My wife, an analyst, went to work for Opendoor last Fall. She basically appraised houses based on pictures, comps etc etc all online.
She is very type A and an amazing analyst. She currently works for Constellation Brands Beer division and prices beer for their Walmart account. She can spot mistakes in 50k line item pricing spreadsheets etc.
Anyhow, their goal was to evaluate 20 houses a day. A Day! They would take 3 human valuations and compare it to their built algorithm and make offers based off of the averages. She told me she could get a maximum of 10 evaluations done if she actually paid attention and looked for good comps. Most of her peers would turn in 20/day of **** evaluations by rushing through just to meet their quota. She would constantly flag other peoples evaluations because they were so far off. They would use golf course houses to compare busy street houses etc. just terrible. Sometimes they were off 6 figures.
She worked there for 6 months when her old company(left to raise our kids) recruited her back. In the end they were so low on houses to value she said they would get 2-4 houses that Opendoor was actually buying and the rest were just practice evaluations. There was nothing for them to value because Opendoor couldn't get enough people willing to get quotes.
Needless to say I'm not surprised they are tanking. I think they can still make money though. There is lots of value in cutting out the 6% realtor fee, or at least making it appear that you are. They just need to re-evaluate their volume and crank out good comps.
