Opendoor’s trade-up program opens up to all developers

Opendoor is expanding its home trade-up program, extending it to all developers.

The house-flipping company expanded the program to all markets last summer and added homebuilders including Taylor Morrison and Meritage Homes, Inman reported Wednesday. Now the company is letting any builder in any Opendoor market participate.

Opendoor formed a partnership with Lennar earlier this year for the program. In the process, the customer finds a home from a builder that they want to move into right away — a lot in progress that’s expected to be ready in a certain timeframe. After getting an estimate for the price Opendoor would pay for their existing home, the customer decides whether to move forward and selects a closing date between 10 days and nine months from then.

“Nineteen of the industry’s top 25 builders,” including “six of the top 10,” have used the program, the company told Inman.

The program will be available in new markets at Opendoor expands, the report said.

Lennar provided $100 million in debt to Opendoor to go with the $35 million in equity from venture capital firm Fifth Wall Ventures. Fifth Wall, founded in 2016, has since raised hundreds of millions of dollars for what it calls the first fund backed by real estate money that only invests in property tech startups.

Opendoor is seeking to raise at least $200 million from investors at a valuation of about $2 billion. The money is meant to help the company’s expansion in areas including Charlotte and San Antonio. [Inman] — Meenal Vamburkar