A Day in the Life
What it's like working for the company that's redefining real estate in Dallas-Fort Worth
Tony Hughes is a self-proclaimed real estate junkie. He owned his own brokerage and dabbled in real estate investment, but felt like the overall business was due for a change. Right around that time, he read an article about Opendoor, a company that offers a simpler way to buy and sell homes. He was attracted to the concept that he says gives people a better way to move with more certainty and convenience.
Anyone in Dallas who's looking to sell their home can go to Opendoor.com, enter their address, answer a few questions, and receive a fair-market value offer. If they choose to sell to Opendoor, they have certainty in the sale of their house and the convenience to skip the grueling open house process and choose their close date.
Hughes decided to join Opendoor in Dallas about two years ago and is now a portfolio manager on the valuations team, serving customers offers, working on underwriting, and ensuring accuracy on list price and inventory. In short, when a person enters their address on Opendoor.com and is looking for an offer, Tony and his team are the people behind the scenes who ensure that the offer is accurate and a fair-market value.
In addition to his professional role, Tony is a family man, snow ski enthusiast, and NASCAR fan who was born and raised in Dallas and is a frequent patron at any game with a Texas sports team. He shared a bit about working at Opendoor, balancing his job and life, and how he makes it all work. Here's a look inside his daily routine:
Tony Hughes: I really enjoy the flexibility that my job provides in terms of allowing me to balance work and home life. I get up early in the morning to ride my bike around White Rock Lake, and when I get home I like starting my work day from my house with a cup of coffee. It lets me get to work right away in a quiet place and avoid getting stuck in the daily commute traffic.
I'll typically arrive to the office around 10 or 11 am, and continue working where I left off. Our proprietary systems and technology empowers each valuation expert to review up to 30 homes a day in great detail, and I go out and tour some of our inventory of homes a couple of times a month. This helps me to get a feel for the neighborhoods that our homes are located in.
Around noon, lunch is brought into the office — a great perk. After lunch we typically play a round of Catch Phrase, which lets us break from our work and focus on team bonding.
After lunch, my time is spent joining team meetings, looking at properties, checking out feedback, and making price adjustments.
One of our primary duties on the valuations team is making offers to purchase homes. This is different from the traditional selling process because we are able to quickly get to a critical stage of the process — the offer — without all the preparation and waiting that it typically takes.
We also manage pricing all the way through the process, from purchase offer price to list price when our renovated properties are ready for the market. We are constantly checking property values to ensure that our pricing is fair throughout the process.
In the evenings, if I need to take my son to soccer practice I have the freedom to do so. I've found that we're really lucky that our office is close to the DART rail, because you can easily walk there and take it downtown for a Mavericks or Stars game. We also are close to great night spots, so my teammates will often gather after work for happy hour.
I'm lucky in a number of ways, but am incredibly grateful to have the opportunity for a fulfilling work and home life. Providing our customers with a better experience for what will likely be one of the biggest transactions in their life, coupled with the office culture and freedom to live on my own terms, is what gets me excited to get out of bed and come to work every day.
