Closing the door on home buying company Opendoor’s false claims

When you sell a house, you're looking to get the most you can for it. What if a company promised you’d make more money selling it to them than you would on the open market? You’d probably say, “Sold!” According to the FTC, that’s what house buying company Opendoor Labs told people looking to sell their homes — but that wasn’t the reality.

Opendoor promoted itself as tech company that uses its pricing technology to offer more accurate offers and lower costs. Companies like Opendoor are what’s known as “iBuyers” — companies that use technology to make quick offers on homes. According to the FTC, Opendoor said it would pay market value for people’s homes while saving them money on costs. That way, people selling their homes would make thousands of dollars more than they would on the open market. But, the FTC says, it wasn’t true.

Instead, the FTC says Opendoor’s offers were lower than a home’s market value, and the company asked sellers to pay for home repair costs that were higher than what people would typically spend on repairs in a market sale. As a result, most people who sold their homes to Opendoor typically lost thousands of dollars compared to what they would have made if they’d sold their homes on the open market.

To settle the FTC’s charges that the company’s claims were deceptive, Opendoor has agreed to pay $62 million, which the FTC will use for refunds to people who were affected.

If a company makes false and misleading claims, report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

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