Enjoy the college life experience? Homeroom invites you to KC’s new coliving concept

Homeroom is a coliving experience that takes you back to your dorm room days, said Johnny Wolff.

“I think everyone looks back with really fond memories of living with really good friends in college in a house. The coliving experience is about taking that shared roommate situation and kind of curating it at Homeroom,” said the company’s founder.

Johnny Wolff

Homeroom homes come equipped with maid and lawn services, a community manager, and new furniture. Residents can also expect community events come October, Wolff said.

All homes in the Homeroom community are co-ed, usually made up of five to six roommates, depending on the house, he added.

To date, the four-month old company has acquired three homes across the greater KC area, said Wolff. Demand from homeowners who would prefer to lease their homes to a company, like Homeroom, as opposed to renting them out to individuals is growing, he added.

“We had to say ‘no’ to a couple homeowners since we can’t take on more than three at once until we hire additional team members,” he explained.

With a decade of real estate experience under his belt, Wolff went from signing leases with landlords and operating homes he lived in with roommates in San Francisco, to buying homes and renting out rooms in Austin, he said.

After spending a couple months doing market research on real estate appreciation over the next five to 10 years, he began Homeroom in Kansas City to balance his portfolio and look for better cash flow, Wolff added.

Homeroom is currently recruiting roommates by putting ads on Facebook and Craiglist, then combing through applicants with an extensive interview process, ending with credit and background checks, said Wolff.

Though Homeroom markets to millennials, all entrepreneurs and hustlers are welcome to apply, he added.

“We’re really targeting working professionals that we think would have a personality that fits, that seem like they’re personable and respectful, that would be good roommates,” he said.

The goal for Homeroom going forward, is to launch four houses per month, starting in September, said Wolff, as well as working on the website and exploring an app extension.

“We’re eventually going to evolve to something much bigger,” he said.

By the end of 2018, Homeroom hopes to operate 10, then 50 by 2019, to 1,000 homes across 12 Midwestern markets by 2020, added Wolff.

“As we grow, we’ll allow roommate members to easily transfer between locations throughout our network with 30 days notice,” he said.