Business

Opendoor buys Doma closing, escrow business to lower mortgage refinance costs

Published

2 months ago

2 April 2026

Opendoor buys Doma closing, escrow business to lower mortgage refinance costs

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Property Play newsletter with Diana Olick. Property Play covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, from individuals to venture capitalists, private equity funds, family offices, institutional investors and large public companies. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.

Refinancing a home loan has long been a complicated and pricey process. The costs can be so high that most experts suggest if a borrower can’t shave at least 75 basis points off their current mortgage interest rate, the refinance isn’t even worth it.

Now two property tech leaders are joining forces to lower those costs.

Opendoor, which buys homes directly from sellers and has a title and escrow business, is acquiring part of Doma, a property technology company that automates title searches, the companies told CNBC exclusively. Doma says it uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to make real estate closings — specifically title, escrow and underwriting — faster and more affordable.

“We’re in the process of completely rebuilding and automating, like most of the other pieces of technology that Opendoor is working on … to eliminate time and money for customers,” said Lucas Matheson, president of Opendoor.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Since 2024, Doma’s technology has been used in a Fannie Mae pilot program designed to reduce title insurance costs on eligible refinance transactions. It was just extended through 2027.

Under the program, certain refinance transactions determined by Doma to have low title risk may be sold to Fannie Mae without needing a lender’s title insurance policy or an attorney opinion letter. So far, that has been about 80% of the refinance candidates, according to Doma.

The title insurance, however, is only one component of the refinancing process. Closing costs include other services, such as setting up an escrow account, making sure all the mortgages are paid off, paying transfer fees and taxes. Some of this is still manual and highly service-oriented; it can take several days and add thousands of dollars to the cost of the refinance.

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“This program grew so dramatically last year, we were operating our own closing and escrow agency, and it’s a sizable one, and doing a decent job of keeping up, but, frankly, the demand was outstripping our ability to close transactions,” said Max Simkoff, CEO of Doma. “We just did not have the resources to be able to do both the tech for the risk decisioning and the closing side.”

So Doma went looking for a company with the technology to scale its business as far as possible and ended up with Opendoor, whose technology can do the closings much more efficiently. As a result, the price that it charges for closings is lower than the industry average, according to Simkoff.

Following the acquisition, 85 employees from Doma will be joining Opendoor.

The refinance business, however, is not what it was just a month ago. The war with Iran has caused mortgage rates to rise sharply and quickly. Applications to refinance a home loan have been sinking in response. Demand is down 20% in just the past four weeks, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“Refinances in the current market represent the most challenged home ownership experience,” said Simkoff. “Nobody doing refinance at a six and a quarter, 30-year fixed mortgage is doing it because they want to, they’re doing it because they have to.”

But both Simkoff and Matheson say the timing of this collaboration is irrelevant.

Last year, they note, mortgage rates were higher, and the program with Fannie Mae still saw enormous growth. Even if the pool of refinances shrinks, the share of borrowers using Opendoor’s closing services with Fannie Mae will grow, according to Matheson.

“This is around $1,100 per refi that a family would save while injecting effectively no risk into the system,” he said. “Just for context, Doma has had a zero defect track record in this program.”

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Zara’s India FY26 profit falls 32% to Rs 204 crore; revenue slips

Published

24 minutes ago

30 May 2026

NewsAdmin

Zara's India FY26 profit falls 32% to Rs 204 crore; revenue slips

Global fashion brand Zara’s India profit declined 31.9 per cent to Rs 204.14 crore in FY26 and its revenue from operations slipped 1.1 per cent to Rs 2,749.28 crore, according to the latest annual report of Trent Ltd.

Zara stores in India reported a Rs 299.84 crore profit and Rs 2,782.06 crore revenue from operations in FY25, Inditex Trent Retail India Private Ltd (ITRIPL), which operates the Zara brand in India, said.

Its total income was Rs 2,767.75 crore for the financial year ended March 31, compared to Rs 2,839.50 crore a year ago.

ITRIPL is a JV between Spain’s Inditex, which owns luxury fashion brand Zara, and Tata Group’s retail arm Trent Ltd.

Zara, which competes with foreign brands like H&M and UNIQLO in India, currently operates 22 stores in the country.

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Business

Bitcoin retreats to $73K, but ETF inflows and shrinking exchange reserves keep bulls hopeful

Published

1 hour ago

30 May 2026

NewsAdmin

Bitcoin retreats to $73K, but ETF inflows and shrinking exchange reserves keep bulls hopeful

Bitcoin retreated to the $73,000 mark, while the ETF inflows and shrinking exchange reserves supported broader market structure. The cryptocurrency was trading at $73,404 mark.

In the past 24 hours, Bitcoin and Ethereum were up 0.1% and 0.4% respectively. Among the major altcoins, BNB, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Hyperliquid and Cardano gained up to 6% whereas Tron went down nearly 2%.

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Piyush Walke, Derivatives Research Analyst, Delta Exchange said institutional appetite for Bitcoin exposure appears to be cooling, with US-listed spot Bitcoin ETFs posting their longest run of net outflows since launch.

“After briefly touching $83,000 in May, Bitcoin failed to maintain momentum and quickly lost strength. The rejection created a bull trap, where buyers entered expecting a breakout only for the market to reverse sharply lower.”

Bitcoin turned bearish on the daily chart after losing the $74,800 support, validating a lower-high, lower-low structure and Ethereum is trading under pressure around $2,000 following the loss of support at $2,040–$2,050, Walke said.
The global crypto market capitalisation went up 0.09% to $2.48 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.
In the past week, Bitcoin fell 1% and Ethereum was up 0.1%. Among the major altcoins, BNB, XRP, Solana, Dogecoin, Hyperliquid gained upto 20.11% whereas Tron and Cardano were down 5% and 1% respectively.
WazirX market’s desk said Bitcoin moved lower through the week, easing from around $77,004 to nearly $73,091, while holding the key $73,000 to $75,000 support zone. Although short-term technicals remained cautious, ETF inflows, long-term holder accumulation, and falling exchange reserves supported Bitcoin’s broader market structure.

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It further said that Ethereum also faced pressure, slipping from around $2,096 to nearly $1,998. However, its long-term narrative was strengthened through scaling developments, clear signing, proposed native private transactions, and record-high staked ETH, reflecting confidence in Ethereum’s proof-of-stake ecosystem.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)

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