Homes for Heroes began as an experiment inside a single Minnesota brokerage.
In its first year, Homes for Heroes handed $144,000 back to heroes in its local market. Twenty-four years later, it includes more than 2,700 real estate and mortgage professionals nationwide, and has returned more than $166 million to over 81,000 heroes.
Its growth offers agents a case study in what can happen when community service becomes part of the business model.
How Homes for Heroes was Built “Community by Community”
The idea for Homes for Heroes came from founder Ruth Johnson‘s son in the weeks after the September 11 attacks. After moving to Minnesota to be closer to family, he enrolled in a licensing school with plans to join several family members who worked in the industry as agents and lenders.
“Mom, what if we were to work with heroes when they buy or sell a home and give them money back on the transaction, just to say thank you?” Johnson remembers him asking.
They ran the program out of her brokerage for the next seven years, long enough to convince Johnson it would work somewhere other than her own market. She sold her real estate company in 2009 and took Homes for Heroes national.
Homes for Heroes crossed $10 million in total givebacks around 2014. It reached $100 million in September 2022, with more than 56,000 heroes served. It stands above $166 million today, a figure the company puts north of $200 million once lender-side savings are counted.
“It was built community by community, affiliate by affiliate,” Johnson said.
How Local Affiliates Power the Network
Heroes qualify if they work in firefighting or EMS, law enforcement, healthcare or education, or if they serve or have served in the military. Company figures put average savings at roughly $3,000 on a purchase or a sale and about $6,000 for heroes who do both, paid through the local agent or lender who handled the deal.
Johnson credits that network of affiliates for Homes for Heroes’ steady and continued growth.
“We wouldn’t be where we are today without our real estate professional affiliates,” Johnson said. “They are absolutely our boots on the ground and the heart of this company.”
Her message to those affiliates is straightforward.
“The more you give, the more you get,” she said. “If you truly believe that, if you give back to those that serve your community, you’re going to grow your business.”
For agents, that is the model in one sentence: lead with a tangible benefit for the community, and let trust drive the business that follows.
A Full Circle of Giving
Homes for Heroes runs as a for-profit business, or what Johnson calls “profit with a purpose.” A share of company profits funds the Homes for Heroes Foundation, a 501(c)(3) that has awarded more than $2 million in grants to heroes in need and to the nonprofits that serve them. Johnson describes the arrangement as a full circle of giving.
Among the thousands of hero stories, one sticks out in Johnson’s mind: a Vietnam veteran, close to 70, who had never owned a home.
“Veterans of that war were not treated as heroes at all, and some hid the fact that they had served,” Johnson said. “They were never thanked.”
The man bought his first house with help from Homes for Heroes. He then mailed Johnson a handwritten card along with a photograph of himself sitting on a used riding lawnmower he had purchased with his rebate, holding up a piece of cardboard that read Thank You, Homes for Heroes.
“No one’s ever called me a hero in my whole life, and I’ve never owned a home,” he wrote. “I’m so proud to own this home.”
Amit Kulkarni, who joined as interim CEO after a career that included over ten years at Realtor.com, emphasized the ripple effect of the money given back to heroes.
“That money is not only enriching your life by actually giving you something you need,” Kulkarni said. “It’s also flowing back into your local community, to the local businesses and the stores that are actually providing those things.”
The hardest part of the early years was not funding the rebates. It was persuading people to accept them.
“They were very skeptical, and they didn’t understand why we wanted to give them money,” Johnson said. Once they understood, many pushed back anyway. ‘But I’m not a hero,’ they would tell her. ‘I’m just doing my job.’
“We’re just here to say thank you,” Johnson would reply, a response the company has been repeating for 24 years.
The Next Chapter
Kulkarni’s mandate is to accelerate Homes for Heroes’ continued growth.
“The growth is going to be organic,” Kulkarni said. “We’re going to get a little bit more deliberate about outreach to the specific cohort of agents we want to help and lenders that we want to join our community, while we also look to grow through partnerships, strategic partnerships that really help facilitate homeownership.”
Affordability gives that work some urgency. Company research released in July found that established hero households in firefighting, EMS and law enforcement can afford the median-priced home in 39 of the 50 largest metros. For households headed by a teacher or health care professional under 35, it is five. “While many Hero households are better positioned for homeownership because of stable careers and household income,” the report notes, “buying on one income alone is much harder.”
Kulkarni measures the problem in transactions.
“There’s only 400,000 or so transactions every single month,” Kulkarni said. “And I think of those 400,000 transactions, we’ve got to make sure that some of those transactions go to the hero community, or the communities just won’t be the same.”
“If you woke up one day and there was no fire department down the road, I think you’d be pretty upset,” Kulkarni added.
It is the argument Johnson built Homes for Heroes on.
“I’m so incredibly proud of this company and what we’ve been able to do over the last 25 years,” Johnson said. “The strength of our nation is dependent entirely on the combined strength of its communities.”
How Agents Can Get Involved
For agents, the pitch is the one Johnson has been making since 2002: serve the people who serve your community, and the business follows. Real estate professionals and lenders can apply to join the network through the company’s affiliate page.
