The Opendoor Weekly

January 18, 2026

This Week at a Glance

Opendoor
Kaz Announces AI-Native Mortgage with Lennar
Building from scratch, not retrofitting legacy systems
Market
Mortgage Rates Hit 5.99%
Lowest in 3 years after Trump bond directive
Industry
Glenn Kelman Exits Redfin
After 20 years, Rocket takes control
Strategic Vision

Kaz: We're Building Mortgage "Fully AI-Native from Day 1"

On Thursday, Kaz announced Opendoor is building a mortgage product with Lennar—designed from the ground up for AI, not retrofitted onto legacy systems.

The sixteen-word tweet carried more strategic weight than most earnings calls. "Fully AI-native from Day 1" isn't marketing language—it's a philosophical stake in the ground. Most mortgage technology was built in 2008, had machine learning bolted on in 2019, then got LLM capabilities in 2024. The result: Frankenstein software that works but groans under its own complexity.

Building AI-native means starting from the assumption that the machine is the underwriter, the processor, the closer. Humans become exception handlers. The economics change completely. For a company that's struggled to explain what it actually is—home buyer? marketplace? fintech in disguise?—this tweet suggests an answer: Opendoor is building the operating system for the transaction itself.

The Lennar partnership matters. Working with the nation's second-largest homebuilder means this isn't an experiment on the margins—it's Opendoor positioning itself at the center of new construction, where mortgage and transaction can be reimagined without existing infrastructure constraints.

Market Conditions

Rates Below 6% for First Time in Three Years

5.99% 30-year fixed · 3-year low

The Trump administration's directive to purchase $200 billion in mortgage bonds had immediate effect. Application volumes spiked. Refinancing inquiries surged. For three years, homebuyers have been doing mental math against rates that felt punitive—this week, the math finally changed.

The "golden handcuffs" phenomenon—existing homeowners locked in place by their 3% mortgages—has constrained inventory and kept prices elevated. 5.99% doesn't solve everything, but it cracks the ice. Spring selling season approaches with the most favorable financing conditions since post-pandemic normalization began.

Institutional Confidence

Healthcare Company Calls Opendoor "Undervalued"

SRx Health Solutions disclosed a position in Opendoor this week—unusual for a healthcare firm.

SRx Health Solutions isn't a hedge fund—they're a Canadian pharmacy and healthcare services company. So when they publicly disclosed an investment calling Opendoor shares "undervalued," it registered as strange enough to pay attention to.

The thesis isn't real estate—it's demographics. An aging population needing to downsize. Boomers liquidating home equity to fund retirement and healthcare. The collision of housing wealth and medical necessity. A company that makes selling frictionless suddenly looks less like PropTech and more like end-of-life infrastructure.

Industry Shift

Kelman Exits Redfin After 20 Years

Glenn Kelman stepped down January 13, six months after Rocket's $1.75B acquisition. Rocket CEO Varun Krishna serves as interim while they search for a successor.

Kelman was the last original PropTech evangelist at the helm—the CEO who published commission data, testified before Congress, built a brokerage on the premise that agents deserved salaries. His farewell note was titled "Unemployed, In Greenland."

Regulatory

NAR's MLS Overhaul Takes Effect

Eighteen policy changes—the most extensive in twenty years. The headline: you no longer need NAR membership to access the MLS at the national level.

For an industry built on gatekeeping, this is structural demolition. The walls around real estate's data infrastructure are coming down—not from generosity, but from settlements, lawsuits, and regulatory pressure.

Also This Week

Zillow and Redfin fight back. Both filed motions January 13 to dismiss the FTC lawsuit over their $100M rental syndication deal.
Week ahead. Davos (Jan 19-23) for institutional investor discussions. Fed meeting (Jan 27-28) signals whether rate relief continues.

The Bottom Line

The old infrastructure is failing. Whoever builds the new infrastructure wins.

Kelman's exit marks the end of the "disrupt the brokerage" era. NAR is being forced into openness. Rates are moving on policy. And Opendoor is betting the entire transaction stack can be rebuilt from scratch—AI-native, with Lennar, starting now.