1. We Purchase Ugly Homes® was based by an actual property agent
Promoting your home on to an organization corresponding to HomeVestors runs reverse to the traditional itemizing course of, whereby you associate with an actual property agent, primp and prep your home on the market on the open market, and let consumers compete on your residence. You’d by no means guess, then, that HomeVestors and the idea of We Purchase Ugly Homes® was created by somebody who lived and breathed the standard manner of doing actual property: a working towards Dallas and Houston actual property agent of 20 years named Ken D’Angelo.
2. It began with a late-night infomercial
Because the story goes, D’Angelo was impressed by a late-night infomercial touting the within observe on easy methods to purchase a house — which put him within the entrepreneurial spirit. With deep information of the trade due to his years spent working for brokerages like Purple Carpet Realtors and ERA Realtors, D’Angelo noticed a possibility to go the place others wouldn’t in actual property, specifically, straight towards these homes deemed “ugly” or unworthy of a proposal.
So started the foundations of a enterprise constructed on shopping for properties at below-market worth, renovating them, and re-selling them on the open market — a course of D’Angelo would grasp and develop coaching methods for that he may then cross on to others. The Texas agent based the corporate in 1989 as a one-man flipping enterprise in Dallas-Fort Price. He started franchising in 1996 after elevating $350,000 in a public debt providing.
3. Greater than 1,000 actual property investor franchisees are employed beneath the We Purchase Ugly Homes® model
After planting roots in Texas, We Purchase Ugly Homes® then franchised in Kansas Metropolis and Atlanta, as actual property buyers adopted the house-flipping mannequin beneath a standard title in new territories. From there, the enterprise went countrywide. We Purchase Ugly Homes® has bought greater than 140,000 homes to this point by a community of greater than 1,100 independently owned and operated franchises throughout 46 states and the District of Columbia.
D’Angelo handed away in 2005, and John Hayes, a franchising skilled, succeeded him till 2009. In the summertime of 2023, David Hicks, who had been with HomeVestors for 18 years, stepped down as the pinnacle of the corporate. Hicks developed the corporate’s course of for teaching franchisees. Below his management, in 2020, HomeVestors ranked for the sixth time on the annual Inc. 5000 listing of the nation’s fastest-growing personal corporations, based mostly on 62% development in income over three years.
Main the corporate right this moment is Larry Goodman, who brings greater than 35 years of actual property expertise, together with 12 years because the COO of a nationwide multifamily property administration agency and 15 years in varied roles associated to funding and asset administration, overseeing a various vary of economic and residential belongings for pension funds, insurance coverage corporations, and excessive internet value buyers. Proper now, Larry Goodman is the CEO of HomeVestors.
D’Angelo’s legacy continues by We Purchase Ugly Homes®’s continued development, and the corporate maintains its Dallas headquarters to at the present time.
4. The shaggy-haired caveman repping We Purchase Ugly Homes® has a reputation — and a backstory
You might know him because the caveman on these roadside billboards, however he does have a reputation: Ug Lee. He sports activities a holey yellow tunic and a bushy brown beard and at all times carries a bag of money, prepared to purchase ugly homes and assist householders get out of determined conditions. He represents HomeVestor’s dedication to seeing the sweetness in what a house may very well be.
