jdross

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by jdross 10y ago
When we compared to third party appraisals we got on our homes vs final sales prices, we were more accurate than the appraisers
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by jdross 10y ago
Yes, we don't represent the Seller, though they're welcome to use an agent to sell to us if they want (they'll need to pay them though)
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by jdross 10y ago
I'm really sorry, if you email me I'll look into it. Jd@opendoor.com Can't say it's common, but pricing every home perfectly is hard. From what I can measure, our NPS is 70 and we track complaints pretty closely. For off
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by jdross 10y ago
The best way to invest is to join and exercise your stock options :) We're working hard to earn the right to operate as a public company.
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by jdross 10y ago
Also the cost of moving twice. First into a short term rental so you can get the money for your next down payment from your current home, then moving into your new home.
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by jdross 10y ago
That's fair and those are embarrassing tales in Silicon Valley. One difference is they were/are bets on a technology that wasn't in the market yet. We buy and sell thousands o homes, hopefully at the appropriate price for the
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by jdross 10y ago
Our current pricing model & offer process is more accurate than the in-home appraisals we've done with third parties. The in-home inspection we do before close catches major repair issues and other sources of adverse selection (e.g
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by jdross 10y ago
Thanks, if you're ever in the Bay Area you're welcome to come by for lunch and learn more! I'm jd@opendoor.com
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by jdross 10y ago
Keith recounted the story here, a bit, but Peter didn't comment: www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2016/11/30/home-shopping-networkers-opendoor-is-upending-the-way-americans-buy-and-sell-homes/#6d08e3f5
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by jdross 10y ago
We've now raised $320 million in equity. There are also lines of credit that get deployed into properties on acquisition. The company is just under 3 years old, so growing quickly. Let's see if anyone on the team is reading this a
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by jdross 10y ago
There's a lot of grey area between engineering and data science for us. To somewhat simplify, we have 17 product engineers, 5 data engineers, and 19 data scientists. We operate the company in "lanes" like Seller, Buyes, Homes
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by jdross 10y ago
Across thousands of homes, we have a pretty good sense of the costs here. Since we do the full home inspection before close, it's not as bad as you might think. We've learned to ask about and look for the obvious things (airplane
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by jdross 10y ago
Give it some time. Useful to look into why Redfin never really took off. There's so much fat in real estate outside of the agent fee, too. Mortgage closing costs, title insurance, escrow fees... it's ripe for improvement full-stac
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by jdross 10y ago
Market making is much closer to how we at Opendoor think of it internally. Flippers buy distressed assets at a huge discount and plow money into renovations and repairs. Not really our business.
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by jdross 10y ago
Possibly, but I think the simpler answer is that we have a product with... - good unit economics in appreciating and depreciating sub-geographies - customers who love us and great conversion rates - a sane risk strategy - a unique product w
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by jdross 10y ago
Hey, definitely appreciate the criticism. Without going into too much detail, investors aren't generally in the business of losing money and at the scale of investment we've taken we're far beyond "bet on the team"
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by jdross 10y ago
Co-founder here, I'll do my best to answer questions. The number one question we get is likely "what happens in a downturn/recession?", but that's more of a blog post than a HN answer. Anything more detailed/te
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The Marriage Decision: Everything Forever or Nothing Ever Again(waitbutwhy.com)
2 points by jdross 10y ago|0 comments
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by jdross 10y ago
Your comment reminds me of this incredibly wrong post by DHH: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33...
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by jdross 11y ago
My understanding from speaking with former PM's is they moved their sign-up-to-view "paywall" from the first page you view to the second page, at least when you come from a social network or search engine. That obviously incr
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by jdross 11y ago
Groupon ($GRPN) is valued at 1.3 Billion, roughly its all time low. So I'm not sure that's the metaphor you wanted?
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by jdross 11y ago
Yes, we buy (almost) all houses ourselves then sell them, taking on that risk. If they don't sell, we lower the price until they do. Homes are hard assets, and always have a price. In many cases, we lose money.
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by jdross 11y ago
Yes, it's an option we've discussed. It obviously depends on liquidity in the market at the time and the size of the decrease. It's worth remembering that housing has only crashed like this twice in 100 years, and that a lot
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by jdross 11y ago
Possibly Sacramento
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by jdross 11y ago
This was in a highly distressed market, and 3%/month was the most steep the fall got
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by jdross 11y ago
This is astute, and most RE startups don't understand the importance of buyers "not paying" and also needing to sign with a buyer's agent in order to visit and view homes for sale. NAR's stated purpose is to protect
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by jdross 11y ago
They don't exist, at least at any meaningful scale. You can hedge against mortgage defaults, but it's not really the same thing.
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by jdross 11y ago
Your last paragraph is pretty spot on. As for housing risk, we spend a lot of time on this. A few points: - Real Estate is very momentum driven and pretty slow. Markets don't crash in a day, like stocks. The fastest price changes in 20
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by jdross 11y ago
It's fair to say we spend a considerable amount of time thinking about this. I'll give more detail in answer to parent.
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by jdross 11y ago
We believe moving homes should be as easy as trading in a car. The buying experience is a key part of that. If you're in Phoenix (or Dallas soon), check out our homes anytime. It's fun.

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