Opendoor has just quietly shut down Open Listings, rolling it into Opendoor Brokerage
There are two interesting parts here:
(1) How does the U.S. Department of Justice intends to account for Open Listings price fixing scheme liability merged into Opendoor Brokerage?
(2) Opendoor Brokerage, too, engages in price fixing, where the rebate for Opendoor Partner Agents’ services (outside their firm) is price fixed at 1% off the purchase price of the home.
Opendoor Brokerage, same as Open Listings, does hire some agents, but it is primarily a broker-to-broker collusion scheme where all partner agents agree to pay massive #kickbacks to receive consumers’ information.
In summary, Open Listings price fixed at 50% and the Opendoor Brokerage now fixes rebates at 32%.
#Pricefixing is an agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods or services are sold. Criminal prosecution of #ShermanAct violations is the responsibility of the #Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice of Justice.
Violation of the #ShermanAct is a felony punishable by, for corporations, a fine of up to $100 million, and for individuals, a fine of up to $1 million or 10 years’ imprisonment (or both).
Two questions:
(1) Does Eric Wu really thinks that he can get away with hardcore price fixing? Glenn Kelman did this same exact thing for Redfin Partner Agents, and still does. Judd Schoenholtz was the CEO at Open Listings. None of the them have yet been charged.
(2) Should the DOJ prosecute these clowns on criminal or civil charges?
Anyone who thinks Opendoor was developed to fix broken US real estate market is severely mistaken. A company that engages in a felony as crude as price fixing simply does not play well in the long term.
#realestate #ibuyers
Litesand 