What Do You Call An Ibuyer That Isn’t Ibuying Houses?

Opendoor looked like it had the potential to disrupt the entire residential real estate industry when it launched in 2014, but today it and competitor Offerpad are almost afterthoughts.

The so-called iBuyers have yet to find a way to consistently turn a profit, and their presence in the industry has slowly shrunk. With macroeconomic headwinds keeping the housing market subdued, there are less opportunities for them to algorithmically flip houses.

Forced to proceed cautiously, Opendoor and Offerpad are buying significantly fewer homes than they have in the past, making it harder for them to break even. Now with their stocks hovering around $1, their futures are in doubt.

“The [iBuying] model itself is dependent on high continuous volume,” said Ryan Tomasello, an equities analyst at Keefe, Bruyette and Woods. “Right now, these companies aren’t buying a lot of houses. If you can’t buy homes in [the economic] environment, is the model even scalable? That’s where a lot of investors struggle.” 

iBuying: A business model walking a tight rope

Opendoor and Offerpad effectively identified a need for home sellers — the ability to line up the timelines between selling and buying a home. They use algorithms to provide sellers an instant cash offer. If it’s accepted, they fix up the home and sell it on the open market. The seller can then move out whenever their new home is ready to move into.

This business model is highly capital intensive, operates on low margins, has long transaction times and requires high volume to reach breakeven. This is generally not a recipe for success.

Above all, it depends on a steady housing market so homes can be accurately priced by the algorithm and flipped for a sufficient margin. When the companies launched, home prices were steadily rising and sales volume was such that there was enough opportunity.

With an innovative, tech-enable concept, the iBuyers turned heads.

The industry jumps head first into iBuying …

As the two companies gained traction, players in the residential real estate industry saw Opendoor and Offerpad as a threat, and iBuying as the potential key to becoming the elusive “one-stop shop” platform for homebuyers and sellers.

Major players acted accordingly, as Zillow, Redfin, Realogy (now Anywhere) and Keller Williams launched their own versions of iBuying between 2017 and 2019, and a number of tech startups were founded with different spins on the iBuying concept.

“I feel like I have no choice now,” Keller Williams CEO Gary Keller said in 2019 when his company joined the fray. “I can’t allow Opendoor or Zillow to go out and be the only player in the iBuyer space and then begin to dictate terms and build brand around ‘they buy houses.'”

… then jumps right out

Given the iBuying model depends on threading a needle within a steady market, it was put to the test after the pandemic began in March 2020. The housing market turned volatile and generated a huge pricing bubble, as homeowners and buyers looked to adjust to lockdown orders.

Zillow cut its losses early by shuttering its Zillow Offers program in November 2021, as its algorithm failed to adjust. A year later, Redfin shut down Redfin Now after it resulted in a $22 million quarterly loss.

But Opendoor and Offerpad had no choice but to keep going. The pandemic bubble resulted in enormous spikes in revenue, with Opendoor tallying $5.15 billion in the first quarter of 2022, and Offerpad hit $1.37 billion, both all-time highs.

But it didn’t result in sustainable positive net income, and in fact did quite the opposite. While both companies achieved meager profits in the first quarter of 2022, Opendoor suffered an astronomical $928 million loss just two quarters later. In the fourth quarter of 2022, Offerpad posted its highest loss at $121 million.

A scramble to stop the bleeding

Opendoor and Offerpad have scaled back their operations dramatically. In 2022, Opendoor bought just under 35,000 homes. In 2024 it purchased 14,684.

The number of homes they have under contract to purchase at the end of each quarter serves as a measuring stick for buying activity. At the end of the first quarter this year, Opendoor was under contract for just over 1,000 homes, with Offerpad at 245. Those numbers are substantially lower than the pandemic bubble peak.

To make up for the loss of revenue, both companies have looked to aggressively cut costs. Opendoor laid off 17% of its workforce in November, which followed a 22% reduction in April 2023. Offerpad laid off 7% of its employees in 2022 and an undisclosed number to open 2023.

But according to Tomasello, there isn’t much meat on the bone left to cut.

While iBuying is a term known in the real estate industry, it’s hardly known at all among the general public. In addition, Opendoor and Offerpad are not well known brands either, so they depend on advertising and partnerships to generate leads. This means they can only reduce ad spend by so much

Offerpad says it’s retooling its marketing strategies to get more out of the money they spend, rather than spending more money.

“We’re being more intentional with every marketing dollar,” said Offerpad Vice President Cortney Read in an email to HousingWire. “The goal isn’t to pull back, but to allocate spend where we’re seeing the most effective return, whether that’s in digital channels, direct to consumer, partnerships, or through our agent program.”

Where do iBuyers go from here?

Fluctuating trade policy has damaged consumer sentiment and mortgage rates remain persistently high. The number of homes for sale has steadily increased this year, but sales are in line with last year’s historic lows.

With so much macroeconomic uncertainty holding back an already sagging housing market, where do iBuyers go from here?

Offerpad has expanded to other services it characterizes as “asset light” in the hope of supplementing its iBuying operation. These include listings services, mortgage, title and a renovation business called Renovate, which generated $5.3 million in Q1 of this year.

Opendoor has previously provided mortgage lending and brokerage services but has since shuttered those operations as part of cost cutting in 2022.

The two companies don’t have much choice but to be careful and strategic about where and when to buy homes. Doing otherwise could endanger the companies if the housing market turns volatile again.

Companies in this situation might look to sell or merge with another company, but there’s no natural partner for such a transaction, particularly given the major players in residential real estate have already washed their hands of iBuying.

Still, with their stocks flirting with the possibility of being delisted, the two companies could find value in M&A if the right situation presents itself.

“In the regular course of business, like most companies, we opportunistically evaluate strategic opportunities that we believe would create value for our company and stockholders,” Read said.