When Tom Egan walks a homeowner through the math—“If your house is worth a million dollars and you owe five hundred thousand,” he says—the traditional options surface quickly: load the balance sheet with a costly home‑equity loan or sell and hope you can find somewhere new to live. That binary choice, he explains, is exactly what Hometap set out to upend. The company’s flagship home‑equity investment lets owners “access the liquidity in their home without having to sell or take on debt,” Egan tells us.
The mission “to make homeownership less stressful and more accessible” shapes his every decision.
By giving capital in the form of equity, Hometap leaves monthly payments unchanged and can even “improve your credit if you use it to pay down debt.” The concept, first sketched by founder Jeff Glass, resonated immediately with consumers; Hometap has completed “18, 19 thousand of these” transactions so far, Egan tells us.
Yet the CFO is careful to frame the product as a beginning, not an endpoint. He calls it “a product, not the product,” an opening move toward a platform of offerings that address the full arc of ownership. Growth, he notes, is already visible as other operators enter the market—a sign of “enormous upside.”
Egan’s narrative reveals a strategist who sees finance as empowerment. By replacing debt with shared success, he aligns the homeowner’s peace of mind with Hometap’s own performance, turning equity itself into the most flexible currency a family possesses—and signaling a new era for consumer housing finance.
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CFOTL: Let’s talk about Hometap’s home‑equity investment—owners unlock equity with no monthly payments. How do you articulate its value proposition?
Egan: First, we anchor everything in our mission: making homeownership less stressful and more accessible. The home‑equity investment is our flagship offering—but it’s a product, not the product, because we plan to build a full suite of solutions that tackle those same pain points. In practice, we give homeowners a way to tap the cash in their homes without selling or taking on debt. Historically, the choices were (1) a home‑equity loan—expensive debt that raises monthly payments and impacts credit—or (2) selling the house and then figuring out where to live.
Our investment is structured as equity, so it adds no monthly obligation and can even improve credit if the proceeds pay down existing debt. The idea came from our founder, Jeff (Glass), and others who asked, “Why not let people access equity on terms that align our return with the home’s future value?” The consumer response has been tremendous: we’ve completed roughly 18–19 thousand investments, and the market is expanding as new entrants validate the concept. We see significant upside; this is just the first step in building a broader platform that supports homeowners throughout their journey.
Hometap | www.hometap.com | Boston, MA