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JOME, an Austin-based new home construction search portal, has landed a Series A round of funding in the amount of $9.8 million, Inman has learned.
SID Venture Partners, U.Ventures and Forefront VP were led in the round by Geek Ventures, according to the Dec. 18 announcement. The company said its plans for the money include “expanding its regional footprint,” which already includes 16 cities, including Austin, Denver and Miami, and in total, 90 percent of available new construction inventory.
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The company’s solution aims to solve the widespread issue of fragmentation in the marketing of new homes, which is largely relegated to what a developer feels is adequate to attract drive-by traffic. New homes don’t find their way to a local multiple listing service with the same frequency as existing inventory.
What JOME offers is an artificial intelligence engine that spiders a market to collate data on its new homes and build out a searchable, up-to-date consumer experience. It also directly partners with developers who agree to feed the site updates, plans and listing assets.
“This enables buyers access to advanced filtering to showcase the most relevant new construction matches, free consultations with certified real estate experts, AI-powered contract review and [summaries] and the ability to instantly book a viewing minutes before they arrive, all on one user-friendly and seamless platform,” the release stated.
The company was previously known as NewHouseMate and states that to date it has assisted more than 100,000 users in buying homes totaling more than $250 million. It works with notable new construction brands, such as D.R. Horton, Lennar and PulteGroup, the nation’s largest.
Inventory has been among the root issues of America’s housing market challenges. While interest rates ultimately calcified activity, the lack of new building in the last decade has proven to be the much heavier anchor.
While the count of available listings is up about 20 percent from last year, a recent Fannie Mae report said 2024 could be the slowest market since 1995. More marketing of new homes can help, JOME’s founders believe.
“There’s a shortage of 4 [million] to 7 million homes in the U.S., making the building and selling of new construction homes a crucial lifeline to alleviate this crisis,” said Dan Hnatkovskyy, co-founder and CEO at JOME, in the announcement. “However, most newly built homes, or one-third of single-family homes on the market, aren’t even listed on the major real estate listing platforms and instead tucked away in builders’ spreadsheets.”
The decline in sales is expected to be cushioned by a 2.2 percent uptick in sales of new homes, to 680,000. But sales of existing homes are now projected to shrink by 0.7 percent this year, to 4.062 million, Inman reported.
“We created JOME to remove these bottlenecks while offering tailored support from certified real estate experts trained specifically on the nuances of the new construction home market,” Hnatkovskyy said. “The new home buying process should be filled with joy, which encompasses the intention behind our new brand, JOME – to bask in the joy of purchasing a new construction home.”
JOME’s funding aligns with VC trends in recent years that have made existing revenue a focal point for funding. The company says its revenue has grown by over 300 percent since 2023.
