PHOTO: Johnny Hanna, who had previously developed the successful real estate lead-gen software Entrata, started the agent-less real estate site with a few friends.

Just a few weeks ago I was in Utah for the holidays, spending time with the many family members my husband and I both have there. At one family gathering, a cousin began talking about how he bought a brand new home and sold his own home all without a real estate agent on a site called Homie.

It seemed legally risky but he told me that Homie had blown up in the area over the past year, promising to handle all the paperwork while cutting out the middleman, the closing costs and the whopping six percent commission often associated with a realtor.

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