House-flipping companies in Las Vegas get funding
Two house-flipping companies that are active in Las Vegas have raised more funds.
Opendoor said Wednesday that it obtained $300 million in new funding. It has now hauled in a total of $1.3 billion from investors and more than $3 billion from lenders, the firm said.
The news follows last week’s announcement by rival Offerpad that it closed another round of financing. Offerpad did not disclose how much money it brought in, but said it had now raised a total of $975 million from investors and lenders.
Both companies offer homeowners a fast way to sell, and neither waits long to put properties on the market.
Arizona-based Offerpad, which says on its website that sellers will “receive an offer within 24 hours,” started buying homes in Las Vegas in 2016, spokeswoman Cortney Read said last week. The firm has 50 homes listed for sale in the valley, according its website.
San Francisco-based Opendoor — whose website declares, “Get an offer on your home with the press of a button” — is buying and selling nearly 3,000 homes nationally every month, spokeswoman Cristin Culver said Wednesday.
It has been operating in Las Vegas since 2016 and has more than 300 homes listed for sale, Culver added.
Still, both firms reject the notion that they’re flippers.
Culver has said that house flippers try to buy low and sell high, while Opendoor aims to buy at-market and sell at-market.
The company wants to come out even on its deals and instead make a profit by charging fees and slashing its transaction costs, Opendoor chief executive Eric Wu told the Review-Journal last year.
Read, of Offerpad, said Wednesday that its turnaround-time on listing a newly purchased home depends on the property, noting that if a house “needs more work, it could take days or weeks.”
Disputing the notion that Offerpad is a flipper, she said the company does not buy distressed homes, as that “goes against our business model.”
The company will “make minor enhancements” to a home “to get it buyer-ready so the original seller doesn’t have to worry about that,” she added.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342. Follow @eli_segall on Twitter.
