Borrowers will soon be able to get a mortgage through the platform – whether or not they use Opendoor to buy a home
Opendoor, an online real estate platform that buys homes directly from homeowners, has officially entered the mortgage business with the launch of Opendoor Home Loans.
The company launched a mortgage pilot program last year in Texas and Arizona, and is rolling it out to other markets in the coming months. Opendoor said that its mortgage platform could cut the average time it takes to finance and close on a new home – about 45 days – in half.
“Opendoor Home Loans currently averages 27 days from application date to closing date,” a company spokesperson told Inman. The company’s shortest turnaround time so far has been 20 days.
“In the last 10 months, we’ve built a mortgage business grom the ground up that combines savings, convenience and certainty into a simpler, more transparent process for buyers,” Nadia Aziz, head of Opendoor Home Loans, said in a news release. “It takes us one step closer to providing an end-to-end experience where you can buy, sell or trade in a home in just a few clicks.”
The platform will allow buyers to pre-qualify for a mortgage through the Opendoor app. The company also said that it would pair borrowers with a dedicated mortgage consultant and guarantee closing dates or pay borrowers $100 for every day closing is delayed.
Opendoor is also not requiring its home-loan customers to buy a house directly from the company – nor are Opendoor’s homebuying customers required to get their mortgage through Opendoor Home Loans.
Opendoor is the latest real estate tech company to jump into the mortgage game. Since acquiring Mortgage Lenders of America last year, Zillow has been pouring money into its mortgage division. However, the company recently announced that it is slowing the rollout of Zillow Home Mortgage as it works out kinks in its software platform.
