Why HOMR invests so much in these guides
Buying a house is most Americans' biggest investment, and often our most consistent source of stress. Around 2014, we started to notice that information from Google search was becoming less useful. Getting home service referrals from Google was inconsistent for many reasons: first, a national review of “Orkin” tells you very little about how good their local office is. Second, they’re incentivized to push high performing ads to the top of search results. Finally, it was so easy to get information online, that hundreds of “review websites” launched as glorified Yellow Pages.
Even finding a good person to work on our homes felt like a full-time job.
When we started the HOMR membership - finding good service providers for our members became the most important part of our job. We spent hundreds of hours calling, vetting, reading quotes, and comparing bids. We realized that data could be used by other people too.
We make money on everything that we recommend
We make money on the HOMR subscription. Additionally, when you buy a service on HOMR’s platform, we make a 5-10% share of that purchase. Ultimately, if our recommendations aren’t good, our members don’t stick around, which we think keeps us honest.
Why you should trust us: a screening-first process
As a concierge, when our members ask for a service we have no data on, say a Chimney Sweep - we start by calling all of the Chimney Sweep companies in Dallas, and our internal database to find partners that can provide good service at scale.
Only after we’ve identified a great provider do we establish partnerships and revenue sharing relationships.
There’s also ongoing accountability. Partners have to maintain good feedback from HOMR members to stay on our platform and continue serving our members.
How We Write
Before we reach out to those companies, we create a “scorecard” for each industry. They’re built from HOMR member questions: anything our customers ask before or during the process of getting a quote. Second, we find the most common failure points for a service provider. This usually comes in the form of BBB complaints, Google and Yelp reviews, as well as community forums like Reddit and Facebook. Finally, we track our own service data - change order requests, warranty claims, and our team’s internal notes from projects that received negative member feedback.
Once we’ve built the scorecard for an industry, we begin screening the companies.
Where do we source the companies we review?
We try to provide as much data on the companies we don’t recommend as well as the ones we do to give you trust in our process.
Our goal is to reliably evaluate all of the companies a reader may consider, and find the hidden gems that don’t have a good online presence.
We source companies from three places:
- Member referrals - our members regularly onboard their favorite plumbers, electricians, and tree trimmers to our network - member referrals are put at the top of the list for review.
- Large local and national brands - we always want to ensure we review companies that have good brand visibility, as their scale means they can serve a lot of homeowners.
- Top search engine results - again, we think that these companies command a lot of online traffic and the public has a right to understand how good they are.
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