Talk:HomeStars
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Homestars was founded prior to 2006
[edit]The first time I used Homestars was in 2001, in Toronto, Ontario after I purchased my house. I was having a hard time finding a contractor when my sister suggested that I use Homestars. My sibling went on to say that it was her girlfriend's website and that she had created it after having a lot of trouble trying to find contractors do work on her own house that she had purchased in mid town Toronto. Accordingly Homestars would have been created about two to three years prior to me purchasing my home; and that would have been about 1998 or 1999. 100.percent.honest (talk) 16:11, 14 May 2025 (UTC)
Homestars suddenly had 90 employees and a $299.00 fee.
[edit]On the Homestars website it showed a colored photo of a large group of men & women gathered together outside. All were wearing a dark, short sleeved polo shirt and the caption under the photo read: "Homestars has hired 90 employees!" That shocked the dickens out of me and I wondered how are those people going to get paid. I know for a fact the photo was after the year 2005 because the City of Toronto had suffered a large rain storm in August of that year; and it had caused major flooding to many homes in the North York area, including mine. I was focused on my home and I needed to hire a contractor to renovate my basement. I had many contractors view my home, all of them were from Homestars and, I was on their website constantly, so if any new photographs and articles had appeared then I would have seen it. I had the opportunity to be back online in late 2006 after my life had turned back to normal and my basement renovation was completed.
I really enjoyed the Homestar's experience because its information was at your fingertips, you knew the good contractors from the bad ones just based on reviews from businesses and homeowners alike. There was even a time when I connected with Homestars and I told it that I would gladly stick on my car any advertising material that it had in order for me to promote it. Eventually Homestars sent me one of their stickers that I could attach to my rear view window.
One random day I came across several posts on social media, they were comments from disgruntled contractors citing problems with the Homestars website, and the fact that Homestars was suddenly requesting that businesses pay a $299.00 annual fee in order to be showcased on its website. I thought to myself that's how those new employees were going to be paid. Next I delved into an article written on behalf of Homestars and it set out that any and all businesses that paid it's $299.00 fee would get an automatic ten star rating. That was a comment I gasped at because it was not fair to anyone. I felt Homestars new mandate was unfair because it meant unqualified contractors and new businesses could get an automatic ten star rating when it did not deserve it and wasn't even qualified. I was an outspoken content user at that time and I sympathized with ten star businesses that suddenly lost their ratings and I wrote comments on social media and I informed Homestars that I no longer wanted to support it. I never did attach its sticker to my vehicle window. Instead I wrote to Homestar's and I received backlash, comments from someone at Homestars refuting that at no time did it ever state that new users who paid their annual $299.00 fee would get preferential treatment. The fact is, Homestars still gave preferential treatment whether it knew it or not, because when I was getting my kitchen renovated about 2016, I selected a drywall company that had numerous ten star ratings all from Homestars and the owner from that popular drywall company showed up at my home in his brand new Ford F150. After speaking with that owner I popped the question to him and asked: "What trade school did you go to and get your certified drywall licence"? He said that he did not have his drywall licence or certification and that he merely watched his friends and it looked simple enough, he thought he would try it. I rest my case.