A team of tech execs has come under fire for allegedly building faulty homes in the Hudson Valley — or failing to build them at all.
Founded in 2020, Welcome Homes was the brainchild of DigitalOcean founders Alec Hartman and Ben Uretsky, along with Hartman’s brother Marc Hartman. According to multiple lawsuits, the tech-based home construction company took hundreds of thousands of dollars from customers, only to leave them with unfinished and poorly constructed frames or, in at least one instance, a muddy pit.
“These were millennial tech bros who had relationships with venture capitalists and appeared successful, having taken a cloud-based tech company public,” Rena Adams, a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told The Post. “The tech angle and guarantees sucked us in.”
Originally headquartered in New York, the Welcome Homes team started off with $5.35 million from a seed round in the summer of 2020. In January 2021, HGTV’s Anthony Carrino, former cohost of “Kitchen Cousins,” joined the company as vice president of design. Carrino left the company in January 2024 and is not accused of wrongdoing.
Welcome Homes aimed to digitize home building, initially offering brand-new stick-builts in the tri-state area outside New York City, allowing customers to do everything from purchase land to pick out faucets on its website. It offered a range of home models and promised to complete them in six months.
(While spec houses are often built in about that time, custom homes tend to take an average of 14 months, according to Realtor.com.)
A year in, the company’s six-month assurance was replaced on its website with another promise normally unheard of in home building: a guaranteed price stated in each customer’s signing contract.
Now, plaintiffs in the lawsuits claim that Welcome Homes failed to deliver on its guarantees. All three suits accuse Welcome Homes of fraud.
In one lawsuit, filed in September 2024 with the New York State Supreme Court in upstate Ulster County, plaintiffs Mariam Adams and Rena Adams seek more than $2.8 million in damages. The suit alleges that the founders lured customers into signing contracts to gather proof of concept as part of a broader scheme to secure additional investor funding.
Welcome Homes closed on a second round of funding to the tune of $29 million in September 2022.
The Adamses signed a contract with Welcome Homes in July 2022 and gave a deposit of $113,217 for the Oasis 4 Grand model residence. According to court docs, the dwelling was to cost a flat fee of $1,132,179 under the terms of their contract and was to be completed within seven months of the company obtaining a builder’s permit.
The 4,600-square-foot four-bedroom home was to be built on a 5-acre property the couple had mortgaged in New Paltz in October 2022. The couple alleged they used a lender recommended by Welcome Homes.
But by June 2023, Welcome Homes hadn’t obtained a building permit from the City of New Paltz, prompting the Adamses to apply for and receive one on their own, according to their court filing. That September, work at the site allegedly consisted of overcleared land and a 4-foot hole.
The Admases terminated their contract with Welcome Homes in October 2023. The company then billed them for another $212,164, according to a contract amendment obtained by The Post.
“We don’t believe they did $113,000 worth of work, and they claimed they were owed even more money,” said Milad Boddoohi, the Adams’ attorney.
“We were promised a dream home, and all they delivered was a nightmare,” Rena Adams said.
The Adamses said they knew nothing about home building in the spring of 2021, when they sought to leave their Brooklyn townhouse and move their two small children to greener pastures upstate.
Having both led careers in tech-related fields, the Adamses were attracted to the concept of designing a brand-new home online, and felt secure with the company’s resources, they said.
“We were just the perfect candidates for them,” Rena said.
Adding to its credibility, Welcome Homes partnered with Compass in the spring of 2022. The company’s executive vice president, Benjie Burford, was formerly the national head of sales management at the brokerage, which is not accused of wrongdoing.
Damages sought by the Adamses would cover the $2.4 million cost of having another contractor build them a smaller, 3,500-square-foot residence on the same property they bought for their Welcome Homes house.
After living in a nearby rental since summer 2022, the couple moved into their finished new house in April.
“Our new house is beautiful [and] we know that our kids won’t have mold growing in their bathroom or faulty electrical wires in their bedrooms,” Rena said from the dwelling’s new kitchen.
That being said, “I won’t ever feel OK about what Welcome Homes did to us and to the other families I talk to who, like us, were ensnared by their promises,” she added.
As of press time, a motion from the company to vacate its default was denied by the Ulster County judge overseeing the case. A hearing to determine damages for the Adamses was set for June 18, 2025, though Welcome Homes could file an appeal before that date.
Plaintiffs in the other lawsuits were given six-month timelines in their contracts, according to their filings. The suits say that after two years, they had partially built homes with numerous problems, including water damage, mold and incorrect grading. Both seek around $500,000 in damages.
In one suit, filed in September 2024 with the New York State Supreme Court in Greene County, plaintiffs Erin and William Sloan claim they paid thousands in mortgage loan extensions and roughly $30,000 in interest while waiting for Welcome Homes to complete their house in Windham.
Subcontractors hired by Welcome Homes installed the wrong windows and placed an electrical box in the incorrect location, then attempted to conceal their mistakes with insulation, according to their court filing.
The third case, filed by Angie Wang in August 2024 with the New York State Supreme Court in Ulster County, also seeks $500,000 in damages. Plaintiffs in all three cases allege that Welcome Homes did not provide clear reasons for the delays in their projects.
A homeowner living in a Welcome Homes house in Westchester County told The Post it also took more than two years for it to be completed, despite a seven-month guarantee in their contract.
The homeowner said they eventually managed Welcome Homes’ subcontractors themselves, visiting the site every day to oversee progress. They claimed the house had several problems upon completion, including an incorrectly installed sump pump, which caused the basement to flood.
However, the source said Welcome Homes’ staff is responsive and prompt, and honored their price guarantee along with the warranties stated in their contract. Overall, the homeowner said they enjoy their new house.
A former company employee, who spoke to The Post anonymously out of fear of retaliation, said Welcome Homes was founded with good intentions, but things went awry when the CEO refused to take advice from construction veterans on staff.
The source claimed that during their tenure at Welcome Homes, Hartman failed to fill key roles, specifically a product procurement manager, who is responsible for providing materials to contractors on-site.
The CEO wanted plans for new home models so fast that architects couldn’t finish them before moving on to another, the source claimed. Architects also allegedly lacked the time to respond to contractors’ questions about the home plans they were given.
“If the professionals are telling them things don’t make sense and they are moving forward despite their recommendations, that is a classic case of fraud,” said Boddoohi, the attorney for the Adams.
Carrino, of HGTV fame, said Welcome Homes had one customer living in a completed home when he left the company in January 2024, out of dozens of contracts.
It was too difficult to convince the Hartman brothers to make significant internal changes, Carrino said of why he left.
“Alec and Marc Hartman had a direction they wanted to go in,” Carrino told The Post. “In my 25-plus years’ experience [as a contractor], none of it was best practice in the construction and design industry, so I was no longer able to put my name on that product.”
A source currently affiliated with the company, who asked to speak anonymously due to the ongoing lawsuits, said most of Welcome Homes’ customers have reported positive experiences.
The source said the company’s business plan was designed before COVID caused major delays in the construction industry. The lawsuits are anomalies, each with its own nuances, including changes made that were not covered by their contracts, the source said.
The source added that the contracts signed with the plaintiffs couldn’t be used as proof of concept to investors because they weren’t profitable.
Welcome Homes works with an external product procurement company and has ample systems and staff in place to manage projects, the source said, adding that there’s no intent to deceive customers.
To date, Welcome Homes has signed contracts with 45 customers, the source said. The company has completed 18 homes, according to certificates of occupancy reviewed by The Post.
“Welcome Homes’ industry-leading online home design process delivers unmatched clarity and pricing transparency, enabling more people to build than ever before by reducing months of design and expense,” a spokesperson for Welcome Homes said. “We remain confident and look forward to addressing these unfounded lawsuits in court.”
On its website, Welcome Homes, which has expanded to 10 states, now offers to connect customers with contractors to build the models it provides, and no longer manages home construction. Guaranteed pricing and timelines are no longer offered on the site.
A spokesperson for Compass said the brokerage is not involved in the allegations made in the lawsuits or Welcome Home’s homebuilding process.