled out Opendoor’s online questionnaire, and within days, they accepted an offer of $334,000 for their five-bedroom home. “Initially, I thought they would probably lowball me,” Natasha says, “but when they sent me my offer I was pleasantly surprised.” They closed on the deal in August, and the family moved to an apartment and waited for the transfer to be finalized. In November they closed on the purchase of a new home in Austin.