Opendoor: Laid Off 35% of Staff, Took No PPP Loan

Category: real estate technology
Pandemic-layoff role: Deepest-cut ranking company
Last updated: 2026-11-01

In the archive

Article: How 41 Companies Handled Pandemic Layoffs

Founders, executives and investors

TechCrunch lists Eric Wu and Founders Fund general partner Keith Rabois among Opendoor's founders. Wu was co-founder and chief executive through the 2020 and 2022 layoffs. He stepped down as CEO in November 2022 to focus on Opendoor's marketplace business, and Carrie Wheeler took over.

By November 2022 Opendoor had raised about $1.3 billion in equity and nearly $3 billion in debt to finance its home purchases, TechCrunch reported. Its last venture round, in March 2019, was $300 million at a $3.5 billion pre-money valuation. Investors included General Atlantic, the SoftBank Vision Fund, NEA, Norwest Venture Partners, GV, GGV Capital, Access Technology Ventures, SV Angel and Fifth Wall Ventures.

Business before the pandemic

Opendoor practiced "instant buying": it made cash offers on homes, aimed to hold each one for less than three months, and resold it. It said it acquired 11,000 homes in 2018. In the summer of 2019, Bloomberg reported, it fired 50 people and asked up to 300 others to move to Phoenix or leave.

What the pandemic did to the business

Wu's April 2020 statement said the pandemic had "had an unforeseen impact on public health, the U.S. economy, and housing," and that Opendoor had "seen declines in the number of people buying, selling, and moving during this time of uncertainty." TechCrunch cited Realtor.com figures: U.S. homes for sale fell 15.7 percent year over year in March 2020, and new listings fell 34.0 percent in the week ending March 28.

Opendoor's annual report for 2020 describes what it did next. Citing limits on in-person real estate activity and safety concerns, it "paused acquisitions of homes beginning in March 2020" and sold down its inventory during the second and third quarters. It resumed making offers in select markets in May, after retooling for "contactless" transactions, and in all its markets by the end of August. Home inventory fell from $1,312 million at the end of 2019 to $152 million at September 30, 2020. Revenue for 2020 was $2.58 billion, down 46 percent from $4.74 billion, and the net loss was $286.8 million, against $339.2 million in 2019. Opendoor estimated that it bought and sold about 0.8 percent of the homes in its 21 markets in 2020, against 1.7 percent in 2019.

Relief and the public listing

SBA's PPP loan data list no loan to Opendoor Labs Inc. or Opendoor Technologies Inc. We found no CARES Act payroll-tax deferral or employee retention credit in its annual report for 2020.

Its money came from the stock market. Opendoor went public in December 2020 by merging with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings II, a blank-check company headed by Chamath Palihapitiya that had raised $414 million in its own IPO on April 30, 2020. The merger and a simultaneous private placement of about $600 million brought in $1,013.9 million. The same year Opendoor repaid $816.4 million of its revolving credit facilities and term debt. Its shares closed their first day on Nasdaq at $31.25.

Wu donated his salary for part of 2020 to a relief fund for employees affected by the layoffs, the annual report says; because of what it calls "an inadvertent payroll error," $81,250 of the salary he earned in 2020 was not paid until February 26, 2021. The same report lists a 2020 grant to Wu of performance-based restricted stock units with a grant-date fair value of $354,175,995.

Layoffs

Opendoor laid off 600 people, 35 percent of its staff, on April 15, 2020. Laid-off employees received eight weeks of full pay and 16 weeks of reimbursement for health insurance. It cut about 550 more jobs in November 2022 and about 560 in April 2023. How Opendoor handled layoffs →

After the first shock

By November 2, 2022 Opendoor's shares traded at $2.48, and TechCrunch put the company's value at $1.56 billion, against $8 billion in 2021. Wu that day described "one of the most challenging real estate markets in 40 years." Real Estate News reported that Opendoor had lost more than $1.4 billion in 2022, roughly double its loss the year before.

Since 2025

Bloomberg reported in August 2025 that Opendoor's stock had risen 460 percent after years of losses and a possible delisting. It said the company had posted its first profitable quarter in three years, with adjusted earnings of $23 million, and expected up to $875 million in third-quarter revenue while still projecting a loss. Wheeler was then chief executive.

Wheeler stepped down as chief executive and left the board on August 15, 2025. The board made Shrisha Radhakrishna, the chief technology and product officer, president and interim principal executive officer. On September 10 it appointed Kaz Nejatian chief executive and a director, to start no later than October 7. Nejatian signed Opendoor's quarterly report for the second quarter of 2026, filed on August 4, 2026, as chief executive.

Opendoor