App promises on-demand home repair

TAMPA (FOX 13) - We've all been there: Waiting for someone to come fix a problem in our house.  But now there's an app promising an immediate response to repairs.

Property maintenance on demand is the promise of an app created in Tampa that spiked in demand as consumers raced to get ready for Hurricane Irma.

"Our average time -- when someone places an order, to when someone is tasked to come, to their coming -- is 48 seconds," explained Doug Schaedler, the co-founder and CEO of the Homee app.

Schaedler says they saw 2,000 new downloads and 350 actual job requests in a three-day span around the storm, most to board up windows, move furniture or trim trees.

"Handyman is most popular," he said of the services they offer. "Sixty percent is for that. We do heating, A/C, plumbing and electric."

A service provider can only list themselves as available to do work if they can respond immediately. We wanted to see how fast, so we tagged along on a call for broken air conditioning.

“The A/C had stopped,” customer Tyler Cathey explained.  “As soon as I got out of bed I realized it was off and knew I had a problem. I used the app and 10 minutes they were here; running in another 10 minutes.”

When you open the app, it shows who's in your area and sends out an alert until someone picks up the job. You can check reviews and rates in the app before you make your selection.

The company takes a cut of the money from the service provider, which has some critics saying that means the provider will simply charge more to make up the difference.  But the head of Homee says rates are based on average prices in the area.

"We took about 5,000 metros.  NYC is going to cost more than Tampa, which would be more than Gainesville. We stagger that up and down depending on the provider and network."

You can also use a scale slider that lets you pick the level of experience you want to pay for.

"We start with our general contracting license, and all our professionals are licensed. We verify their licenses when we sign them up and we also multistate background checks on all our providers,” Schaedler continued.

Homee is up and running in 10 states so far.