Home is where the aroma of freshly-baked peanut butter cookies drifts out of the kitchen in winter. Home is where the deep, dark coat closet in the back entryway becomes the best spot to win hide-and-seek. Home is where the tabby cat finds a warm, cozy crawl space in the attic to surprise the family with a litter of kittens. Home is where the labradoodle pup lingers at the door long after the family leaves. Home is where the world spent much of 2020, reevaluating what is important.
Home is a far more intangible concept than a house. A home is also one of the most expensive purchases many people make in their lifetime, so it’s no mystery why the homebuying experience is fraught with emotion. It doesn’t help that in 2021 the housing market became so exceptionally competitive that one Maryland resident included a pledge to name her first-born child after the seller in her written offer, and still did not land the deal.
“People are not buying a house, they're not buying a financial asset, they're buying a home. That home represents the place where they feel safe, raise their family and build their life,” said Flyhomes Chief Operating Officer Ryan Dibble. That’s why “people, not properties” is the ethos at the real estate brokerage and property technology company.
Solving Old Problems
Flyhomes is a Seattle-based property tech and end-to-end real estate service that launched in 2016 with the goal of reimagining a broken homebuying experience. The traditional method is complicated, and the industry has inherited legacy processes that don’t always make sense. Consider mortgage underwriting, which traditionally comes later in the process but can abruptly halt a deal in the 11th hour.
“It's absurd that people are going out and making offers on homes, and they don't know for sure whether they're going to qualify for the mortgage or not,” said Dibble.
The team at Flyhomes is questioning existing processes and offering tools to make homebuying less stressful. The company uses machine learning, segmented expertise and consumer education to remove pain points and help buyers find a home they love. Flyhomes provides a Cash Offer tool for qualified buyers to close deals, and a Buy Before You Sell solution that fronts the money for a new home while helping homeowners sell their current home.
By The Numbers
According to Dibble, these products have been developed by continuously asking, “Why?” The team has found that the answer typically involves a fear-versus-risk approach by businesses that set the industry precedent before better technology was available. To flip the process on its head, the team then asks, “Why not?” to find the opportunity for Flyhomes to improve the existing system.
A tight customer feedback loop helps the team identify process gaps and build a bridge over them, rather than following industry customs set up decades ago. “We're doing our best to update the experience from that 1950s mentality,” said Executive Vice President and Head of Brokerage Sam Kasle.
According to Kasle, efficiency is at the core of this endeavor. From his perspective, the promise of the internet has been the democratization of data, allowing people to communicate faster and getting rid of go-betweens. Kasle’s personal goal is to help deliver on that promise. “Real estate is an industry that has been built up around contracts,” said Kasle. “The problem is when you focus on those sorts of things, you're missing the human element.”
The team strives to restore that human element to the homebuying process. As the market fluctuates, or priorities shift or a global crisis impacts homebuyers’ needs, Flyhomes aims to keep up.
“We want to help every single client. If someone has a special situation, we want to have a solution for them,” said Director of Brokerage Products Sophia Lu. The team starts with that one customer and figures out why the current system doesn’t work for them.
The company uses brainstorming committees to achieve its goals. When frontline agents run into a special situation, they run the scenarios through the committee to come up with solutions. The likelihood is that if one customer is struggling, there are probably many more in the same situation. Over time some solutions may become an actual product that gets developed and launched.
“We are changing along with customer needs,” said Lu. “Combining that constant change mindset — which has been pretty rare in the real estate industry for the last couple of decades — with listening to clients is how we're rethinking the homebuying experience.”
Creating Meaningful Change
Helping buyers find a place to call home is emotional work that takes a lot of compassion and empathy. Lu still vividly recalls the first time she helped a client win a home and called to share the good news.
“They cried on the phone,” said Lu. “That was a really fulfilling experience, helping clients make their dream come true against a super competitive market, where the homebuyer has not been the focus for a lot of real estate agents."
The Flyhomes Origin Story
“The company is trying to operationalize Co-founder Tushar Garg’s big heart,” said Kasle. “There is going to be a transaction, but we need to start with each individual’s needs, wants and desires. The cornerstones of our values are integrity, empowerment, innovation, bias for solutions and winning together.”
The team agrees that the founders instilled a customer-centric DNA into the Flyhomes business model. How do team members keep this focus while navigating daily work? According to Dibble, employees at Flyhomes are relentlessly empathetic.
“Acting with integrity is a big part of it because we are asking customers to trust us. Employees feel every customer’s pain in themselves and figure out how to make it work. They won’t take no for an answer,” said Dibble.
Finding Purpose
In order to break the old model, Flyhomes leans on a diversity of perspectives. The founding team included a structural engineer, a financial analyst from the World Bank and a software engineer from Microsoft. Another employee made a professional pivot from a school teacher to a supply chain analyst. “A lot of us didn't come from a real estate background, myself included. Within six months of joining the company I got my real estate license and started helping clients,” said Lu.
Flyhomes actively recruits non-real estate professionals to get fresh ideas in the mix. “In order to innovate, you have to look at things from a completely new perspective,” said Kasle. “We are really proud of our ability to take someone with high potential and passion, bring them in, train them, support them, and give them the mentorship they need to be very successful.”
This path can change more than just career trajectory. Lu finds that her personality has transformed since joining the company. “I was an introvert. Then I joined Flyhomes, got my license and started doing more client work. That human interaction has opened me up,” said Lu. “Now I am borderline introverted, and I can be extroverted when I need to be.”
Now I am borderline introverted, and I can be extroverted when I need to be.”
Kasle believes that the company has a je ne sais quoi that brings out the best in its people. “Over the past 25 years, I have worked for lots of companies with plenty of great people and worthy endeavors throughout. But Flyhomes is creating something incredibly unique,” he said. “I don't just mean the products and services, but our internal culture and our values. We demonstrate those on a different level than I've experienced before.”
The team agrees that it takes a lot of authenticity, intellectual curiosity and willingness to do this work. There is a strong sense of purpose in helping people find a place where they can build their lives — gather, create a family, train a puppy — and create the memories that make a house into a home.
“I really enjoy the type of work where you incubate an idea from nonexistent to a full-blown product that you can bring to market, and make more efficient as time goes on,” said Lu. “The company has always focused on innovation, and every six months, every year, we're bringing a new product to the client. That's the type of work I really enjoy.”
