Opendoor Still Believes in iBuying: If a Home Sells for $420,000, How Much Did It Actually Earn?
The easiest Opendoor number to misunderstand is revenue. If a software company generates $420,000 of revenue, customers may have paid $420,000 for software and services. If Opendoor generates $420,000 of revenue, it may simply have sold one home for $420,000. If that home originally cost $400,000, the initial spread is only $20,000. Then additional costs must be deducted. Repairs. Maintenance. Financing. Property-related expenses. Transaction costs. Operating expenses. And the cost of holding the home longer than expected. So the correct question is not: How many billions of dollars of homes did Opendoor sell? It is: **How much money was left from each home after all costs?** There is a second question: **How long did it take to convert that home back into cash?** That is inventory turnover. If a home was expected to sell in 30 days but actually took 120 days, Opendoor did not simply receive its money 90 days later. Capital remained tied up for another 90 days. Financing costs continued. Maintenance continued. And housing prices could continue changing. In iBuying, time itself is a cost. During 2020–2021, rising home prices could hide some of this risk. If prices continued increasing after Opendoor purchased a home, holding the property longer could sometimes be partially offset by market appreciation. After 2022, the environment changed. Interest rates rose. Mortgage affordability weakened. Housing transactions came under pressure. Opendoor had to answer more difficult questions. What price should we pay for this home today? What can it realistically sell for later? How long will that take? What will happen to repair and financing costs during that period? And if the market declines another 5%, is there still enough margin of safety? Those questions define the real capability required for iBuying. This is where Opendoor and Zillow provide a useful contrast. Zillow encountered Principal Risk and decided in 2021 to exit. Its answer was: **This is not the risk we should be carrying.** Opendoor made a different choice: **This is our core business. We will continue, but we must manage it more rigorously.** That makes Opendoor's test more direct. It cannot prove strategic correction by exiting. It must prove that iBuying itself can produce sustainable unit economics. Opendoor needs to buy at the right price. Leave enough margin of safety. Complete repairs efficiently. Turn inventory quickly. Control financing costs. And avoid allowing old inventory to accumulate. A systematic problem in any one of these areas can consume a thin expected spread. That is why $4.4 billion of annual revenue does not by itself prove that the model works. If revenue is large but contribution per home remains insufficient, scale may simply increase capital requirements. Conversely, if Opendoor deliberately buys fewer homes and reported revenue declines while the remaining inventory has better economics, lower revenue does not automatically mean weaker operations. Revenue was approximately $4.4 billion in 2025. Q2 2026 revenue was approximately $883 million, down materially year over year, while net loss remained significant. As of September 12, 2026, there is not enough evidence to declare the model a Success. But Opendoor continues operating and has not exited iBuying as Zillow did. The Outcome therefore remains Ongoing. The real question still waiting for an answer is: **Can Opendoor make each home consistently profitable after fully accounting for capital and time?**