IBuying giant Opendoor is set to launch a new end-to-end product designed to make it easier for consumers to sell their current home while also buying a new property, it was announced Thursday.
Tom Willerer
The product is called Opendoor Complete. In a blog post, Opendoor Chief Product Officer Tom Willerer said the new product combines “selling, buying, and closing into one simple transaction so customers can move seamlessly.” In practice that means Opendoor Complete is a new platform where consumers can track the progress of their transactions, learn how much they can put toward a new purchase, and take advantage of the company’s cash back program.
All of which is to say, Opendoor Complete puts all of the company’s offerings in one place.
For the time being, Opendoor Complete will be available to consumers via the web (as opposed to an app). People who don’t need a comprehensive experience that includes both selling and buying can also still use Sell Direct, Opendoor’s bread-and-butter program for selling a home, or the company’s cash offer buying products.
The debut of Opendoor Complete comes at a time of growth for Opendoor, with the company revealing just days ago that it plans to expand its technical team into Canada.
News of Opendoor’s nascent platform also comes just days after Zillow revealed it would be shuttering its own iBuying program, Zillow Offers. Though Opendoor has long been the biggest company in the iBuying space, Zillow had gradually been gaining ground and was the only company that, up until this week, represented anything resembling a near-term threat to Opendoor’s dominance. The end of Zillow Offers, then, leaves Opendoor as the undisputed king of iBuying for the moment.
Zillow’s pivot away from iBuying consequently looks like a major victory for Opendoor, though the demise of Zillow Offers has also prompted an ongoing debate about the viability of the cash offer model generally.
That debate is far from settled, but for the moment Opendoor continues to make new product and hiring announcements that hint at a strategy of continued growth.
It’s also significant that the company is framing Opendoor Complete as an “end-to-end” platform. Such platforms have become a kind of holy grail for real estate companies as they try to keep consumers in a contained and comprehensive ecosystem.
In his blog post, Willerer ultimately concluded that such a platform allows Opendoor to “consistently deliver confidence and peace of mind to our customers.”
