Homeunion as an investing option

[John Barr]

Hello BP Community!

Have a quick question for you.

Has anyone ever had any experience with Homeunion.com?

They seem like they have a pretty good system set up for purchasing SFR properties across the country.

[Mark Enoch]

I used Homeunion briefly, but pulled out of the contract after I found out some distrubing business practices. They have a lot of fees, and you need to understand them and see how they compare to the local market via other options. For example, There management fee was 10.5% which was high compared to other local property managers in the cities I was looking to invest in. They do not use escalation clauses, and instead have you agree to a range that the local Homeunion buying agents can work with. The home I went after had been on the market a few weeks with no offers, and the HomeUnion local agents that work with the selling agent indicated that one other offer came into the mix last minute. The HomeUnion agent went with the highest end of my bid range vice using an esclator. I decided to speak with the selling agent myself and they were surprised we didn't use an escalator. 

It all started to make sense though. The fee structure with HomeUnion is they get a 3.5% acquisition fee, so a higher closing price nets them more fees (and makes it that much more expensive for no value gain to you). So the incentives for them don't match up with the investor in all cases, such as using a escalator in keep the price down. I'd suggest other options for SFR investing.