Pete Smith Joins the Homhero Board: A Full-Circle Moment as We Turn 10

Some board appointments are about bringing in fresh eyes. This one is about bringing home someone who has been part of the Homhero story from day one.

We’re thrilled to announce that Pete Smith has joined the Homhero Board of Directors. Pete is the co-founder of Weekenda, a 2024 ASTRA Lifetime Achiever Award recipient, and one of the very first operators to use Homhero. He also worked alongside our founding team to shape what the platform would become.

Where it all started

Homhero wasn’t dreamt up in a boardroom. It started at Pete’s kitchen table.

“The master plan for Homhero was developed on my kitchen table with Hayden D’Arcy and Anne Greyling,” Pete says. “We basically sought to build the tool that property managers actually needed. One built from the ground up, by operators, for operators.”

That idea still drives everything we build. Pete knew firsthand the daily headaches of running a short-term rental business, and that experience shaped the product from its earliest days.

From 80 properties to a successful exit

Pete didn’t just help design Homhero. He ran his business on it.

When Weekenda first adopted the technology that would become Homhero, it managed around 80 properties. Under Pete’s leadership, the business tripled to 240 properties and was then acquired by Alloggio, one of Australia’s largest short-term rental operators.

Pete says Homhero was central to that growth.

“The fact that Weekenda ran as such a lean and efficient organisation was something that Alloggio found very attractive,” he says. “Homhero was the engine that drove that efficiency.”

For property managers wondering what the right platform can do for their business, it’s hard to find a better example.

A driving force in Australian short-term rentals

Pete’s influence goes well beyond Weekenda. In 2024, ASTRA gave him its Lifetime Achiever Award for his sustained contribution to the sector, including years spent bringing operators together to collaborate and share knowledge.

Industry analyst Simon Lehmann put it best: “Nowhere else in the world do STR operators collaborate like they do in Australia, and Pete Smith is the driver of that.”

If you’ve been part of the Australian STR community for any length of time, chances are you’ve crossed paths with Pete or benefited from the culture he helped create.

Why now?

Our Interim CEO, Craig McIntosh, says the appointment makes perfect sense.

“Pete has been part of the Homhero story longer than anyone,” Craig says. “He helped Homhero define the product, built a highly successful business on it, and went on to a successful exit. Having Pete’s operator perspective and extensive industry contacts at board level is exactly the right move.”

For Pete, it’s a natural next step in a relationship that goes back nearly a decade.

“Homhero is at an inflection point right now,” he says. “Being able to bring a user’s perspective directly to the board is highly appealing, and it allows me to continue to give back to the industry and the customer base I care about.”

That’s what this appointment means for our clients. An operator who has faced the same challenges you face every day now has a seat at our board table.

10 years and $3 billion in bookings

Pete joins the board just as Homhero approaches its 10th birthday. Since launching in 2016, we’ve facilitated over $3 billion in bookings across more than 2 million reservations.

Today, 168 property management companies use Homhero to manage 13,558 active listings. In the past 12 months alone, the platform processed 283,332 confirmed bookings worth $653 million in gross booking value, across nearly 1.5 million room nights.

Those numbers belong to the operators who trust us to run their businesses. We’re proud of every one of them.

Celebrate with us at Here To Stay 2026

We’ll be marking the milestone at ASTRA Here To Stay 2026, Australia’s premier short-term rental conference, where Homhero is the Premier Sponsorship Partner. The event runs 21 to 23 October at RACV Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast.

If you’re coming along, come and say hello to the team. And if you see Pete, congratulate him. Ten years after that kitchen table conversation, he’s still helping shape what Homhero becomes next.