Homie is a VC backed startup replacing real estate agents in Utah and Arizona and they seem to be doing very well. Massive adoption over the last year. I feel pretty confident that agents will eventually be a thing of the past.
Then they face a basic blackout from the entrenched real estate mafia. No selling agents want to work with buyers from Homie because the buyers agents are supposed to show the house. But when you have no agent, it falls on the seller, and they flat out told me no several times unless I agreed to buy it through them. I can sympathize with this, but it sucks as the consumer. This is a problem they will need to overcome.
I love the idea of Homie, but if you're going to push the software/automation angle, you better have software that works. You also gotta figure out how to twist the arm of that cartel. I believe in their mission enough that I actually looked into applying there so I could fix those bugs, but I get the impression that they don't hire in-house engineers and possibly use contractors. I'm a senior engineer who worked as a real estate agent for a couple years, so I think I would have been pretty valuable hire for them. I'm also super passionate about disrupting that industry because I feel they've taken advantage of me in the past much. But, alas, what can you do.
They claim to charge sellers $1,500 to list and no more. Sounds good so far. How do they get buyers?
They claim to give buyers $5,000 back at closing. Cool, but where does that money come from you might ask?
The FAQ's imply by only buying listings currently available with a traditional real estate agent.
Exact wording from their FAQ's: "If a non-Homie seller has listed their home on the MLS, they’ve agreed to pay a buyer agent commission (BAC), usually around 3% of the price of the home."
The more sellers choose them, the less successful they will be at attracting buyers.
That's why so many of these "Billion dollar disrupters" go under. They need the existing system to succeed.