For the second time this week, Offerpad stocks slid during early trading hours Friday before rebounding, with stock for the iBuyer falling to its lowest-ever value since going public last year.
Shares dropped below $3, down more than 7 percent as of mid-morning, following steep declines this year and a tumultuous week.
The company’s stock has fallen more than 70 percent from its premier on the New York Stock Exchange last fall, when it was valued at $2.7 billion. Shares have fallen 52 percent year-to-date.
It’s not the only publicly traded real estate brand to face headwinds in the market in January, but it is leading the pack.
“Real estate was another sector that we’d identified as overvalued,” said Dave Sekera, chief U.S. market strategist for Morningstar. “I’m not surprised seeing a market pullback from a broad perspective and seeing that those sectors we thought were more overvalued sold off more than the broader marketplace.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is down about 7 percent in the month of January. The Nasdaq is down 15 percent, and the S&P 500 is down about 10 percent year-to-date.
The major publicly traded real estate brands, meanwhile, are down significantly this year, with Opendoor down about 41 percent year-to-date, eXp down 26 percent, Zillow down 24 percent and Redfin down 30 percent. Like Offerpad, they all traded lower before a mid-day turnaround.
Real estate shares appeared headed for a disastrous Monday before rebounding and finishing slightly higher.
Another economist said the markets may be responding this week to the expectation that rising rates will slow price growth and cause a slight drop in home sales in 2022.
“The expectation nationally from analysts including myself is that it’s unlikely that we’re going to see much in the way of gains from that,” said Matthew Gardner, chief economist with Windermere. “That unto itself puts some limitations obviously on share price. You’re not increasing.”
