Porch Now Guarantees Work Done By Pre-Screened Home Professionals It Sends To Your Home

Two years ago, Porch started out as a platform that allowed you to see what kind of remodeling projects people in our neighborhood were doing to their houses and how much they paid for it. Today, the company offers a far wider range of service and now also helps you find the right people to work on your home projects. Because it now verifies those pros, it’s now able to offer a $1,000 guarantee for all the work done in your house by a Porch verified pro.

As Porch CEO Matt Ehrlichman told me, the company now has over 100,000 pros in its database. “We hoped this day would come — that we had enough data about pros to know who is great,” he told me. “We made a strategic effort and choice that we would stand for quality. We have been clearly told by our homeowners and partners that when you let somebody in your home, quality is key. You don’t just want to send a job request and just get anybody.”

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When Porch launched the first limited beta of this service that connects homeowners and pros last year, the company had already started vetting some pros in its Seattle home market. Now it’s rolling out its verification project and guarantee to 28 markets and across 10 professional types, with the promise of rolling out to more cities in 2016.

Porch doesn’t talk about the exact specifics of how it certifies the pros that it is willing to put this $1,000 guarantee behind, but Ehrlichman tells met he company looks at their licenses, reviews on its service, Better Business Bureau ratings and other data. The company also performs its own background checks and talks to every one of the pros in its guarantee program. All pros in the program also have to pledge that they “promise to do [their] best work for Porch homeowners.”

Ehrlichman sadly wouldn’t say how many of the 100,000 pros in its database are now verified and backed by the guarantee.

When things go wrong, Porch first tries to mediate between the pro and the homeowner. “We apply our leverage to make sure that they put their best foot forward, but also that they go back on their own dime to make things right,” Ehrlichman said. When they don’t make it right, though, Porch will pay up to $1,000 for another pro to come to your home and fix the issue.

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