It was the middle of the night, and Chad Young was not home with his newborn.
Instead, he stood inside a client’s building with a mop in hand, covering shifts for half a janitorial staff that had come down with the flu. His wife, Bree, had given birth to their first child less than a week earlier. The building was quiet, the floors still wet from cleaning solution, and the weight of the moment settled in with unusual clarity.
Young realized he was ready for something different.
“I’d always loved real estate and dove headfirst into educating myself on how to flip homes,” Young said. “We have an incredible amount of houses in our area that are in disrepair, and I thought if I could be part of the solution and make a business out of it, that sounds amazing.”
That late-night shift became the unlikely turning point that would eventually lead Chad and Bree Young to build one of the most active homebuying operations in the Spokane and North Idaho region.
At 22, Young had launched Young’s Quality Cleaning, a janitorial company he built through determination, long hours and a willingness to do whatever the business required. Six years into running the company, he and Bree had discovered something many entrepreneurs eventually learn: there is a deep satisfaction in restoring things others have overlooked.
Their cleaning company had been built on bringing neglected spaces back to life. Real estate, they realized, offered the same opportunity on a much larger scale.
In 2020, the couple decided to try their hand at renovating homes.
The first project sold. Then another. Then another.
What began as a small pivot fueled by exhaustion, curiosity and the realities of young parenthood quickly evolved into something much larger. Today, The Easy Home Buyer has become one of the most recognizable cash home-buying operations in the Spokane and North Idaho corridor. Yet the numbers tell only part of the story.
Across Spokane and neighboring communities in North Idaho, including Coeur d’Alene, thousands of homes sit in varying states of disrepair. Some have been abandoned. Others have been tied up in probate cases or inherited by families who lack the resources to renovate them. Still others were left behind by absentee landlords or deteriorated through years of deferred maintenance.
Many of these homes fall below the minimum condition required for traditional bank financing. As a result, they remain stuck in limbo, unable to sell to conventional buyers and slowly deteriorating while surrounding neighborhoods absorb the impact.
Young saw both a challenge and an opportunity.
“We have an incredible amount of houses in our area that are in disrepair,” said Young, who serves as CEO for The Easy Home Buyer. “I thought if I could be part of this solution and make a business out of it, that sounds amazing.”
From that idea, The Easy Home Buyer was built around a deceptively simple mission: improve lives and transform communities by returning distressed homes to the market at price points that first-time buyers can realistically afford.
Everything else, from staffing and systems to renovations and marketing, was built around that goal.
The cash home-buying industry has long struggled with its reputation.
For years, companies advertising “we buy houses” services were often associated with aggressive tactics, low offers and sellers who walked away feeling they had little choice in the matter.
Chad and Bree Young entered the market fully aware of that reputation. From the beginning, they said they wanted their company to operate differently.
Six years later, the company’s reviews suggest they have succeeded.
One client, navigating the sale of a property after the death of a parent, described the experience as smooth during an otherwise emotional process. Another seller said that after dealing with several other investors, The Easy Home Buyer was the first company that did not leave them feeling taken advantage of.
Young said that kind of trust begins with the first conversation.
“When somebody responds to our advertising, they are typically greeted by one of the most caring and fun people I have ever met,” Young said, referring to Kimberly DeMile, a member of the team who often serves as the company’s first point of contact. “She talks to you about your home, what your goals are and sees how we can help.”
After the initial conversation, a home-buying specialist visits the property and presents an offer in person. But unlike many cash-buying operations, the company does not limit homeowners to a single option.
Instead, sellers are presented with several potential paths forward.
The Easy Home Buyer can purchase the home directly with cash, list the property on the open market or coordinate repairs and renovations for homeowners who want to maximize their return before selling.
“We are very open with people about their options and help them in the next right direction, even if that is not working with our company,” Young said.
The scope of The Easy Home Buyer’s work becomes clearer when viewed through the neighborhoods themselves.
Over the past six years, the company has purchased, renovated and returned more than 600 homes to the housing market across Spokane and North Idaho. Many of those properties had previously been considered unfinanceable by traditional lenders.
They were too damaged, too neglected or too outdated for conventional buyers.
Today, those homes are filled with families.
“Hundreds and hundreds of homes are now full of first-time Home Buyers and families because of our work,” Young shared during a recent interview.
The company’s growth has mirrored the demand for that kind of service. In its first year, The Easy Home Buyer closed on 12 homes. Last year, the company completed more than 200 transactions.
Young said the growth was not the result of aggressive expansion strategies but the natural outcome of strong systems and a committed team.
“When you do the right thing and have an amazing team at your back with strong systems and processes, healthy things grow,” Young said. “It is just a natural outcome.”
Marketing has played a role in helping the company reach homeowners who may not realize they have options. The Easy Home Buyer invests across direct mail, television, radio and digital advertising to ensure sellers know the company exists.
The company now serves homeowners across a broad geographic area, including Spokane, Spokane Valley, Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls, Hayden, Sandpoint, Rathdrum and Athol.
Despite the company’s rapid growth, Young said he is not focused on stepping away from the business anytime soon. Instead, he is focused on the scale of the work still ahead. Young sees it as both a responsibility and an opportunity.
“We have tens of thousands of homes in our city that need large repairs,” Young said. “They are eyesores, attract nuisances and bad behavior. That problem is not going away anytime soon and neither are we.”
The company is also beginning to explore new territory.
Land development and new construction are emerging as the next phase of growth for The Easy Home Buyer. Expanding into those areas would allow the company not only to restore existing homes but also to add new housing supply to the market.
For a region facing the same housing pressures seen across much of the American West, the addition of new entry-level homes could have a meaningful impact.
Yet at its core, the company’s philosophy remains unchanged.
The janitorial business Chad and Bree Young built in their twenties taught them to find dignity in restoring what others had left behind. Real estate, it turns out, simply expanded that lesson across entire neighborhoods.
Today, streets across Spokane and North Idaho look different than they did just a few years ago. Homes that once sat vacant now house families. Properties once considered unsalvageable have been brought back to life.
And a company that began with a mop, a newborn at home and a moment of clarity in the middle of the night has quietly become one of the region’s most influential forces in neighborhood revitalization.
For Chad and Bree Young, the work still comes back to the same principle that launched their first business. Sometimes the most meaningful progress begins by cleaning up what others left behind and giving it another chance.
“Our core mission is improving lives and transforming communities,” Young shared. “We are a people-first organization that is always looking for ways to address the affordability crisis and bring as many attainable homes back to the market as possible. At the end of the day, we’re really focused on creating opportunities for first-time Home Buyers.”
