What is your agency relationship with the home seller? If the seller is working with you directly (i.e. not using a separate listing agent), is this essentially a FSBO transaction?
I don't mean to sound overly negative here, but 6-12% seems like a pretty big cut. I understand the argument that the seller may be able to sell the house more quickly than via a traditional listing, but they are also taking on a fair bit of risk and headache as well (no guidance on making disclosures, no access to the standard forms, no unbiased opinion about true market value, etc).
It's not really an apples-to-apples comparison to say "you would have paid 6% anyways", because if they had paid 6% (or 4-5%) to a listing agent they'd get all the guidance/forms/advice I mentioned above, as well as someone actively marketing their property, MLS listing (thereby reaching a much larger market of potential buyers). From your website, it also seems like there is essentially no room for negotiations on adjustments for repairs.
Honestly, this seems like a variant of "we buy houses for cash", except "on the web" (admittedly, most of those folks try to buy properties at 30% below market value - but I'd wager that you're probably trying for around 15% below market in some cases). In most markets, if someone lists their house for 5% below true market value, they're likely to get several offers rather quickly. I'd also guess that you have your own contract, as opposed to standard Realtor contracts which limit your risk in terms of earnest money deposit, contingency removal time periods, etc. It really seems to me that the only people who would go for this are people who are rather ignorant about how to sell their real estate and therefore at a pretty big disadvantage when dealing with a very experienced buyer, such as Opendoor.
Also, it's kind of silly to give as much emphasis to the home warranty you give buyers - that's a pretty cheap & easy thing to obtain; most agents I know give them to their buyer as standard practice.
Again, I hope this doesn't come off as too negative - I think there's a lot of room for innovation in real estate; this just doesn't seem like it's actually advantageous for most sellers in my opinion, and therefore not particularly scalable once people start doing the math. Just my $.02. Please tell me if I'm missing something..I do wish you the best of luck with this!
- Our cut is not 15%, it's 0-6% below market depending on home risk & projected holding costs. We make the fee pretty transparent. Without opening our books, you sort of have to trust me here for now unfortunately.
- We use the standard MLS contract in every market, along with those protections. We give sellers a large sum of earnest money when we make a mistake and need to withdraw from the contract. Long term, that's just good business.
- Imagine you're a contingent buyer, and need to sell before you can buy. The cost of selling, moving into a rental, buying, moving into your new home etc is very high! Most people can't afford two mortgages. We make it a single move, and we'll even let you do a "late checkout" from your home after you sell so it's even easier.