In this week’s founder interview, we’re bringing you Jeff Glass from Hometap.

Without further ado…

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Jeffrey Glass. I am the CEO and cofounder of Hometap Equity Partners. My job has five main requirements. My number one role is to ensure that we are capitalized to accomplish our mission of making homeownership less stressful and more accessible, as we have ambitious operating and deployment goals that can’t be accomplished unless we have the necessary capital. Secondly, I think of myself as a champion of company culture. Our culture centers around being a good owner of one’s work and a good neighbor to one another. I try to do all I can to ensure that our values are operationalized and practiced throughout our organization. Number three is that I work to ensure that we have a high caliber leadership team that functions well together, because talent attracts talent. Fourth, I seek to amplify and communicate our business strategy so that we all are working towards a common set of goals. And finally, I look to help with game-changing business development or sales opportunities that can make a major impact on the achievement of our strategy.

What problem does your product/service solve?

Tens of millions of American homeowners are house-rich and cash-poor. We seek to accomplish our mission of making homeownership less stressful and more accessible by offering these homeowners an alternative to debt. We provide qualified homeowners with capital today in exchange for a percentage of the future value of the home.

This debt-free cash allows homeowners to accomplish goals like making renovations, funding a child’s education, putting a down payment on a second home, starting a business, and handling other life expenses that were previously unattainable to them.

For capital partners, we create an opportunity to participate in a pool of residential real estate investments with attractive risk, return and cash flow attributes in an asset class that historically has low to no correlation with the stock market.

What are you most excited about right now?

We’re excited about the continued development of this financial option for homeowners and the asset class for capital. We have grown every year for the past five years, and have expanded to almost 20 states. Our strong Trustpilot reviews, homeowner net promoter scores, and commitment to taking care of homeowners has led to increased word of mouth and referral-based business for us.

Institutional capital partners are increasingly seeing what we do as an opportunity to do something good for homeowners while earning an appropriate return.

When we started working on the idea for Hometap back in 2016, we had a vision that someday homeowners would consider a home equity investor like us as naturally as they presently think about working with a lender. Each day, we are getting closer to that reality. We will continue to expand and make a Hometap investment available to as broad a universe of homeowners as possible.

What’s next for you?

Last year, we closed on $60 million of operating capital and are using it to hire top talent, scale our partner program, introduce more products and services, and expand our operations. We also launched several new asset funds, giving us hundreds of millions of dollars to invest alongside homeowners.

We’re always seeking ways to enhance the homeowner experience to make engaging with Hometap easier, faster, and more seamless — whether it’s through iterating on our software applications or the investment process itself.

What’s a cause you’re passionate about and why? 

I care deeply about the democratization of opportunity. About 14 years ago, I helped to start BUILD, an organization that seeks to ignite the power of youth in under-resourced communities to build career success, entrepreneurial mindsets and opportunity. We work with high school students throughout Massachusetts.

Through the empowering experience of running a real business, students demonstrate increased proficiency in six critical competencies we call Spark Skills: Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving, Innovation, Grit, and Self Management. Most importantly, BUILD students develop a vital sense of self-agency over their education and careers.

For me, entrepreneurship has always been a source of skill development, creativity, relationship building and financial independence. It’s very exciting for me to participate in BUILD’s efforts to help young people build life skills through the lens of company creation. Over the years, BUILD has worked with over 6,000 students. For us, entrepreneurship is the hook, and college and career readiness is the goal.

Thanks to Jeff for sharing his story. If you’d like to connect, find him on LinkedIn here.

We’re constantly looking for great real estate tech entrepreneurs to feature. If that’s you, please read this post — then drop us a line ([email protected]).