Notorious POD: On the Opendoor Hype

This began as a written post, but I decided it would be easier and possibly more effective as a podcast episode.

Even as the biggest fan of iBuying in general in the real estate industry, and Opendoor in particular as a shareholder, as someone who would desperately want to see Opendoor go to $82 a share and reinvent real estate… I simply cannot wrap my head around the hype coming from the so-called “Opendoor Army” led by Eric Jackson, a fund manager out of Canada.

I wouldn’t be interested… except that I am seeing on social media like Reddit and Twitter/X that individuals are putting their life savings into Opendoor hoping to ride the rocket to “When Lambo?” riches. It’s so reminiscent of the crypto rugpull scams.

I am not suggesting that Opendoor proponents are pulling a rugpull, nor am I suggesting that they are engaging in illegal pump-and-dump schemes, because I don’t know what their motivations are and I don’t think anyone has made false or misleading statements to pump up Opendoor’s stock price. But some of the statements being made are ignorant of the real issues with Opendoor, and they appear to be incurious about how the real estate industry actually works.

So… this episode. I go through some of the statements made, and dig into what is actually going on at Opendoor. I look at earnings calls, look at official blogposts, and online statements and ask a lot of questions. There’s a lot of AI hype in the Opendoor story, which does not make sense.

You don’t have to agree with me; I suspect many of you will not. But there are far too many people putting money into this stock like it is AMC or Gamestop. I don’t know AMC or Gamestop; I do know real estate and I do know Opendoor. So this episode.

I have nothing to gain from these questions and these objections, and I am a shareholder of Opendoor who would love to see shares go to the moon. I just think people ought to go beyond the hype.

-rsh