HomeGain today announced it achieved “significant growth and profitability” last year.
The Emeryville, Calif-based company said it increased its revenue 50 percent, signed up more than 200,000 prospective home buyers and sellers, and added 11,500 real estate agents to its service last year. The company is privately held and doesn’t disclose its financial results in hard numbers.
“Consumers increasingly look to the Internet as their first source of information and education about the purchase or sale of a home. Each month, millions of consumers look to HomeGain.com to help them select a real estate agent, research local home listings and link up with lenders, movers and other related service providers,” said Glenn Houck, SVP of agent success for HomeGain.
The company attributed its results to more people using the Internet for help buying or selling a home, a “dramatic increase” in the number of real estate agents who use the Internet to generate business and the company’s own online business model, which matches consumers anonymously with real estate agents.
More than 2.4 million people have registered at the HomeGain Web site since the company’s inception in 1999. HomeGain has generated more than 1.5 million leads for 70,500 agents from more than 3,200 national, regional and independent brokerages that have signed up for the service, according to the company.
The number of real estate agents who had paid HomeGain memberships increased 19 percent from 59,000 at the end of 2002 to 70,500 at the end of 2003, the company disclosed. Agents pay a monthly membership fee to market their services to people who register HomeGain’s Web site. They also pay a fee to HomeGain when a HomeGain-referred transaction closes. HomeGain is a licensed real estate broker.
Ninety-nine agents have earned more than $100,000 in gross closed commissions using HomeGain and nearly 300 more agents have earned between $50,000 and $100,000 in gross closed commissions from HomeGain leads, the company said.
HomeGain member agents close 16 sales per year on average, and the top HomeGain agents average 44 transactions and annual sales of nearly $3 million, according to the company.
HomeGain has online partnerships with more than 200 Web sites and portals, including Yahoo!, E-Trade, CNN, FoxNews, LookSmart, Quicken, MSN, Lycos and Google.
HomeGain founder and CEO Bradley Inman is also the founder and publisher of Inman News.
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