SAN FRANCISCO, May 11, 2026, 12:02 PDT
- Opendoor stock dropped midday Monday as investors weighed renewed concerns over its Q1 loss and the company’s efforts to reverse course.
- CEO Kaz Nejatian says resale is moving faster now, with the company slashing its backlog of older inventory.
- Next up: Opendoor faces the challenge of hitting around breakeven adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter.
Shares of Opendoor Technologies Inc. slipped Monday, trading recently at $4.88—off about 2.6%—after CEO Kaz Nejatian insisted the company has patched a key weakness in its approach. Investors looked past that assurance, focusing instead on a first-quarter loss that more than doubled year-over-year. Volume topped 30 million shares, putting market capitalization near $4.68 billion.
It’s not just the big loss—the real test now is whether Opendoor can pull off its plan. The company says it’s aiming for about breakeven adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP metric, excludes interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and some other costs. That’s a critical point, since Opendoor is still buying homes and holding inventory, reselling those properties into a sluggish housing market. Every extra day a home sits unsold chips away at the company’s margins.
Opendoor posted first-quarter revenue of $720 million, a drop from $1.15 billion a year ago. The company booked a net loss of $173 million—sharper than the $85 million loss it recorded in the same stretch of 2025. Sales came in at 1,921 homes, while purchases reached 2,474. As the quarter wrapped up, inventory stood at 3,420 homes, which is less than half what it was a year earlier.
Opendoor’s latest batches of homes are turning over more quickly, according to Nejatian, who described the change as structural and stated in the release, “The machine is working.” The company reported that acquisition contracts more than doubled from the previous quarter and hit their strongest mark since 2022, with a sharp drop in older inventory. Opendoor Technologies Inc.
Opendoor’s CEO says the company is shifting away from its former reliance on home-price forecasts, focusing now on speedier pricing. In a call with investors, Nejatian said the previous approach forced Opendoor into defensive tactics — spreads widened, the quality of homes dropped, margins suffered. He called it the company’s “fatal flaw,” according to HousingWire on Monday.
The numbers paint a mixed picture. Gross margin climbed to 10.0% from 8.6%, yet contribution margin edged down to 4.4% from 4.7%. (That figure reflects the portion of revenue remaining after direct home-sale costs, as shown in Opendoor’s non-GAAP disclosures.) Adjusted EBITDA loss came in at $31 million, $1 million wider than before.
There’s a risk housing doesn’t offer much relief for Opendoor. In its latest quarterly filing, the company pointed out that the U.S. housing market is still tight—mortgage rates remain elevated, affordability is stretched, and existing-home sales hover near a 30-year low. By the end of the first quarter, mortgage rates had settled back in the mid-6% range. These higher rates not only hurt affordability but also slow down transactions, keep homes in inventory longer, and drive up financing costs for properties Opendoor holds.
Competition hasn’t disappeared, though it’s less intense than during the iBuying surge. Last week, Offerpad Solutions—a smaller direct iBuyer—said first-quarter revenue dropped by half to $80.1 million. Total real estate transactions were down 49% to 263. Still, the company projected sequential gains in adjusted EBITDA.
Opendoor leans on major real estate websites to expand its footprint. According to its filing, both Zillow and Redfin allow homeowners to seek an offer from Opendoor, positioning these sites as key distribution channels. That’s despite Opendoor still standing out as one of the only publicly traded, dedicated iBuyers.
Shareholders are staring down a tough choice—can speeding up sales really make up for shrinking volumes and stubbornly high costs? Opendoor aims to hit adjusted net income profitability by the end of 2026, calculated on a rolling 12-month basis. The next quarter should bring more clarity.
