proptech startup Divi will begin launching new products in 2024. The company, known for its “rent-to-buy” products that allow homebuyers to make an all-cash offer and rent a property until they are ready to buy, is launching a homeownership readiness program. Divy upAccording to an announcement Wednesday.
CEO Adena Hefets, a 2020 HousingWire Rising Star, said, “We’re talking to our current customer base to find out what they need and want to feel more support from Divvy. We spent a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what was going on.”
“We did a ton of user research interviews and came back to the fact that customers want more support in the process of starting homeownership. They want to know their credit, their debt relative to their income. They wanted to know their ratio, they wanted to know how to increase their savings, and they wanted an education.”
With these customer needs in mind, Hefets and her team set out to create DivvyUp. When a customer signs up, the platform asks them to complete an onboarding survey to help Divvy understand their homeownership goals and financial situation. Divvy then uses this information to calculate a user’s homeownership readiness timeline and provides users with insight into various factors that influence readiness, including down payment savings, credit score, and debt-to-income ratio. .
“This is very consistent with our mission,” Hefetz said. “This provides the foundation to ensure that our current and future customer base feels supported by more than just a rent-to-own program, and provides them with a plan of action. It will guide you step by step along the way on how to prepare for a mortgage. ”
DivvyUp provides users with a personalized action plan with steps they can take to get approved for a mortgage. The platform’s homeownership readiness calculator allows users to discover ways to shorten their homeownership timeline and see how actions like paying off debt and saving monthly can impact their timeline. You can also do this.
Hefets said real estate agents can register with Divvy. When you send a customer to DivvyUp, the company contacts agents to let them know when the buyer is ready for homeownership.
So far, feedback on DivvyUp has been positive, Hefetz said, and the product has a waiting list of more than 16,000 customers. The platform is currently available to users in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Tennessee, and Texas, and costs $14.99 per month after a five-day free trial.
“There are a lot of personal finance apps out there, but I feel like they serve the needs of the tech community more than the average American. They want to know where they’re doing well financially and what they need to fix. We just want to see at a glance what’s going on and what steps we can take to improve it,” Hefetz said. “The prices are also much lower than other credit repair programs.”
Looking to the future, Hefetz said there are plans to expand DivvyUp’s footprint, including possibilities such as budget modules and mortgage marketplaces.
“We’re at the beginning of a big product build,” Hefetz said. “I think this is the first iteration of what we’re ultimately trying to get to.”
After what Hefetz described as a “really tough year” for proptech companies in 2023, Divvy is grateful to still be around and able to continue innovating and launching new products.
“It wasn’t easy,” Hefetz said. “We went through multiple rounds of layoffs, which were painful. We also spent late nights going through every line of the income statement looking for excessive costs. We are fortunate to have taken swift action to ensure our survival and that this experience has made us stronger and more resilient.”
Hefetz said the company has spent the past year making sure it runs an efficient business. The company builds core products and infrastructure, like his DivvyUp, that help customers achieve their home buying goals.
“Even in our darkest days at Divvy, we continued to believe that we couldn’t fail because our customers trusted us,” Hefets says.