Less home sales stress, more time for family togetherness

With four kids aged 3 to 15 and two full-time jobs, it’s no wonder Crystal Cloyd and her husband, Jack, had little time for selling their first home in Frisco, Texas.

After years coaching football on one side of Frisco, Jack accepted a better position as the head football coach at a cross-town high school. The kids wanted to be in the same school as their father, so Jack and Crystal moved them into the new school district, but the result was a lengthy, 40-minute commute between home and the new schools.

On the hunt for time-saving real estate options, Crystal, who manages the Dallas-Fort Worth marketing for Raising Canes, a southern fast-casual restaurant chain, first turned to another online real estate firm. The experience, however, left a lot to be desired. The company was uncommunicative. Crystal’s initial listing agent left the company, but no one informed her for over four months.

“It left a bad taste in our mouth,” Crystal said. “It was six to seven months of our lives wasted.”

Disappointed, and frustrated with trying to keep a home with four children “show ready” at a moment’s notice, Crystal to begin to lose hope. The search for a new home was also slow-going.

“We were looking for a super specific set of criteria: the location, the size, and in our price range,” she said.

A Chance Sighting

In a stroke of good luck, Crystal drove by a Frisco home in the new school district and saw the Opendoor “For Sale” sign in the yard. She thought the home might be a good fit price and square footage-wise, and called the number on the sign to gain instant access to the property. Touring the house that day, she knew it was perfect for her and her family, but wondered how to move forward when they couldn’t sell their own home.

The family was eating dinner later that same day when they received a call from an Opendoor Home Advisor asking how they liked the property. “I told them, ‘Well, we love it, but we still have our house;.” Crystal remembers, “And then they said, ‘that’s okay, we’ll buy it from you’.”

Cautious, but willing to try, Crystal agreed to let Opendoor make an offer on her current home, a custom build with lots of upgrades. After receiving a great offer, the couple decided it made sense to take advantage of the company’s trade-in program, which would save them time and hassle.

“I value my time and my sanity, and we thought the offer they offered was very fair,” she said. As an added bonus, Crystal didn’t have to worry about showings, cleaning or staging the home. They just had to pack and move.

“Just try it out. They make an offer, so that part is done, you find your dream home and then you move in. It’s that simple.”

A New Chapter

After agreeing to the sale, Crystal loved “how quick everything went.”

Within 30 days of initially touring the new home, the family moved in, just in time for the kids to spend the summer making new friends in their new neighborhood. Crystal appreciated the peace of mind Opendoor provided when the company replaced the roof and gutters on the new home, and the dishwasher and stove — all repairs and upgrades Crystal negotiated during the sale.

In the end, the move was a big win for everyone.

Jack was closer to work, and Crystal and the kids no longer commuted 40-minutes to and from school.

“We definitely won in the end,” she says, “We literally would not have gotten the house if it hadn’t been for Opendoor.”