Start and End with the Customer

At this moment, I’m reminded of why we founded Opendoor more than five years ago. We started this company to simplify a complicated experience. We started this company to help customers move between cities, neighborhoods, and homes. We started this company to reinvent an entire category. That’s why we wake up to work every day and why we’re proud of what we do. That hasn’t changed.

During this unprecedented time, I’m also reminded of the reality around us. My sister, an emergency medicine doctor in New York City, is fighting to help every patient possible. 24 hour days, 7 days a week, our first responders are working tirelessly for patients in difficult and stressful circumstances. While we aren’t serving in hospitals, we can at least help prevent others from needing to go, and it is our responsibility to put the health and safety of our customers and teammates first.

Though major parts of our experience are virtual and self-service, there are still elements that require real-world interaction from our teammates, including home assessments and home repairs. Thus, we made the decision last week to prioritize the safety of our customers and teammates by temporarily pausing new offers.

In addition, our local communities and partners have been impacted, with closures and staffing issues facing government offices and home transactions being delayed or postponed in some regions. Given we will likely see delays in closings, we felt it was more appropriate to pause new offers so customers can plan accordingly.

We know that life doesn’t just pause, and people still need the ability to move. We remain committed to helping our customers and are doing the following to help.

• We will stand by our commitments to customers. Despite public health constraints, we know some of our customers may still need to move. For sellers who are in contract with us and contingencies have been released, we’ll honor that commitment. However, given the health guidelines and shelter-in-place mandates, we are requesting customers expedite their closing or delay closing until these mandates are lifted. Additionally, if customers would prefer to not move at this time, we are allowing customers to cancel.

• We are providing additional options. While we are temporarily pausing offers, we are offering a few alternatives that can help customers accomplish their goals. We are working with third-party buyers who are able to transact without the need to interact with the customer and we are also partnering with local agents who are offering creative solutions to list virtually.

We’ll continue to put our customers first, and work hard to ensure we can continue to help customers move with ease and convenience with everyone’s health and safety in mind.

Eric Wu

CEO and Co-Founder, Opendoor

Further reading