Divvy Homes and Boom partner to increase mortgage-eligibility and create more homeowners.
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This case study is based on an interview with Kaylin Callen, Head of Legal Operations and Head of Payments at Divvy Homes. All quotes are attributed to her unless stated otherwise.
Homeownership is a powerful step towards building community, stability, and wealth, but today, navigating the path to owning a home comes with many hurdles—and no one understands that more than Divvy Homes. Divvy is a rent-to-own homeownership program built for Americans that may have a more difficult time qualifying for a traditional mortgage. “We want to take people who feel like they're excluded from traditional homeownership and give them a pathway to do that—and building credit is an important part of that process.”
“Credit building is a critical component of what we do at Divvy and we’re grateful to have Boom on our side. Rent reporting with Boom is stress-free, hands off, and most importantly, reliable. For any other mid-to-large size SFR or even multifamily portfolio, that’s a huge win.”
With Boom, renters can build their credit over time as they make consistent, on-time rental payments.
Boom reports rent payments to all three major credit bureaus—Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
All renters using Boom can track their reported payments and credit score progress via the Boom app.
At Boom, our goal is to make housing more flexible, affordable, and rewarding.
Boom was started in late 2020 as one of our co-founders, Rob Whiting, helped two of his family members navigate housing instability due to
COVID-19 - related job loss. During this time, he saw just how archaic and difficult renting remains for the majority of the 110 million renters in the US like his family members. And the rent payment is at the center of this.
Not only has rent increased >4x faster than income for the majority of renters since the early 2000s, but the tools available to renters and landlords alike has similarly stagnated. Rent remains one large lump sum, with no additional benefits on top of paying rent - a fact that can make renting feel like money down the drain. At Boom, we believe that housing can be more flexible, affordable, and rewarding. We’ve started by enabling you to build credit with the rent payments you already make.
Starting Line
Ezra Galston
Clocktower Ventures
Ben Savage
Company Ventures
Matt Harrigan
Gilgamesh Ventures
Andrew Endicott & Miguel Armaza
Chingona Ventures
Samara Hernandez
Affirm syndicate
Jeffrey Shu
William Hockey
Plaid co-founder
Zach Perret
Plaid co-founder
Siesta Ventures
Pau Sabria (Olapic co-founder)
Sergio Furio
Creditas founder
Misha Esipov
Nova Credit co-founder
Cyril Berdugo & Tom Petit
Landis co-founders
Will Lucas
Mint House co-founder
Todd Benson
Citi private equity co-founder
Divvy Homes is on a mission to make homeownership more accessible to American families. The program is currently available across 16 major U.S. metropolitan areas: Atlanta, GA; Cincinnati, OH; Cleveland, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Ft Lauderdale, FL; Houston, TX; Jacksonville, FL; Memphis, TN; Minneapolis, MN; Miami, FL; Orlando, FL; Phoenix, AZ; San Antonio, TX; St. Louis, MO; and Tampa, FL. Divvy Homes is backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Caffeinated Capital, GGV Capital, GIC, JAWS Ventures, Lennar, Moore Specialty Credit, SciFi VC, and Tiger Global Management. Divvy Homes was incubated in Max Levchin's startup studio HVF, and co-founded by Adena Hefets, Nick Clark and Alex Klarfeld.
Boom is on a mission to level the playing field for the 110+ million renters in the US by making housing more flexible, affordable, and rewarding. Boom is building a suite of rental financial services for renters and property managers, including rent payment reporting, rent reporting-as-a-service, and a number of integrations for the largest property management systems (PMS). Now serving thousands of renters, Boom is led by second-time founders Rob Whiting (ex-BCG, Rubicon) and Kirill Moizik (ex-Eco, Technion, Grubhub).