Former PayPal and Square exec Keith Rabois plans to launch a startup in June that will allow homeowners to sell their homes almost instantly with just a few clicks of a mouse, with the goal of flipping those homes for a quick profit, Re/code reports.
The company, tentatively called “Homerun,” will be the buyer, accepting or rejecting the sale price offered by the homeowner on the spot based on an analysis of public and private data, Re/code said. After Homerun purchases a home, it will immediately flip it to turn a profit.
“We will be very efficient and very fast in reselling the home,” Rabois told Re/code, which dubbed Homerun’s business model “big-data house-flipping.”
In exchange for the convenience of being able to unload their property quickly, homeowners will have to be prepared to take less — a “discount for liquidity,” Rabois said. But that discount will be “much less” than the 8 percent car dealers expect on trade-ins. Such a service might appeal to distressed homeowners, or people who need to sell quickly in order to relocate for work or finance a trade-up.
Homerun, which surfaced on tech watchers’ radar last month, is working on closing an investment round and has brought some top talent aboard. In addition to Rabois — who is a partner with Silcon Valley-based venture capital firm Khosla Ventures — the company’s co-founders are Eric Wu, the former head of “geo products” at Trulia, and Ian Wong, a former data scientist at Square.
The key to the ventures success will not only be valuing properties sight unseen, but getting access to capital at the right price to fund flips, Rabois said.
