Opendoor Technologies (OPEN +0.93%) has been one of the best-performing stocks on the market in the last three months.
Shares of the online home flipper are up a whopping 787% during that time as of Sept. 8, though not much has changed fundamentally with the business. Instead, a meme-stock rally began with a hedge fund manager arguing that the stock could be the next Carvana, combined with increasing signs that interest rates could come down soon, which could revive the housing market and inject new life into Opendoor's business.
Could Opendoor stock make you a millionaire? Let's take a look at what the prospects are.
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A company in flux
Opendoor went public as a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in 2020 at a time when the real estate market was surging. The stock jumped out of the gate, but began to slump soon after as the housing market slowed. Once interest rates began to rise, the stock tumbled, and it stayed down since the recent meme-based rally gave it some life.
The online home-flipping model is still unproven at scale, and peers that had competed in iBuying, like Zillow and Redfin, bowed out of it, claiming they were losing too much money.
Years later, Opendoor is still unprofitable, though the housing market hasn't helped.
In its second quarter, the company reported an adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $23 million, but the second quarter tends to be the strongest one seasonally for the housing market. According to generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), it reported a net loss of $29 million in the quarter and an adjusted net loss of $5 million.
Its guidance also called for revenue to slow significantly to $800 million to $875 million in the quarter, and it expected an adjusted EBITDA loss of $21 million to $28 million.
Despite the surge in the stock, shares plunged on the earnings report, though it recouped those losses shortly after. Not long after the report, CEO Carrie Wheeler announced her resignation, effective immediately. Shrisha Radhakrishna was named president and interim leader of the company while the board searches for the next CEO.
More recently, the stock has surged on signs that the Federal Reserve is likely to cut interest rates at its meeting next week, which should help boost a lackluster housing market.
Could Opendoor keep climbing?
Even after jumping more than 1,000% from its low point at the end of June, Opendoor only has a market cap of $4.5 billion, and its addressable market is enormous, as it's essentially the domestic real estate market.
Given that potential, as well as the meme-stock backing the company has earned, Opendoor could still move significantly higher. Eric Jackson, the hedge fund manager who helped kick off the rally, initially gave a price target of $82 on the stock, which would represent a gain of more than 10x.
In its recent surge, the stock has gained purely on momentum and trading activity, and the interest in the stock doesn't seem likely to fade.
Regardless of what happens with its fundamentals, Opendoor could move higher, especially if mortgage rates continue to fall.
NASDAQ: OPEN
Key Data Points
Is Opendoor a millionaire-maker?
Based on just the business fundamentals alone, I wouldn't go anywhere near the stock, but there's more going on here. The business is highly sensitive to mortgage rates, and it could stage a comeback if the housing market comes back to life. After all, Opendoor is the leader in the iBuying market, and if it can prove it is a viable business, the stock is likely to be rewarded.
Additionally, the stock's army of meme backers shouldn't be ignored, either. They've already made the stock a 10-bagger, and they're likely to give the stock an outsized boost in response to any good news on the macro front or elsewhere.
Overall, I still think the challenges in Opendoor's business model, including single-digit gross margins and a wide range of competition in an evolving real estate market, outweigh the upside potential, and the stock is more likely to go down than up from here. However, for risk-seeking investors, there is certainly an argument for owning some shares of the stock as there is a path to it being a multibagger, especially if the company finds the right CEO.
