With the housing market in flux, brokers need every advantage they can get to thrive. In an exclusive interview with The Real Deal, Opendoor’s Nick Boniakowski and Will Holmes walked us through the company’s agent partnership program and how utilizing their tools give agents and brokerages an edge over their competition. With recent expansions in these programs that give agents additional incentives to integrate this robust platform into their daily practice, there’s never been a better time for agents to add this tool to their toolbox and make sure they’re providing their clients with every advantage.
Making New Tech Work for You
“Consumers are more and more accustomed to working online, whether it’s grocery shopping, taxis, or flights,” says Boniakowski, General Manager of Agent Partnerships at Opendoor. “In real estate, there’s an intersection between the human touch that an agent can provide, that localized experience, and new technology.” Opendoor’s platform is best-in-class when it comes to providing cash offers and flexibility in the residential real estate space, and agents have the opportunity to lead the charge in pairing their trusted relationships with technology that customers have already adopted en masse.
Integrating new tech into the real estate business is nothing new, but there remains a hesitancy about adopting new systems that goes back decades. “It can seem a little bit scary at first,” says Holmes, Head of Partnerships at Opendoor. “Take e-signing documents as an example. Why would we drive over a contract to get it signed if we could do it digitally? Now you look at it, it’s undeniably made things better for consumers and agents.”
Earn More Money With The Expanded Loyalty Program
Thanks to the Agent Access loyalty program, agents and brokerages have additional incentives to integrate Opendoor into their business, making it a win-win for them and their clients. And Opendoor has recently expanded these programs to include a host of new incentives. For starters, agents earn a 1% bonus commission when helping clients sell to Opendoor. For a limited time, that number is being bumped up to 3% for the first three commissions they close, whether they’re a new or existing Agent Access member. This commission is paid on top of Agent Access loyalty points, which can be redeemed for cash. Also part of the expanded program, agents can now earn these loyalty points when helping buyers close on an Opendoor home, an addition to the existing program that rewards seller transactions.
Through this program, Boniakowski says that “agents can earn up to an additional $50,000 per year.”
Working with Opendoor gives brokerages a whole new set of tools on top of the financial incentives. “The platform includes dashboards and reporting metrics, as well as a whole suite of tools that are built for agents to make the whole process easy to track,” says Boniakowski. “From requesting and getting offers through closing, these tools make it simple to manage from a broker perspective.” Integrating Opendoor into an existing listing process is easy, and if any problems arise, the company gives brokers regular access to a dedicated team whose job it is to make sure that their partners are supported.
In addition to the Agent Access program, which launched in 2021 Opendoor is expanding its partnerships to include a referral offering, which allows brokers to take advantage of the company’s 53+ market footprint by giving them the power to receive a commission for referring a seller to Opendoor in any market. To use the referral offering, agents go through the same process they would when requesting an offer on behalf of a client, with an additional option to refer the seller directly to Opendoor. This gives agents maximum flexibility when working with all types of clients, including those who prefer to handle the transaction on their own; the benefit of the referral offering is that the agent is not only given notifications as their client moves through the process of accepting the offer, they also get a 1% commission on the sale when it closes.
Gain A Competitive Advantage with Opendoor
Working with Opendoor is all upside for brokers, and adding it to their array of options gives them a leg up on the competition.
“More and more, I think agents are coming to understand that not showing up with all the various options could result in a customer going someplace else,” says Holmes. “An agent that brings Opendoor into the conversation is removing consumer doubt and positioning themselves as the authority on the moving process.”
Of course, when it comes to real estate, it’s all about the numbers, and in the case of Opendoor’s partnerships, they speak for themselves: the number of agents representing multiple sellers in Opendoor transactions has seen a nearly tenfold increase in the last four years. Since the partnership program was launched, Opendoor has paid more than $750 million in commissions to agents.
From earning more money to giving clients as many options as possible, Opendoor Agent Access and the new referral offering are boosting brokers’ business day in and day out. In a competitive real estate market, that extra money and little bit of advantage can make all the difference to your business. Get started today at opendoor.com/agents