Homeward

Homeward is a home-buying and real estate finance company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that partners with real estate agents to let their clients transact with cash. Its core products are Buy Before You Sell, which lets an owner waive the home-sale contingency and access equity to purchase a new home before listing the old one; Make a Cash Offer, which converts a financed offer into an all-cash offer intended to compete against multiple bids; and Sell to Homeward, which provides a cash offer on an existing home, quoted within 24 hours, while allowing the seller to retain upside when the home is later resold on the market (sources 0, 1, 2).

The company describes itself as "a new kind of finance company" and positions itself against both traditional contingent, financed offers and iBuyers, which it characterizes as purchasing homes below market and reselling them (sources 0, 1). Homeward bundles its cash-offer service with two affiliates, Homeward Mortgage and Homeward Title, so a client can be approved for both the cash offer and the mortgage through a single set of forms and track both on homeward.com (sources 2, 3). Homeward Mortgage (NMLS #1911059, 801 Barton Springs Road, Suite 615, Austin, TX 78704) offers conventional, VA, jumbo and FHA products and underwrites pre-approvals that account for the likelihood that the client's current home will sell (source 3).

Homeward is a fully remote company with an Austin headquarters and staff across the United States; its about page states operations in thirteen states, while the Homeward Mortgage site states eight states for the mortgage affiliate (sources 2, 3). Leadership listed on the about page consists of Tim (CEO and Founder), plus a General Counsel, Chief Product Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Sales Officer and Chief Growth Officer (identified by first name only) (source 2).

Founding story

Tim Heyl became a real estate agent in 2009 and was named the top real estate agent in Austin by the Austin Business Journal at age 24; his brokerage, The Heyl Group, was named an Inc. 5000 business five times and a top-25 agent team in The Wall Street Journal Top 1,000 (source 2). Working with sellers who waited months for a buyer and could not make an offer on a new home until they sold, Heyl concluded the process was broken but that good agents, rather than agent-displacing investors and tech companies, were part of the solution (source 2). According to HousingWire, he tested a solution by buying a client's desired home with his own money and selling it back to the client once the client's mortgage was finalized, which became the Buy Before You Sell service (source 4). Heyl founded Homeward in 2018 and was named Inman News Innovator of the Year in 2019 (source 2).

Business model

Homeward acts as a principal buyer/financier rather than a brokerage: it purchases homes with its own cash on behalf of clients or buys a client's existing home outright, then the client either repurchases the new home once financed or lists the old home on the open market and retains the upside (sources 0, 1, 2). Revenue-generating services are bundled across three affiliated entities — Homeward Offer, Homeward Mortgage and Homeward Title — allowing the company to capture the mortgage and title portions of the transaction alongside the cash-offer service (sources 2, 3). Agents remain in the transaction and Homeward markets itself as agent-enabling rather than agent-replacing (sources 0, 2).

The sources describe a bundled service model spanning cash home purchases, mortgage origination through Homeward Mortgage and closing services through Homeward Title, but do not disclose specific fees, spreads or pricing (sources 2, 3).

Traction

Homeward reports more than 50,000 home buyers and sellers referred by agents, "$ billions" in cash home purchases, thousands of homes purchased annually with a Homeward Offer, a 4.7 average Google review score from 900+ reviews, and recommendations from 1,000+ homeowners and agents (sources 0, 1, 2). Homeward Mortgage reports $800M in funded loan volume (source 3). HousingWire cites 4.5x year-over-year growth in homes put under contract, agent NPS of 50–56, and more than 250 new employees hired in 2021 (source 4).

Latest developments

The most recent disclosed capital event in the sources is the May 2021 announcement of $371M in funding (sources 4, 6). Current website content shows the three-service bundle of Homeward Offer, Homeward Mortgage and Homeward Title in active operation across thirteen states, with Homeward Mortgage reporting $800M in funded loan volume (sources 2, 3). Site copyright notices dated 2025 and 2026 indicate the business remains operating (sources 0, 2, 3).