Flyhomes bought Loftium to add rent-to-own style affordability to its homebuying stack

Flyhomes helps Americans buy homes with all-cash offers, mortgages and Buy Before You Sell; Loftium buys the house a customer wants and funds their down payment with Airbnb income from a rented room.

Acquisition terms undisclosed; Loftium had previously raised a $15M Series A led by Norwest Venture Partners

Loftium made headlines in 2017 offering down-payment help to buyers who split Airbnb profits; it pivoted in 2019 to renting homes at a discount to tenant-hosts, then launched host-to-own a year before the deal.

Flyhomes laid off 20% of staff in July 2022 and cut again in November amid the rate-driven housing slump; the acquisition brings Loftium's 11 employees and keeps its brand, with integration into Flyhomes' search and buying tools planned.

The acquirer was shrinking while buying: Flyhomes chose to spend on widening its addressable base rather than only retrenching.

Host-to-own attacks the actual blocker in a high-rate market — the down payment — by converting a spare room into equity.

Loftium's model had already survived two pivots (Airbnb-split 2017, discounted-rent hosts 2019) before host-to-own, showing the team iterates on the same affordability insight.

The 40% rental take and 3-5% down terms are concrete enough that the combined product could be priced and underwritten, unlike vague 'affordability' promises.

In a downturn, buying the product that widens who you can serve beats cutting your way to stability alone.

As of February 2023, Loftium's host-to-own program ran in Denver and Portland with rentals across 10 markets, Zhang reported 'more demand for hosts-to-own than ever', and integration into Flyhomes' search and buying tools was the stated goal. (Flyhomes' later moves — selling its home-search tech to The Real Brokerage and exiting brokerage to focus on financing — are covered in a separate entry.)