Who remembers that classic Tom Hanks movie The Money Pit? If you haven’t seen it, the comedy pokes fun at the hazards folks face when making the biggest purchase of their lives—a home.

Hank’s character, Walter, and wife Anna, think they’ve lucked out buying their dream mansion for cheap, at the advice of a shady realtor. So predictable we can skip the spoiler alert, the couple’s fixer-upper life quickly goes full Murphy’s Law. Their dream home crumbles around them, complete with zany electrical fires and tubs crashing through floors—disasters prompting Hanks’ best lunatic screams as the couple slips deeper into the money pit.

That’s great slapstick on the silver screen, but making big purchases with a lack of transparency in real life, as we all know, opens us up to risks most of us can’t afford to take. While larger-than-life stories like this are mostly good theater, shady-deal experiences and real-life money pits, be they lemon cars or shoddy homes, have left many searching for a way to make major purchases with more transparency.

Fortunately, over the past few years, several inventive e-commerce companies have stepped in to disrupt some of those bigger-ticket markets begging for more transparency. Online used-car companies like Carvana, Vroom, and Bring a Trailer have led the pack in automotive sales, offering platform features like open bidding, detailed inspections for all to see, flexible return policies, and honest photo galleries that include the dents and dings. 

More recently, residential real estate e-commerce companies have cropped up as well, with one of its fastest growing players, Doorsey.com, stepping up to offer a whole new peace of mind when it comes to the biggest and most nerve-wracking transactions we make: buying and selling homes.

But start your engines, we’ll look at cars first. 

Carvana: Where transparency is king

One of the most successful newer platforms in the automobile industry is the online used car marketplace Carvana.com. Carvana’s transparency first-and-foremost approach starts with strict adherence to standards, with potential sellers first filling out a questionnaire to verify their vehicle meets Carvana quality requirements, which are listed right up front for buyers to see. Then sellers bring the vehicle into Carvana for a meticulous 150-point inspection that covers everything from tire tread to chipped paint—details listed in all their glory for potential buyers to peruse. 

Vehicles are listed on Carvana.com with an abundance of information, including a CARFAX report—which must be accident free, maintenance records, number of owners, and more. Any damage, such as small dents or scratches, are listed and visible in Carvana’s 360 spinner and photo gallery. Back up that product openness with buying-process transparency, which eliminates the hidden fees common in bricks-and-mortar used-car dealerships, as well as a 7-day money-back window to return any vehicle, and it’s no wonder companies like Carvana have the less-transparent dealerships out to get them nationwide.  

 Vroom: They buy, you bid. 

Another disruptive used-car platform with a penchant for smart transparency is Vroom.com. Unlike Carvana, Vroom purchases and inspects all the automobiles it sells on its website, vetting their VIN numbers, asking a few questions beforehand, picking them up with trailers, inspecting them in their own shops, listing, and then shipping vehicles to buyers who’ve won bids on the Vroom website. The approach lets sellers sell and buyers buy from the comfort of their homes, rather than dealing with used-car dealership shenanigans.  

The move toward transparency is welcome on the nation’s biggest stages. Football fans may remember Vroom’s Super Bowl ads this year and last. One ad appealed to buyers with a nightmarish exaggeration of the used-car dealership experience, depicting the literal torture of a trembling buyer by a wicked used-car salesman (no offense to the good ones out there I’m sure), but with the happy ending showing that same buyer smiling from his front yard as the Vroom trailer pulls up in front of his house with his shiny used car, which he knows is a good deal thanks to Vroom’s transparent buying process that includes CARFAX reports and other elements similar to Carvana’s. 

Bring a Trailer: Big-ticket cars and big-ticket transparency 

One of the earlier platforms offering more transparency online for big-ticket items is the highly popular classic and luxury car buying/selling company Bring a Trailer. Like Vroom and Carvana, BaT vets each car and strives to represent their classics honestly, with objective listings developed by BaT Auction Specialists, comprehensive photo galleries, maintenance records, and videos. Buyers and sellers can share knowledge in comment threads on each listing, and potential bidders can use a “Contact Seller” button to ask the seller questions, schedule a viewing, and set up a test drive.

Smart companies like Bring a Trailer have figured out that some common e-commerce transaction elements just don’t jive with transparency when it comes to major purchases. That’s why Bringatrailer.com is equipped with a unique anti-sniping feature that extends the auction clock by two minutes every time a new bid is placed. Prior bidders aren’t pressured into upping their bid without that extra bit of time to take a breath, be human, and reassess the information laid out in front of them—an important feature since many of BaT’s luxury cars sell for what some would pay for a house.

Real estate platforms enter the e-commerce fray

Speaking of houses, along with larger price tag items, like what you see on Bring a Trailer, moving to online platforms, more and more real estate companies have set up shop in the e-commerce world as well. Though many platforms display a wealth of property information, many others, by design, don’t go for transparency first and foremost. Some of the major platforms engage in questionable tactics such as letting bidders place offers, only to be outbid by the platform itself, often at premium prices not all homebuyers can afford—a practice that doesn’t foster transparency or trust in the process and that can exclude large swaths of average homebuyers.

Doorsey: Residential real estate that levels the playing field

One platform that seeks to level the playing field by optimizing transparency to include all buyers and sellers is Doorsey.com, an open-offer real estate platform modeled conceptually after Bring a Trailer.

Doorsey is an open-bidding real estate platform designed to improve the home buying and selling process—a process that’s traditionally been somewhat vague and frustrating at times for all parties. Doorsey provides buyers, sellers, and their agents full transparency throughout the offer process, putting all players at ease through what can be a highly emotional purchase—something that most other real estate platforms neglect to do. And, while many other platforms buy the homes they list just to flip them for a profit, Doorsey does not. Instead, Doorsey seeks simply to level the playing field among buyers by putting everything on the table for optimal transparency, understanding that when buyers know more up front, they see the sale as less risky, and bid accordingly.

With Doorsey, sellers and their listing agents can put it all out there: all inspections, disclosures, photos of the good and the bad, the fancy smart stoves or the cringy carpets. Every Doorsey listing includes a pre-offer home inspection done by a licensed and bonded third-party inspector to eliminate surprises. Buyers also see not only current offers, but deal terms, questions and comments competing buyers have already asked, and local insight from other agents and bidders in a community forum—so, informed by all stakeholders through the life of the listing, Doorsey listing pages evolve far beyond their initial setup. Likewise, sellers get to see the buyer’s name, price, and other insights, which are on full display for peace of mind on their end. When the bidding is done and the offer is accepted, the final purchase transaction takes place directly between the buyer, seller, and their agents.

Doorsey listings have time limits, but, like Bring a Trailer, every new bid starts another three-minute clock, so there’s no frenzied pressure when making such a big decision. That way, the process doesn’t exclude bidders who might be leery of high-pressure, split-second decisions. This increases the bidder pool.

Doorsey takes transparency further than most residential real estate platforms by offering detailed property page content. Each listing offers more on its own than MLS descriptions allow, and other platforms offer: Property photos show open cabinets and capture closet interiors, and primary photos of main rooms and major features have text descriptions attached to them. 

Property pages also go far beyond standard photo galleries, with 3D tours, layout plans, third-party inspection reports, video content and immersive media tours. Doorsey’s Matterport 3D home scans take traditional virtual tours to the next level with virtual walkthroughs and clickable meta-tags on interior photos so potential bidders can get appliance information that includes links to the manufacturer.

Doorsey doesn’t stop there. Listing pages also include a payment calculator, a document repository and an in-person tour scheduler. And agents can create profile pages on Doorsey with links to them on property listings, so buyers know who they’re dealing with, for an additional touch of openness.

On Doorsey, everything involved with home buying is laid out so that buyers can easily perform all their due diligence up front before bidding, which saves time and money for all stakeholders. If only poor Walter and Anna had a Doorsey when they were considering purchasing their money pit!