Inman

The Real Word: Are Opendoor’s plans too ambitious?

Byron Lazine and Nicole White are two agents in Connecticut who give us their thoughts on the week’s news every Friday in “The Real Word,” a weekly video column on Inman.

In Opendoor’s first investor earnings call since becoming a publicly traded company, it announced plans to double its total markets in 2021 — and that’s just a start to its expansion goals.

In this week’s episode, Byron and Nicole weighed in on Opendoor’s major moves, like the company’s “buy box” improvement, its plans to open in six new markets and its efforts to create a “digital one-stop shop.” Are Opendoor’s ambitious plans a racket?

More this week: Google Alerts can help agents on top of their business — at least according to this article penned by Jay Thompson. But how exactly can agents leverage this nifty, powerful tool?

For agents, Google Alerts works for reputation monitoring and keeping tabs on their listings, brokerage, colleagues and even their competition. “It’s a free tool, so why not use that?” Byron said. “Why not be alerted for you and your business when people are … looking you up.”

Marketeer of the week

The thumbs-up this week goes to a Tampa Realtor who made “the worst house on the street” go viral with her honesty and sense of humor.

Want to nominate a “marketeer of the week”? Drop your thoughts in the comments section below, or shoot us an email.

Editor’s note: Opendoor plans to double its markets to 42 this year, not add 42 markets this year as misstated in the video above.