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Increasing Rents 50-70% via Roommate Rentals with Johnny Wolff

Johnny Wolff

Ritter on Real Estate

Increasing Rents 50-70% via Roommate Rentals with Johnny Wolff

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Today's #RORE guest is Johnny Wolff. Johnny Wolff is the CEO and Founder of HomeRoom – one of the fastest-growing shared living companies in the United States. After starting his career as a financial analyst in Silicon Valley (EA, SanDisk, Guidespark), he relocated to Austin, Texas to pursue real estate investing full-time. His love for real estate investing and living with roommates motivated him to start HomeRoom in 2017, after an unusually terrible Craigslist roommate experience.

In 2020, HomeRoom boasted 99% on-time rent payments, full occupancy, and zero evictions. Sales velocity for HomeRoom is up 300% in 2021 with hundreds of happy residents across 23 cities in 3 states. Powered by investor funds, HomeRoom recently expanded to Dallas and Austin, Texas. Johnny still lives in one of HomeRoom’s first coliving houses in Kansas City, and enjoys hanging out and surviving the pandemic with his awesome roommates -especially on chicken wing Thursdays! Welcome to the podcast Johnny!

Key Points From The Episode:

  • Starting his career as a financial analyst at Silicon Valley doing analyzing real estate deals on the side.

  • Moving to Kansas City to further build his portfolio.

  • Formulated the HomeRoom CoLiving concept from bad roommate experiences in the past.

  • Describing CoLiving as an idea of layering technology into roommate living and making them better. By using machine learning in pairing roommates, it becomes a better fit.

  • HomeRoom CoLiving being an upgraded version of remote investing and roommate living.

  • How increasing rents 50-70% is possible with roommate rentals.

  • Roommate matching horror stories…

  • Becoming the Airbnb of Roommate Housing.

  • Improving tenant sourcing in the industry.

  • Using the app, investors can manage their investments and properties seamlessly.

  • Widely sourcing leads from different funnels and virtually checking out each property before renting out.

  • Future goals for HomeRoom. Planning on entering 750+cities within the next few years.

  • Roommate housing being the future.

  • Advantages of “living as a service” model.

Books mentioned:

  1. The 50th Law by Robert Greene and 50 cent