The Utah-based disruptive company “transferred our real estate agents from W2s to 1099s,” while other “non-Homie” agents were fired last week for “duty redundancy,” Homie said. a spokesperson confirmed to Inman.
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Amid the turmoil in the housing market, flat-rate brokerage firm Homie has laid off employees, converted salaried agents into contractors, and now appears to be operating without a chief executive officer.
In a series of emails Friday and Monday, Homie spokeswoman Sarah Edelman characterized what’s happening at the company as a strategic “shift.” But the changes look very different from where the company was a few years ago, when it had 1,000 agents and hundreds of employees.
Regarding agents, Edelman said the company has “moved real estate agents from W2s to 1099s, which is a common transition in the real estate industry.” He also said the company has 18 such agents, as well as a “small number” of W2 employees. Last week, four “non-homey” agents were fired for “duty redundancy.”
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This news follows last week’s report. of salt lake tribune The company claimed to be calling it quits. Mr. Edelman blasted the Tribune article, calling it inaccurate in an initial email to Mr. Inman. Asked for additional information, she continued: “There are too many inaccuracies to address,” but added: “The main issue is the misleading headline that there are no more employees, which is false. There is,” he said.
of tribunebased the article on an anonymous employee’s statement, but later changed the headline.of tribune Homie also said he plans to continue making referrals.
Mr. Inman asked about the current size of Homey’s workforce, but the company did not provide further details. Presumably, a “handful” of W2 employees is a smaller workforce than the several hundred people working at Homie in 2022. The company also did not provide details about the timeline for the layoffs.
CEO Mike Peregrina also left the company. Although Mr. Peregrina’s LinkedIn profile lists Homie as his current employer, Mr. Edelman said in response to a question about Mr. Peregrina that he actually left the company in November. Mr. Inman emailed Mr. Peregrina directly and after receiving an apparent automated response that he no longer worked for the company, he asked about Mr. Peregrina.
“We deeply appreciate the valuable contributions of Mike, who played a pivotal role in the establishment and early operations of the company,” Edelman said in an email.
Mr. Inman asked if the company was currently looking for a new CEO, but Mr. Homie did not answer that question.
Inman also directly reached out to Greg Friso, who is currently Homey’s head of real estate, according to his LinkedIn page. The email was bounced and a message was generated indicating that it could not be delivered.
Mr. Inman asked Mr. Homie generally about the departure of executives, including Mr. Friso, but the company did not provide additional information.
Instead of a CEO, Edelman said, Homey is “currently managed by a board of directors, co-founder Johnny Hanna, and vice presidents of each division.” Hanna is a former CEO who resigned in 2022 amid the company’s second round of layoffs.
While questions remain about what’s going on inside Homie, the company’s apparently declining form highlights the difficult times facing the proptech space. Homie was founded in 2015 and has raised millions of dollars in several different funding rounds over the years.
Homey grew on the promise of listing homes for relatively low flat fees, rather than the percentage-based commissions of traditional agents. This was a model that was effectively optimized at a time when interest rates were low and demand seemed bottomless.
In its home base outside Salt Lake, Homie’s billboards were also regularly posted, often offering jokes and pop culture references to motorists along Interstate 15.
But Homie appears to be suffering as the pandemic boom wanes. In 2022, the company embarked on multiple rounds of layoffs.
Homie isn’t the only one facing recent challenges. Thanks to rampant inflation and rising mortgage rates, real estate companies will lay off thousands of employees in 2022, and more recently, investors have significantly lost enthusiasm for proptech startups.
Flat-fee brokerages have also lost significantly more mindshare than they did just a few years ago, when they were hailed as major disruptors. Today, the companies that regularly make headlines tend to be traditional brokerages like Compass or franchisors like his RE/MAX. And the most talked-about potential disruptors are not tech startups, but rather lawsuits and government regulators.
But Homie says the era of turmoil is far from over. In an email to Inman, Edelman said, “Homie remains open and committed to our mission of empowering consumers by maximizing cost savings.”
Edelman added, “The company continues to operate with an unwavering dedication to delivering disruptive solutions in the real estate space.”
Email Jim Dalrymple II
