Referenews

The balance of those sales left Opendoor with a net loss, measured according to generally accepted accounting principles, of $399 million for the fourth quarter, or 63 cents a share. The net loss for the same quarter in 2021 was $191 million, or 31 cents a share. Opendoor’s loss for the full year of 2022 came in at $1.35 billion.

Analysts had expected a net loss of $533 million in the fourth quarter of 2022, according to FactSet. Shares of Opendoor fell 1.6% to $1.82 a share on Thursday ahead of the results, and they were essentially flat in early after-hours trading. They have fallen more than 80% over the past 12 months.

Opendoor is an iBuyer, or a company that uses artificial intelligence and other technology to help it price and buy thousands of homes, then aims to profit by selling them again within a few months.

Opendoor executives have attributed many of the company’s losses to its decision to honor purchase contracts they signed before higher interest rates began throttling the housing market last year.

The company has since sold about two-thirds of those homes, purchased last spring, according to the fourth-quarter shareholder letter. It expects to have sold more than 85% of them by the end of the current quarter, losing about 4% a home on average.

In a letter to shareholders, the company said it has taken steps to limit its sales losses as it continues to shed its inventory of single-family homes. That includes paying less for new homes, buying fewer of them and spending less on marketing. It has also made deep cuts to listing prices to get older homes off its books.

“In hindsight, we did not do this quickly or aggressively enough,” the company said.

More than half the homes Opendoor sold from November through January were for less money than what it had paid for them, according to research firm YipitData’s analysis of markets where data is available. Those losses include the service charge Opendoor collects from sellers, but may not include the full balance of other fees, YipitData said.

The company said in its letter that it expects more positive results for houses it purchased in recent months. For those homes, the company said it was on track to hit contribution margins, a measure of profits, of 4% to 6% a home. Opendoor ended 2022 with an unsold inventory of 12,788 homes.

In a Thursday afternoon interview, Opendoor chief executive

Carrie Wheeler

said the company is now pricing its offers to buy homes with the expectation that sales prices will fall modestly this year.

As its home-flipping business sagged, the company last year launched a marketplace to connect home buyers and home sellers, without Opendoor having to act as a buyer.

“Building toward that managed marketplace is going to be a multi-year journey,” Ms. Wheeler said.

Write to Will Parker at will.parker@wsj.com