Opendoor, the largest remaining iBuyer, is back in the headlines. CEO Carrie Wheeler resigned three weeks ago under mounting pressure, and as of Sept. 10, Kaz Nejatian is the new CEO at the helm. This change was triggered by activist investors and meme-stock traders who sought to drive the company in a new direction.
At the same time, the stock has exploded up roughly 1,700 percent in 90 days, rising from $0.51 to around $9.00.
From an investor’s perspective, it appears the market likes the changes. Nejatian has Shopify executive leadership experience that brings significant credibility.
He announced that his plan will be to work with the OG founders again, as they are being added to the Board of Directors. This is a breath of fresh air. In his remarks, he stated that artificial intelligence will be used to make the process of buying and selling a home “radically simpler, faster and more certain.
The specifics of how this is done, of course, remain to be seen.
The question hanging over the industry: Is this the death of iBuying as we knew it, or the beginning of its second life?
The end of the original iBuyer dream
The original iBuyer model was simple in theory: Buy homes quickly, add paint and carpet, and flip them at scale. The vision was national, the margins were thin, and the risks enormous. Rising rates, capital costs and billions in inventory have now crushed that strategy. Recall that Zillow was in the game, lost $1 billion in 2021 on the project and closed the door (pun intended) on that chapter at the end of the year.
OfferPad is still in the game and OpenDoor’s closest rival. Oddly enough, they too are experiencing a boom, as spillover from the meme stock phenomenon, according to Yahoo Finance.
Former OpenDoor CEO Wheeler deserves credit for reducing burn and slimming operations over her two-year tenure.
Still, she never bought a single share of Opendoor, a signal that the long-term plan didn’t convince insiders. Her exit marks more than a leadership change. It symbolizes the end of the high-turnover, inventory-heavy iBuyer dream.
Side note: Don’t feel too bad for Wheeler, who sold her Opendoor shares for $35 million after her exit.
What’s next? Blackstone, not Zillow
Industry analyst and my friend Rob Hahn recently suggested a pivot: seller financing and rent-to-own. Instead of flipping homes quickly, Opendoor could assume mortgages, hold properties longer and generate recurring income. That model looks less like Zillow Offers and more like Blackstone: patient capital, steady cash flow and the potential for real estate subscriptions instead of one-time flips.
The idea isn’t crazy. Opendoor dipped into mortgage lending in 2019 (Opendoor Home Loans) and acquired Red Door in 2021 for instant approvals.
But Opendoor founder Eric Wu shut down that effort in 2022, and Wheeler kept the file closed.
But I think Hahn is on it here on a go-forward party. Reopening or acquiring another lending platform would require capital, grit and a rebuilt team.
Execution is the hard part. The strategic logic is sound.
Investors are forcing the pivot
The timing of Wheeler’s departure wasn’t random. Opendoor’s stock has soared on leadership change, better-than-expected July sales data from the National Association of Realtors, and pressure from activist investors like Keith Rabois and Eric Jackson. The Meme traders love the growth and volatility, but the message is clear: the old iBuyer playbook is broken.
Investors now want a lighter, tech-enabled marketplace with less inventory risk and more financing and data services. Wheeler’s exit clears the path for that transformation.
What the Opendoor shift means for agents
If Opendoor shifts toward rent-to-own or seller financing, the implications for agents are surprising. IBuying largely tried to cut agents out of the process. However, financing-based models require local expertise, including pricing homes, managing transitions and maintaining homeowner relationships.
In other words, the next phase could bring agents back into the fold. When the model shifts from speed to sustainability, it’s relationships — not algorithms — that win.
The bottom line
Opendoor’s next CEO won’t just be running a company. They’ll be leading a transformation — away from the old iBuyer dream and toward an afterlife that’s TBD. But if the stock continues to grow, it will do so with heaps of cash available — ironically, the very problem that caused the death of iBuyer.
Whether you call it resurrection or reinvention, iBuying as we knew it is gone. What rises in its place could reshape the intersection of real estate, finance and technology. And this time, agents might find themselves back at the center of the story.
Disclaimer: I am (and have been) an Opendoor investor for five years. So, on paper, I’ve lost an actual boatload as the stock dropped and would love for the company to find a solution that accelerates growth, helps the industry, assists with homeownership, and yeah, grows my bank account so I can hire a better stock advisor than my own gut.
Chris Drayer is co-founder of Revaluate, which segments consumers for marketers by propensity to move.
