Has anyone encountered this new realty company Open Door?

[Gerald Hand]

I came across this phenomenon a couple weeks ago when neighbors a few doors up from us disappeared one day and the next was a sign in their yard For Sale by Open Door. We live in the DFW area.

The concept is pretty interesting- they buy my house and then list it. When you are ready to look at it, you come up and contact the local rep and they let you in via remote to explore the house on your own and on your schedule. Pretty cool. Or so I thought.

My experience thus far having viewed 5 homes and noting price/sf on several others is it seems they are not understanding the nuances of each neighborhood (some more desirable b/c of age of home or school ratings) nor are the homes, in my opinion, move in ready. They often need a good cleaning and all certainly need paint. Despite these deficiencies they are listing the homes at top dollar value, in our case around $155/sf for a 2 level that has not been touched or updated in almost 20 years. 

Is anyone else seeing these pop up in their area? Are you experiencing the same? What is their business model? Surely the carrying costs have to be astronomical.

[Mike Serben]

Tom, they exited the over $300K submarket here in DFW last year because that market has been in a shift, and they must not want the exposure. The reason to sell to them is if you are, for whatever reason, more concerned about the speed of the transaction than what you net, and your home isn't attracting investors. However, they are still home investors like us. If you want to sell the home fast and net the most, you must be priced right and on the MLS. I've never been beat by them for a listing. I've always demonstrated to the Seller why the numbers work better for them by using me.