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NFT mania and the future of the home sale


HW-crypto-bitcoin

February 10 may go down as a momentous day in real estate history.

That’s when a 70-year-old brick home in the St. Petersburg, Florida suburb of Gulfport sold for the equivalent of $654,310, where the asset exchanged was represented by a non-fungible token.

Worldwide sales of non-fungible tokens, better known – of course – as NFTs, catapulted from $94.9 million in 2020 to $24.9 billion in 2021, according to an analysis of 10 different blockchain ledgers by DappRadar. In the past year, NFTs pole vaulted from mostly commodifying art and digital assets to an array of spheres including – very preliminarily – real estate.

The creation of the NFT real estate market thrusts a spotlight onto a Silicon Valley company specifically throwing itself into real estate, blockchain and NFTs. It also gives real estate agents ideas.

“Absolutely, I will offer an NFT option to sellers within the next year,” said Richard Hopen, a Compass agent in Short Hills, New Jersey. “It’s a great marketing tool for the right type of listing. NFTs are new and associating one with a house is likely to attract media attention.”

NFTs in real estate are, for the moment, a grossly impractical novelty act that, publicity aside, offer tenuous benefits to agents. But, to many, the intersection of NFTs and real estate holds great promise. And for homebuyers and agents alike, they raise the important question about what precisely is the problem NFTs and the blockchain claim to solve.

How a real estate NFT works today…

On a Facebook video chat, Amy Heckler of Heckler Realty in St. Pete’s Beach, Florida answered real estate agents’ questions, surrounded by a white and red Heckler Realty banner and two office plants. Heckler was the listing agent of the auctioned off Gulfport home. As she catalogued her experience, bubbling excitement around NFTs transformative thrall slowly subdued.  

The Gulfport seller, Heckler explained, created a limited liability company that held ownership of the home. In creating a Delaware LLC, the Florida seller and Heckler joined forces with Propy, a five-year-old company headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

Propy then guided the seller into minting the LLC as an NFT. NFTs are digital tokens providing a certification of authenticity that you are acquiring the rights to what an NFT represents. For example, purchasing an NFT of a JPEG of a painting transfers the intellectual property rights of the painting. For the Gulfport home, the NFT did not represent the property itself. It represented LLC ownership of the property.

Next Propy auctioned off the NFT. Bidders were required to be cash buyers, or more precisely cryptocurrency buyers, or – more precisely still – have a virtual wallet on the Ethereum blockchain.

Unlike currencies issued by a country’s government, cryptocurrency is digital and has no central administration. A blockchain ledger facilitates and records cryptocurrency exchanges. Bitcoin is perhaps the best-known cryptocurrency. But Ethereum was the first with a blockchain that enabled NFT sales. 

“Propy is blockchain agnostic,” said the company’s CEO, Natalia Karayaneva. Still, Propy used Ethereum for the auction, where the winning bidder used the cryptocurrency Ether.

Generally, listing agents extract a commission from the homeseller and then split it with the buyer’s agent. In this particular sale, Heckler worked out an arrangement to receive the commission distribution after the winning bid.

But the NFT transaction between buyer and seller does not necessarily put money into the seller’s agent pocket. For now, officials with Propy acknowledged, the commission is a “case-by-case solution,” adding another layer to the process.

“Could you set up a NFT sale where there are multiple parties involved in the transaction?” said Hoepen, the Compass agent who writes the “Crypto News for Realtors” newsletter. “That could be a solution. But we’re making stuff up as we go along. For now, there has to be some type of separate agreement for the commission.

Meanwhile, all parties had another issue to deal with. The NFT representing ownership of an LLC representing ownership of a house is 100% legally meaningless. Pinellas County in Florida is in charge of tracking who owns the Gulfport home in question. And Pinellas County, like every other U.S. county, recognizes not NFTs in recording property ownership but instead title deeds. 

In a forthcoming paper for Florida Law Review, law professors Juliet Moringiello at Widener University Commonwealth and Christopher Odinet at the University of Iowa studied NFTs potential in real estate. What the paper wryly notes is that while the use of non-fungible tokens may be novel to the art economy, they have existed in real estate since the Henry VIII-led English government of 1536 created the deed. The deed then, as now, is a token, be it a piece of paper or PDF that represents the transfer of land.

“Blockchain technology is probably best to record ownership interests for intangible assets associated with intellectual property rights,” Moringiello said in an interview. “But with real estate, we already have a way to signal ownership.”

So, the winning bidder worked with Propy and Heckler in also transferring the Gulfport home’s deed. Instead of creating a simpler way to transact real estate, “The NFT is kind of acting as a redundant parallel proof of documentation,” said Christopher Wilmer, professor at the University of Pittsburgh school of engineering who studies blockchain.

A deed transfer often includes the new owner ensuring they are the property holder through title insurance. But not a single Florida title company would touch the Gulfport sale.

“A title company cannot handle this kind of transaction as an escrow account,” Heckler said – adding, “Buyer beware.”

…And how it may work tomorrow

If the use of NFTs in real estate is mystifying to many, it seems self-evident to Natalia Karayaneva, the founder and CEO of Propy. Before starting Propy, Karayaneva ran a real estate investment firm in Bulgaria for 15 years and earned a master’s degree at the University of Oxford in sustainable urban development.

In a Zoom interview, Karayaneva coolly pitches the virtues of Propy, and corrects erroneous premises from a stumbling reporter.

“We understand the process very well,” Karayaneva said, in reference to the real estate sale. “We do all the heavy lifting.”

Propy touts that they can make the real estate sale instantaneous as well as secure through blockchain, and cheaper by weeding out paper-pushing middlemen. There are “so many problems” with the current process, Karayaneva said, including “short-staffed local governments” and “title companies getting a piece of the pie.”

The average time in the U.S. between signing a contract to buy a home and purchase closing is 50 days, according to a September 2021 report from ICE Mortgage Technology. Propy envisions NFT deals on blockchain making the buying and selling of homes instant and immutable. It’s a complete overhaul of the home sale process, compared to, for example, iBuying companies speeding up one side of the deal.

To some, Propy’s vision is exciting.  

“Change is coming,” said Jim Haisler of Heartland Realtors in Crystal Lake, Illinois. “NFTs will be part of the evolution to something different, something better likely. It’s time paper deeds go away, anyway.”

Another believer is Merav Ozair, a professor at Rutgers University who focuses on blockchain and cryptocurrency. Ozair sees two major but not insurmountable hurdles to NFT real estate sales.

The first: “You need the counties to come on board and be part of blockchain.” 

Of the over 3,000 counties and, in the state of Vermont, municipalities who record deeds none use a blockchain platform. Propy tried a pilot program with the city of Burlington, Vermont to put deeds on the blockchain, but “is not actively working on it right now.” Still, the company contends, blockchain technology “is ready to be utilized by counties and that’s definitely needed.” 

Perhaps “cash-strapped” county governments may yet use a blockchain platform  on a pilot basis, Ozair said.  

County deed recording can be archaic, acknowledged Steve Gottheim, general counsel of the American Land Title Association, the main trade group for title companies, with counties slow to digitize records. Historic records are recorded, “On big, old ledger books that are done on paper.”

While Karayaneva described the title industry as an opponent of NFTs, Gottheim said that’s not necessarily so. “If blockchain proves to be a better way to store records, our members are the ones who will likely put it in place,” he said.

Daniel Wallace, the general manager of lending at Figure, a company that uses blockchain for mortgage products, is skeptical that there’s political appetite for county’s relenting on deed recording. But, Wallace noted, monolithic property systems are in other countries.

“Canada, Australia and the UK have what’s called a land registry,” he said. “Whatever is in that land registry dictates who the owner is who’s entitled to the piece of property.”

The second obstacle is what Ozair calls “interoperability,” meaning NFT real estate records from different blockchains must align. In other words, a seller cannot NFT a deed of 123 Elm Street on both Ethereum and, for instance, OpenSea blockchains. And the buyer looking for the 123 Elm Street NFT must know where to search.

“We need to agree, as a society, on which blockchain we’re going to check for real estate NFTs,” said Wilmer of the University of Pittsburgh. “Checking the wrong blockchain would be akin to looking for a San Francisco property in Tokyo’s title deed database.”

Like Ozair, Wilmer said it’s conceivable governments agree upon using certain blockchains for real estate.

“I think a practical way forward is to maintain a dual system, where initially the traditional title deeds are deemed authoritative and NFTs are used as supplementary legal evidence,” Wilmer said. “Over time, as trust in the NFT-based approach grows, the roles can switch and the traditional deed documents can become supplementary evidence.”

…Or, how it may not

Over President’s Day weekend, Devin Finzer, the CEO of OpenSea, which bills itself as “the largest NFT marketplace,” acknowledged that the equivalent of $1.7 million in NFTs were swiped by thieves who tricked OpenSea users into signing contracts allowing NFTs to be transferred without payment.

It was the latest in a long series of NFT thefts at OpenSea, though Finzer noted the crime was not as bad as first thought. “Importantly,” the CEO tweeted, “Rumors that this was a $200 million hack are false.”

In his October 2008 white paper heralding the arrival of Bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto (a presumed pseudonym) argued for the use of a blockchain to thwart third-party tampering. The ledger should “time stamp transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof of work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof of work.”

As use of cryptocurrency has grown from its Great Recession origins, the seductive idea has persisted of blockchain creating an indelible transaction record while cutting out the deal’s fat.

An NFT record should in theory be impossible to tamper with, Wilmer said, compared to a county title deed that could be fraudulently edited. But if the recording of an NFT transaction is hard to alter, NFT thefts themselves “are happening a ton,” said Anthony Lee Zhang, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, who studies blockchain.

These thefts can include sophisticated hackers deviously creating false certifications of authenticity. Or they can be depressingly simple. “People are just losing their passwords to their blockchain wallets all the time,” Zhang said.

Real estate, Zhang said, creates a new terrain for theft. “You might mint an NFT of the LLC of your property,” Zhang said. “But I can go into Delaware court and take a picture of that LLC and mint it myself.”

Paradoxically, the professor added, the immutability of the blockchain ledger makes matters worse. And with real estate, hackers are not instantly transacting a stolen JPEG of a painting. They’re taking over ownership of your house. “Do you really want to make it easy to buy property?” Zhang said. “The current friction in some sense a security feature.”

Zhang’s point harkens to not just a potential NFT real estate economy, but debates in real estate over iBuying and what, precisely, would be disruptor companies are criticizing when they call a home sale slow and archaic.

The biggest reason home sales take almost two months to complete, Gottheim of the title trade group noted, is property inspection and mortgage underwriting. 

A homebuyer closely inspecting their property before closing also does not strike most observers as a waste of time. Propy said it is not against the home inspection process. But it’s not clear if this inspection takes place before or after the NFT transfer.

Arguably the biggest X-factor to if real estate NFTs transcend gimmickry is integrating mortgages. 

Less than 20% of homebuyers are cash buyers, Gottheim noted, and instead must borrow money. That means that so-called power buyers such as Ribbon fund a homebuyer’s crypto wallet, or the buying and selling of real estate on the blockchain is a playground for the wealthy.

Already, cryptocurrency is even more concentrated in the hands of a rich few than traditional currency. It has been reported, for example, that about 100 individuals, so-called whales, own 18.5% of Bitcoin currency. 

Propy believes blockchain real estate sales are on the path to becoming accessible to homeowners who must take out a mortgage.

“As more lenders begin to offer crypto mortgages, we will be able to integrate them into the NFT process,” the company said. “We do hope to offer this option this year, and it will be handled similarly to any other auctioned property, where the buyer has to receive financing in advance of the auction. One option is using their crypto holdings as collateral.”

But even those who operate their business on blockchain are skeptical. A deal in Florida raises questions about whether the blockchain can provide a jolt to real estate Figure Technologies, a San Francisco-based company, largely created the blockchain platform Provenance. Figure mints tokens of the promissory note of a mortgage, and uses Provenance to service and securitize mortgages. 

But Wallace of Figure said that technology and U.S. law is not there for using blockchain to both exchange property and enforce a 30-year mortgage loan. 

“When you see art work or music, they’re trading based upon copyright law or trademark law,” Wallace pointed out. “But that is different from the legal enforceability of property rights or promissory notes. We cannot use copyright or trademark law to collect money on a loan.” 

Like Rome, Menlo Park was not built in a day. Buoyed by its first auction, Propy has organized a crypto real estate conference in Miami this week. And it is putting together other beta tests of using NFTs.

“We’re looking at properties in Chicago, San Francisco, and Miami,” Karayaneva said. “We want to make sure that all these properties are in clean, attractive areas.”

The post NFT mania and the future of the home sale appeared first on HousingWire.



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Permitting Problems and Finding Hard Money Lenders


This week’s question comes from Carlos, who directly messaged Ashley on the BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie Bootcamp! Carlos is asking: Do you recommend, or is it even possible, to use a hard money lender from a different state?

Hard money lenders and hard money loans are a crucial part of real estate investing for many real estate investors. If you’re a rehabber, flipper, or BRRRR-er, there’s most likely a chance you’ll need hard money in the future. But how do you find a hard money lender without past experience with one?

If you want Ashley and Tony to answer a real estate question, you can post in the Real Estate Rookie Facebook Group! Or, call us at the Rookie Request Line (1-888-5-ROOKIE).

Ashley Kehr:
This is Real Estate Rookie episode 162.
My name is Ashley Kehr, and I am here with my co-host Tony Robinson.

Tony Robinson:
And welcome to The Real Estate Rookie podcast, where every week, twice a week, me and my wonderful co-host Ashley Kehr, talk all things real estate. But with the focus on the guys and girls at the beginning of their investing journey. We want to bring you the inspiration, the information that you need to get started as a real estate investor. So Ashley Kehr, before we get started, let’s just say that this has been like one of the most technically difficult podcasts to record. Ashley and I have tried recording this like five times, but our system keeps crashing. So we’re hoping that we can get through in one piece.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah. And we really haven’t even gotten past … this is the farthest we’ve made it, so far right here into the podcast.

Tony Robinson:
Oh, yeah. We’ve said this intro five times.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah.

Tony Robinson:
So hopefully it sounds super polished by now. But Ash, what’s new with you? Give me like the quick rundown before the system explodes on us.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah. Well, Tony, first of all, I got to say happy belated birthday. Tell everyone-

Tony Robinson:
Oh, thank you, Ash.

Ashley Kehr:
About your birthday in case they’re not following you on Instagram and gets to see all the wonderful things Sarah does for you.

Tony Robinson:
Yeah. So I’m training for a fitness competition, which is about five weeks away. And this last weekend was my birthday, but it was also my last cheat meal weekend. Instead of having the usual birthday thing where people bring gifts, I just had like a big cheat meal party. And I asked all my friends and family to bring me all my favorite junk food. So I had like one of the most epic cheat meals ever with every possible dessert and junk food you could think of. And then my wife being the amazing person she is, she did some really cool things for me. But she ended up renting like a slingshot, those little like three wheeled motorcycle go-kart things. And we got drive that around for the weekend, too. So, it was all around, just like one of the best birthdays, for sure.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah. Just the way she decorated your kitchen with a picture of your face and pizza. But I have to tell you, so my business partner, Daryl that you’ve met, he did not think that you would cheat. He thought that you would not have any of that food. So, what were some of the things you ate?

Tony Robinson:
Yeah, I mean, I got so much stuff. But Ashley and Daryl sent me some Flemings, which is like a really nice steakhouse here in SoCal, so I got some of that delivered. I mean, I had shrimp scampi, I had fried shrimp, I had fried chicken, I had banana pudding, I had a bunch of Oreos, I had Reese’s Puffs, I had pizza from Domino’s, pizza from Pizza Hut, pizza from my father-in-law’s restaurant. The list just goes on and on and on, everything I could ever want, it was probably there.

Ashley Kehr:
Well, that’s awesome. That’s good to hear that you enjoyed yourself and then you got right back into the gym and right back into your routine the next day.

Tony Robinson:
Right back into … yeah.

Ashley Kehr:
One thing that we did want to send you was a catfish from when we into Paula Dean’s in Tennessee. The catfish that you love there.

Tony Robinson:
I love a good catfish. So if you ever want to surprise me with catfish, just know that you’re more than welcome to.

Ashley Kehr:
So today I went and looked at a property. It’s one that I’ve looked at several times and I’m just trying to figure out what to do with it and what the purpose would be. But I’m having trouble with the campground that I have under contract now. I talked to the county today and the RV sites that are there were never actually approved or permitted by the county, which obviously is a huge red flag.
So really what it was is the infrastructure there. So the owner added on 50 new pads to the RV park and he never got them approved from the county. And he never handed in his engineering plans to the county or the DEC, the Department of Environmental Conservation. So those are not approved at all. And if there are issues that we would have to dig up off of this, because there’s no plans for them, there’s nothing since this property is a foreclosure and we’re buying it directly from the bank. So after we’re done with this, my next call will probably be the DEC and see what’s going on on their side of things. Always exciting and eventful.

Tony Robinson:
Always something going on, but I want to dig into that a little bit, Ashley. So a couple questions. First is, how did you identify that those pads, those RV spots weren’t permitted? Was that something that they came up on your inspection report? When you went to go file paperwork to open title, did they say, “Hey, these plans don’t match the plans that are on record.” Like, how do you identify that something’s not permitted?

Ashley Kehr:
So you can talk to the county. This actually was the county, the code enforcement officer for like that town, that village. And he had called my attorney, actually. He received the application for … there’s a sewage treatment facility on the property and then there’s also nine wells. And he received the paperwork to transfer ownership into my company’s name. And before he accepted their application, he called my attorney and said, “I would really like to talk to the new buyer first.” And this was part of our due diligence to reach out to the county and just see what was going on, but he actually beat us to it. So, that kind of worked out great.
And so I did my phone call with him today, and he went over all of the issues that are on the county side with this property and would need to be remediated. And there’s a ton of revenue streams on this property and each of the different operations … so there’s a banquet facility, would need a permit. There is a restaurant, it would need a permit. The cabins would need a permit. The RV parks would need a permit. And he went over with me, what already had permits in place, what was missing and what would be my intended use with the property. So he just kept going on and on, it was so great. And I was very appreciative that he would just give this information to me.
And one thing he told me to do is to go to the county website and under departments go to the clerk’s office. And I would be able to submit a FOIL request where I would be able to come in and look at all of his documentation and reports, anything he had on that property. This is my first time ever doing due diligence on a huge commercial property like this. So it’s always great when you have people that are going to help you and kind of guide you too, in this learning process. So that’ll be another step that I do is, and then meet with him and go over all the documentation in his office, too.

Tony Robinson:
So can you close on this property without remedying the issues that the county has identified? Or is this a complete block for you to being able to close?

Ashley Kehr:
I can still close. The question is now, if we just can’t get permits, if we’re going to have to dig up the infrastructure, if we’re going to have to have new engineering plans drawn, what are the cost of that? And is it still worth purchasing the property? So it’s just going to be reworking the numbers, figuring that out. So we will see what happens. And there’s a couple other things, too, that are kind of holding it up as to if we go forward or not with the property.
But I have to say, I’ve spent some money on this. I’ve hired somebody to do like a pitch deck for me and really help me fine tune the numbers on this and do a deal analysis. I’ve put money into having the maintenance guy taking around and I’m paying attorneys fees. But I am learning so much just through this due diligence period, even just with the syndication process. I’m looking at it as all that money is an opportunity cost that I’m learning. And if it is a bad deal, it’s a bad deal. And I probably will save hundreds of thousands of dollars if I end up not going through with it. Or maybe it is a good deal and I will go through with it. So we’ll see.

Tony Robinson:
I love all the learning that you’re going through because we’re both, in different ways, kind of trying to branch out into more commercial real estate. But I love that you’re kind of going first because you’re letting me know what questions I need to ask. So I’m selfishly asking some of these questions for myself. I’m sure the listeners are getting some value from it, too.

Ashley Kehr:
I hope so. Yeah. And I was thinking of putting together like some kind of document where make like really fine tuning my list of things for due diligence, for a commercial property too, especially a campground.

Tony Robinson:
Yeah. When you’re done with that, just shoot it my way, too.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah, I will. I’ll share with everyone, of course. If anyone is looking into learning about due diligence for RV parks, so there’s actually the ARVC, American RV and Camp Count … I don’t know what his stands for. But I think it’s arvc.org maybe, or.com. They actually have a due diligence checklist. You pay, I think maybe a hundred bucks and you can become a member and they have a due diligence checklist. And they’re along with a ton of other documents too.

Tony Robinson:
Yeah. That’s a really good piece of advice. And I just Googled, like, is there some kind of motel owners association that I can maybe find some information onto? So there you go, Ash, you just drop in knowledge all the way through this conversation. I appreciate it.

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah.

Tony Robinson:
Well, we gave a lot of good info, but we also actually have a question to answer today, Ashley, right?

Ashley Kehr:
Yeah.

Tony Robinson:
So someone slid in your DMS, so what question do we got teed up for today?

Ashley Kehr:
Actually, this question today is one of my Boot Campers from the Rookie Bootcamp. And this is Carlos. So his question is, “Hi, Ashley, hope all is well. Quick question, do you recommend or is it even possible to use hard money from a different state? Thanks in advance.” So the short answer to this is yes. You can use hard money from different states if the hard money lender can lend in your state.
So a lot of hard money lenders are nationwide, some are only state specific. The hard money lender I’m working with right now, they’re from Florida, I believe, I think it is. But they can lend in New York. I have friends that do hard money lending in Washington. Some can lend across the country, others cannot. One big distinction that I’ve become to learn is I live in a very rural area and I invest in rural areas. A lot of hard money lenders won’t touch rural areas. So that’s where I kind of ran into trouble is that they wanted to see that population and would only invest in markets that were cities. So that’s something else to watch out for. But yes, you can get a hard money lender from a different state to lend to you on a property.

Tony Robinson:
I don’t think I have much to add to that, Ashley, you kind of hit all the pieces. I guess, my only advice to Carlos would be to shop around. Talk to at least a small handful of different lenders. And if this is your first time using hard money … and honestly, you can use this approach for your first time doing anything, really. But if this is your first time using hard money, the first time you talk to that first hard money lender, just let them know like, “Hey, this is my first time using hard money. What do I need to know about the process? What questions should I be asking you?” And just kind of take note of those things that hard money lender talks about.
And then when you go to have that second conversation, you’ll have a better basis of what you should be looking for and what you can compare and kind of contrast. And with each progressive conversation, by the time you talk to five, you’re going to be a pro in like the different hard money lender options that are there because you talk to so many different people about it. So that would be my only additional advice, Carlos, is that as you’re looking for folks, whether or not they lend locally or nationwide. Just try and get a good pool of people that you can kind of choose from, so you can become better educated in what that process looks like.

Ashley Kehr:
And if one says, no, they can’t do that. Doesn’t mean that another one can’t do it either, too. So if you get one no, don’t take that for an answer and keep looking around.

Tony Robinson:
I know this question gets presented to me a lot. It’s just like, “Hey Tony, how do you find a lender?” Even like regular finance, “And how do you find a good bank or this, that, and the other.” And you can go after referrals. So like if you know other investors that are using hard money, ask them what company they’re going with and a lot of times they can point in the right direction. Go on the Bigger Pockets forums, the Bigger Pockets website, in general. There’s a wealth of knowledge and referrals and resources on that website. The Real Estate Rookie Facebook group to start networking with other people and places where other investors are congregating.
And if that doesn’t work, I mean just Google, hard money lender, X, Y, Z, state, and see what pops up there. And again, just make sure you do your due diligence by asking a lot of good questions. But there is not a shortage of potential money out there to fund your next deal. You just got to kind of put in the work to make it happen.

Ashley Kehr:
Well, Tony, I think we answered that question for this week. And if you guys want to be a part of our bootcamps, I have a Rookie Bootcamp that focuses on the acquisition of your first investment property. And Tony has one that is focused on the acquisition of your first short term rental property. So you guys can check those out at biggerpockets.com/rookiewaitlist to be on the wait list for the next release of the boot camps.
Thank you guys so much for joining us today. I’m Ashley at Wealth from Rentals and he’s Tony at Tony J Robinson. You can find us on Instagram. Thank you, and we’ll see you next week.

 

 



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Even with blow-out jobs report, mortgage rates still falling


HW+ jobs

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the United States Of America created 678,000 jobs in February. We also had 92,000 in positive revisions, and this report was a beat of estimates coming off a strong January report as well. The U.S unemployment rate stands at 3.8%, and we are getting closer and closer to my September 2022 forecast of getting all the jobs back that we lost due to COVID-19.

During this epic recovery, which started on April 7, 2020,  I was very adamant on Twitter that job openings would hit 10 million soon. Today, job openings are now trending near 11 million. As you see from the chart below, the labor market dynamics from the end of the great financial crisis, where job openings were just a tad over 2 million, is much different today. People forget that we had near 7 million job openings before COVID-19 hit us. The trend was always your friend with this data line that many people often ignore.

Jobless claims data looks solid. As the baby boomers retire, we need labor to replace them and grow jobs.

Luckily for the United States of America, our demographics are solid going out into this century compared to other countries. I have always stressed our American muscle is not just having king dollar but our demographics. This is why I use the term replacement buyers for housing, and it applies to workers too.

After I retired the America is back recovery model on Dec. 9, 2020, I knew the jobs recovery would lag all the other economic data for multiple reasons. However, we are getting closer to that September 2022 milestone. So, let’s look at the numbers today with seven months left until the September report:

—Feb 2020: 152,553,000 jobs
—Today: 150,390,000 jobs

That leaves us with 2,163,000 jobs left to make up with seven months to go, which means we need to average adding 309,000 jobs per month. The unemployment rate currently stands at 3.8%.

Take a look at the jobs data and which sector added jobs in February: Construction jobs came in big again, and we didn’t have any negative sectors the last month.


Job openings for construction workers are still historically high today as the need for labor in America is very high. So much for the premise that robots and immigrants would take all the jobs in America.


Looking at jobs data is always about prime-age employment data for ages 25-54. The employment-to-population percentage for the prime-age labor force is 1% away from being back to February 2020 levels. The jobs recovery in this new expansion has been much better than we saw during the recovery phase after the great financial crisis.

Education and employment

Most Americans have always been working, even if they’re not college-educated. The labor force with the least educational attainment tends to have a higher unemployment rate. I started the hashtag A Tighter Labor Market Is A Good Thing to remind everyone that the economy runs hot when we have a tighter labor market. We want to see the kind of unemployment rates that college-educated people have spread to everyone because we have tons of jobs that don’t need a college education.

Here is a breakdown of the unemployment rate and educational attainment for those 25 years and older:

—Less than a high school diploma: 4.3%.
—High school graduate and no college: 4.5%.
—Some college or associate degree: 3.8%
—Bachelor’s degree and higher: 2.2%.

The 10-year yield and mortgage rates

My 2022 forecast said: For 2022, my range for the 10-year yield is 0.62%-1.94%, similar to 2021. Accordingly, my upper end range in mortgage rates is 3.375%-3.625% and the lower end range is 2.375%-2.50%. This is very similar to what I have done in the past, paying my respects to the downtrend in bond yields since 1981.

We had a few times in the previous cycle where the 10-year yield was below 1.60% and above 3%. Regarding 4% plus mortgage rates, I can make a case for higher yields, but this would require the world economies functioning all together in a world with no pandemic. For this scenario, Japan and Germany yields need to rise, which would push our 10-year yield toward 2.42% and get mortgage rates over 4%. Current conditions don’t support this.

The 10-year yield has made a great attempt to break over 1.94% this year, as Germany and Japan’s bond yields rose noticeably in mid January. While our 10-year yield didn’t rise as much, once Japan and Germany broke out, our yields did get above 1.94% for the first time since 2019 for a few days. However, they haven’t been able to hold their increases.

As I am writing this, our 10-year yield is at 1.71%. I have stressed that it’s going to be very hard for the 10-year yield to break over 1.94% and have a higher duration, even with the hot economic growth with extremely hot inflation data. The trend in the 10-year yield, which has been going lower for decades, is simply too powerful. The 10-year yield didn’t collapse lower when we had deflationary pressures in 2009. Currently, the 10-year yield is not heading much higher as we see much higher year-over-year growth in inflation.

We have seen mortgage rates fall recently with the moves lower in the 10-year yield. If economic growth gets weaker toward the second half of 2022, it will be tough to have the 10-year yield getting above 1.94% and staying above that level. As you can see now, global yields need to rise for this to happen.

Economic cycle update

Now for an economic update. Some of the economic data has been cooling off as expected, but staying firm. We can’t replicate the same economic growth coming out of COVID-19. Eventually, we get back to our normal slow but steady economic growth patterns. Economics is demographics and productivity, and population growth is slowing here in the U.S., and productivity growth hasn’t been strong for a while now. We have limits to what we can do here in the U.S.

The St. Louis Financial Stress Index, a crucial variable in the AB recovery model, shows life lately at -0.5427%. The stock market has been more active lately, and the Russian Invasion has now put in a shock factor that has simply too many variables to account for. If things get better on that front, the markets will act better. However, we can see more stress in this index if things get worse. The oil and wheat shock in prices will impact global economies.

The leading economic index has had an epic recovery from the lows of April. However, last month it didn’t show any growth. When this data line falls four to six months, a recession red flag is raised. We aren’t there yet, but I am keeping an eye on this.

Retail sales have held up much better than I could have imagined; Americans are spending and even adjusting to inflation and retail sales are booming. However, the growth rate is getting back to normal after the crazy growth in 2021. The moderation in the data that I had expected is finally here but it has still been an impressive run for retail sales.

Americans’ personal savings rate and disposable income are healthy enough to keep the expansion going! Even though the disaster relief has faded from the economic discussion, both these levels are good to go as employment has picked up a lot from the COVID-19 lows with wage growth. We have to remember, households have more cash, more net wealth, and have refinanced their mortgages to have lower payments.

This is a big reason why households’ cash flow is much better now, and employment has been up a lot since the lows of COVID-19.

However, just like I had an America is Back recovery model on April 7, 2020, I have recession models and raise recession red flags as the expansion matures. I raised my first red flag recently when the unemployment rate got to 4%, and the 2-year yield got above 0.56%.

Once the Fed raises rates, the second recession red flag will be presented. This will most likely happen this month.

The third recession red flag is getting very close; the 2/10s are getting very close to inverting. I have been on an inverted yield curve watch since Thanksgiving 2021, and now it’s almost here. Typically we see an inverted curve before every recession. This red flag is very complicated, and once it is raised, I will go into more detail on how I look at this.

My job is to show you the progress of the economic expansion into the next recession and out — over and over again. Each economic expansion is unique, and with the Russian Invasion and massive price increases on oil and wheat, I have incorporated those factors into the equation. We have to take this one day at a time because the news can get better or worse with each passing day.

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Analysts: Longbridge acquisition deal indicates good things for the lender and its buyer


Last week, mortgage investment firm Ellington Financial (NYSE: EFC) announced that it had reached a deal to acquireleading reverse mortgage lender Longbridge Financial, in a deal valued at roughly $75 million for a 49.6% stake. Since EFC had already maintained a stake in Longbridge, the deal will basically serve to close the remaining gap in ownership and situate EFC as the primary owner of Longbridge.

Soon after the deal was announced, EFC related great confidence in its decision by citing generally favorable demographics for the reverse mortgage industry, Longbridge’s portfolio of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs) and well-established confidence in the lender’s financial standing as three leading factors that ultimately led to the final deal.

To gain greater context regarding how the acquisition could affect the reverse mortgage landscape and both Longbridge and EFC individually, RMD reached out to a group of analysts who cover different segments of the reverse mortgage industry as well as the mortgage market broadly.

Reverse mortgage analysts: full impact remains to be seen, but the deal looks good

For those already engaged with the reverse mortgage industry, reaction to the overall deal is positive. It also had a degree of surprise connected to it for John Lunde, president of Reverse Market Insight (RMI), but perhaps not as much surprise as it otherwise could’ve had, he said.

“I was surprised, but to a certain extent just because there was already an existing ownership stake there, it’s a pretty natural next step from that perspective,” Lunde told RMD in an interview. “I think that’s a vote of confidence. They’ve obviously had a significant ownership stake for a while and have been pleased with it enough to put more money to work there, and take additional ownership. So, I think that it’s a really positive thing.”

In terms of how this deal could affect issues specific to the reverse mortgage industry, one of the potential effects this could have is on the reputational area. Reverse mortgage lenders, brokers and other participants often prioritize education of the public about the product type, and any time that a mainstream company says anything regarding reverse mortgages it has the potential to have an impact on that conversation.

In terms of the reputational equation for this deal, Lunde bisects it into two sub-issues: reputation among consumers, and reputation among investors.

“On the consumer side, and I don’t know that this deal really changes anything from that perspective only because I don’t know that Ellington is a really well-known brand name,” Lunde says. “I think they’re more of a financial institution on the back-end and in financing, and are active behind the scenes a little bit more as opposed to a direct, public-facing consumer brand.”

However, precisely because of that, there is potential for this move to be seen as an act of legitimizing the reverse mortgage business in the minds of investors, he says.

“On that front, this deal is certainly a positive thing,” he says. “When I think about acquisitions and how they might help the industry, I think this is a good one. We’ve seen some others that are a little bit similar, with Starwood coming in and backing RMF. The other key piece and the thing that’s been lacking for 10 years in the industry is that big, retail brand presence of some of the big banks or others that have a much more direct-consumer brand.”

Additionally on the investor side, this deal could facilitate easier access of a major reverse mortgage lender into markets it may not have been able to interact with before. This is according to Michael McCully, partner at New View Advisors.

“Ellington has a multi-decade history as a successful mortgage capital markets investor,” McCully tells RMD. “Having Ellington consolidate its ownership of Longbridge not only helps Longbridge, it brings additional well-placed intellectual capital to our industry.”

Wall Street analyst: much potential upside for EFC

The deal is also a generally good move by Ellington according to Douglas Harter, a director and market analyst at Credit Suisse who covers EFC, and also covers Finance of America Companies. Because of that, Harter is well-acquainted with the dynamics of the reverse mortgage industry.

“[I’m] familiar with the favorable demographics and the favorable environment that has been [prevalent in] the past year or two with the strong home price appreciation helping volumes,” Harter says of the reverse mortgage landscape. “So with that, I think the backdrop and the investment case to be made in Longbridge is favorable. For EFC specifically, the fact that [Longbridge] is still about 10% or so of their equity even with this deal, I think it fits very much into what they are looking to do.”

Those goals that EFC has, as explained by its vice-chairman and COO Laurence Penn on a recent earnings call, is to have a diversified model by investing in certain niche areas to bolster its available sourcing channels, Harter says.

The intention on the part of Ellington is also colored by the intent of Home Point Capital in offloading its own ownership stake in Longbridge as a part of this sale, Harter says.

“[Home Point was] looking to sell their non-strategic or non-core asset in order to improve their liquidity,” he explains. “I think if you put all those pieces together, you have an attractive return to EFC and a partner looking to raise liquidity. I think that when you put those two together, it makes sense for EFC to have acquired the remaining stock.”

The fact that this is a pre-existing, longstanding relationship between EFC and Longbridge also plays into the perceptions surrounding this deal for Harter, he explains. That does not diminish the upside to EFC specifically, nor does it take away from the potential idea that EFC appears to have a favorable view of the potential the reverse mortgage industry has to drive returns on its investment.

“[EFC is] optimistic about its continuous ability to drive returns from the reverse business,” Harter explains. “Both in the ownership of the MSRs, but also the ability to continue to write new business and wanting to own the entity as opposed to just the asset. So, I think it would express a management-favorable view on the outlook for the industry.”

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Fannie Mae transfers $771 million in credit risk to private insurers


HW+ Fannie Mae

Fannie Mae this week completed its first credit insurance risk transfer (CIRT) deal of the year as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to share mortgage risk with the private sector. 

The deal transferred millions of dollars of credit risk to a group of 22 private insurers and reinsurers. That credit risk is tied to a $26.1 billion reference pool of single-family mortgages.

“This credit risk transfer … has increased the role of private capital by transferring $770.7 million of mortgage credit risk to private insurers and reinsurers,” the Structured Finance Association states in a brief about the deal.

The covered loan pool for the transaction, CIRT 2002-1, includes some 87,600 loans with loan-to-value ratios ranging from 60.01% to 80%. As part of the deal, Fannie Mae will retain risk for the first 25 basis points of any loss on the $26.1 billion loan pool.

If that $65.3 million retention layer is tapped, then the 22 insurers and reinsurers will cover the next 295 basis point of loss on the pool, up to $770.7 million. The coverage is based on actual losses over a 12.5-year term.

The aggregate amount of coverage can be reduced at the one-year anniversary of the effective date of the deal, and each month thereafter, depending on the paydown of the loans in the mortgage pool and the principal amount of insured loans that move into serious delinquency. In addition, the coverage can be canceled by Fannie Mae after five years with payment of a cancellation fee.

“CIRT 2022-1 begins a new, active year of CIRT issuance for Fannie Mae,” said Fannie Mae’s vice president of capital markets, Rob Schaefer. “We appreciate our continued partnership with the 22 insurers and reinsurers that wrote coverage for this deal,” 

As of year-end 2021, some $750 billion in Fannie Mae-backed single-family mortgages were included in a reference pool for a credit-risk transfer transaction.

Fannie Mae has been revving up its credit-risk transfer machinery in recent months. The GSE has said it plans to do $15 billion in CRT deals in 2022. In early February, HousingWire reported that Fannie Mae unveiled its second CRT deal of 2022, a $1.2 billion note offering through its Connecticut Avenue Securities real estate investment conduit.

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Morty CEO Nora Apsel discusses the online mortgage marketplace and its journey to open access to all


Over the past few years, digital transformation has increasingly changed the way property and real estate transactions occur. A vertical which has seen a strong digital push is mortgages, with consumers, lenders and other agents increasingly using online tools and services to apply for and process home sales.

Morty CEO Nora Apsel
Nora Apsel, Morty co-founder and CEO

One company leading this charge is Morty, an online mortgage marketplace that matches customers with the right loan product for them, using technology to automate and manage the entire experience. The company has found success since its founding, doubling its size over the past year and processing over a billion dollars in loans to date.

Morty also recently raised a $25 million Series B from leading investors March Capital, Rethink Impact, Thrive Capital, Prudence and Lerer Hippeau.

FinLedger spoke with Morty co-founder Nora Apsel, who rose from engineer to COO and now CEO, about the company’s journey, overarching goals and plans moving forward.

Q: First off, can you just describe Morty and the services you offer?

A: Morty is an online mortgage marketplace, so we leverage great product and technology to first match customers with the right loan product for them. Then, we automate and manage the entire experience all the way through to closing, so we’re a full service platform. We take customers from the very beginning, figure out what they can afford, to the very end of closing on their loan.

Q: What would you say are the biggest challenges when it comes to bringing those two pieces together? Matching customers and partnering with lenders?

A: Taking a step back, my background historically is as an engineer. Part of the reason why Morty was so very interesting to me when we founded it was because it really presented this opportunity of overlap. How can we leverage technology to really do better for the consumer and promote their needs, as opposed to the traditional mortgage approach which is very much from the banks or the lender’s perspective.

Getting to what your actual question was, which is, ‘What’s the challenge in matching these two things?’ It’s really about the technology and the data flow. The reason why Morty is unique and is able to offer this access to customers in a way that traditional mortgage providers can’t is because we’re taking in all of this data from both consumers and from lenders. It’s our pricing engine that’s really identifying, ‘What is the best thing for this person right now?’ Everything changes every single day, so being able to take in all of those things and say today, what is the best thing to match customers in a really transparent user friendly type of way?

Q: Over the past couple years, what have you seen as far as technology demand growth along those lines? Are people still getting their feet in?

A: I think the progress over the past year has been quite measurable, but I still think we’re just at the beginning. If we were having this conversation five years ago, I would say the big challenge is getting people online. How do we figure out how to make sure customers know that they can get their mortgage online, and that it’s better, more transparent and secure?

That pendulum has swung a little bit more with the pandemic, and people are becoming more comfortable with real estate transactions online. You saw all that happen in 2020, and now mortgages is feeling that as well. We believe that’s a trend that doesn’t go backwards, so we’ll just continue. Customers will continue to make that migration online and it’s really the last financial transaction to be moved online.

Q: You said you have an engineering background. What have been the biggest challenges for you when it comes to learning about the mortgage industry? What has been the most eye opening thing that you’ve learned through the whole process?

A: I was an engineer for over a decade and then even before that, I worked in nonprofits for a while, so my interests are really around where technology and large scale social or financial impact intersect. I think the thing that continues to surprise me, even though I’ve been in this industry for so long, is the blackbox nature of mortgage. Customers give some information and they get out a number, or a bunch of documents that they need, and there’s no understanding of why or how to change that.

That’s the reason why you hear from customers that their mortgage was really confusing, the communication was bad and their cost was too high. It’s because everything is super blackbox and confusing, and I think even when we founded the company, I vastly underestimated the ‘blackbox-ness,’ if that is a word, of the industry.

Q: What do you think needs to be done to improve that transparency? Is it just on the technology, or is it in advocacy? Where do you see the biggest potential to educate people?

A: There are a couple of things, and one is definitely education. The content that customers want is that which puts the customer first, and gives and leads with transparency and information. The third is really building a broader ecosystem of real estate and fintech companies that are looking to help the customer, putting the customer first and making sure all of the those players in that ecosystem are connected in a really transparent way, so that the customer always knows what’s going on and what their options are.

Q: Looking at the ecosystem and your previous point about data, have you seen data driving this ecosystem forward? What have you seen data bring to the table as far as things coming together?

A: I think mortgage is a pretty big industry and I would break it into two parts around the consumer side, and then the servicing and secondary market side. I think it’s been pretty impressive to see some of the data providers and new tech startups coming to support the second part, like the servicing in the secondary markets. I think it’s the first time that the area has really seen that, which is pretty cool.

But in the consumer side, where Morty sits, it still operates largely in silos so the data share is not where it should be. We should be able to free flow, we should be able to share data when it’s beneficial for the customer, right? Whether it’s information about the transaction or the appraisal, or the homeowners insurance, numbers, that stuff should all be able to be gathered in one place so that the customer always knows what’s going on. What are their options, how much longer, what do they need to do?

Q: Do you see that happening, or is that just something that will take longer to break down. Is it even possible with regulation and things of that nature?

A: It’s possible. To be clear, I’m not looking to like share personal identifying information (PII). I think it’s possible, but I think it’s gonna take time because what you need is data forward, typically startups, to grow in these areas, and then begin to work together in tandem for the customer.

Q: Can you talk about last year’s Series B, and how you’ve been using that funding?

A: For us, the Series B was really about being able to expand out our marketplace. Our vision is to really be a single point of access into the home financing market, for anybody and everybody. But when we closed our Series B, we were focused on purchase and primary homes. We’ve used the money to hire and grow the team really with the notion of wanting to be able to expand out this marketplace, and to be able to be that single point of access for all consumers.

Q: Can you just talk about secondary versus primary and what the biggest points of differentiation are when looking at how you deal with them?

A: There’s different eligibility and pricing guidelines associated with every different home type. For us, we care a lot about making sure every product that we offer on our site is done in a transparent, accurate way and is very user friendly. So that the customer can self-operate, which is a big part of how our sight of our product works. The expansion was really about, “okay, we nailed primary homes, now let’s make sure we’re offering that same level of service and accuracy at secondary homes,” then jumbos and investment homes as we continue to expand out.

Q: That leads to my next question. What are your big goals for 2022, and what are some things you’re excited to tackle?

A: It’s largely the same answer in that it’s all about being this like single point of access. That’s the power of a marketplace, right? It’s this one-stop shop that anybody can go to, to really find the right thing. I think the stuff I’m especially excited about, in addition, is expanding to all sorts of loan types. I’m excited to expand out to other home financing solutions and partner with great companies that are doing that now. You know, a mortgage is not the right option for everybody. For some people it might be a rent-to-own solution. For some people, it might be all-cash first and then a mortgage. There are some really great startups and more established companies that are doing those types of things. We’re excited as a marketplace to partner with those people, so that we can direct customers to what is the best thing for them.

Q: Looking around at these other startups, are there any that excite you or that you’d like to partner with?

A: There are some very cool things happening in proptech and fintech. If we can talk about me personally as opposed to Morty, I think one of the cool things in proptech is the ability to build your home completely online, and really making it totally modular and universal. I think that’s super exciting and really reflects innovation in a couple of different areas, including things like construction, that I know nothing about.

I think for us, again, we are continuously going back to this concept of access, and wanting to make sure that customers are getting all the different types of access to the right type of thing. One thing that we’re interested in is the intersection of mortgage and crypto. How do we make sure that people who have invested heavily in crypto are able to leverage those types of assets? We haven’t done anything on that, but I think it’s really interesting. It all goes back to the fact people should be able to know how to get the right mortgage for them, and should be able to go to one single point of access to find that.

Q: Does it come back to, like you said with data silos, the fact a lot of people just aren’t applicable for certain things because their data isn’t shown in a typical FICO score?

A: I would say the inability to underwrite a mortgage with crypto is not like the biggest problem, but it could be it. I believe it will increasingly become more challenging, because more people will continue to invest in it and it will be a more dominant asset type.

For the questions that you’re talking about around FICO. We all know that FICO is not equitable. I think that there are a lot of interesting products out there for consumers in a variety of different situations, but very often, those customers have no idea that they can get a mortgage or how to get one. Similarly, many times the companies that are offering those types of products don’t know how to connect with the right customer. That really shows, and that’s really where the value of the marketplace comes in. It’s this matchmaking experience.

Q: You went from co-founding the company as an engineer, then went on to act as COO and now CEO. What has that journey been like, and what have you learned along the way?

A: The journey has consistently been challenging, and that’s startups, right? I think for me, I have approached every single challenge very much from an engineering mindset. So there is a problem. Let’s identify what the potential solutions are, let’s create a process around that solution, let’s implement it and then let’s test it. That paradigm has served me very well, because it allows you to create structure and a lot of transparency with your team. I think as you’re building a company, you know, we are really fortunate to have some people who have been with Morty for you know, three or four or five years. That comes from really being able to build transparency around, ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘How are we going to get there?’ and ‘How are we doing?’

Q: What do you look for when searching for talent?

A: You’re hitting on engineering, because it’s definitely the talk of the startup world, but for us in general, when hiring people I think we do have a quite specific culture here. Everybody believes in what we’re building and is working towards that vision. I think being bought into the mission and the vision of the company is really important, because what we’re doing is very hard and it’s going to take a long time. It’s not get the startup up and just run it for a couple of years. There’s a lot of investment in that and that has been really important.

Even getting back to engineering, we run a really tight engineering hiring process, and a big part of it is just finding the right people. For engineers the challenge that we have is really centered around data transparency and efficiency, and those are super interesting problems. It’s really about like finding the right people that are excited about solving those problems and being part of a mission-driven company.

Q: Through this whole journey, what has been your biggest win or milestone you’ve been the most excited about?

A: It’s a really challenging question, because startups are actually just a bunch of really small wins, but I have two. One was when we got our license in New York. New York is notoriously the hardest state to get your mortgage license in, and we spent a lot of time making sure what we submitted was perfect. We were really proud when we got that license, because it opened up a ton of opportunity for us and helped us take a big step further on our on our pursuit of 50-state coverage. That was a really big thing.

And then I think the other thing that was like a pretty big milestone for us was when we were able to begin to see customers come through our product and go all the way to locking in their loans, or locking in their interest rate, without phone calls. Recognizing that this can be done in an automated, digital way and that customers do want to self-transact in this type of way … was real validation for us.

Q: You brought up the 50-state coverage. How many are you in now, and what are your expansion plans?

A: We are in 43 states right now, and our goal is to be in all 50 states by the end of the year.

Q: That’s all I have for you, Nora. Is there anything I didn’t ask about you or Morty that you think I should know?

A: The thing I always make sure to communicate is that the differentiator for Morty really comes from this combination of our marketplace bottle and our investment and focus in growing through product and tech and believing that it is the better way to transact. It’s more transparent, more cost effective, and it’s also what consumers want.

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Finance of America asks investors to look beyond traditional mortgage


Finance of America Companies on Wednesday told investors that it managed to increase in originations in 2021, but a more competitive landscape reduced margins and, consequently, the company’s net income.

Amid a tough environment for forward mortgage lending, Finance of America is betting on specialty finance & services products – reverse mortgages, investor loans, commercial loans – which are expected to deliver most of the return this year.

Finance of America funded $35.6 billion in 2021, up 9% compared to 2020, mainly due to reverse and commercial businesses. However, in the fourth quarter, the total volume was $8.79 billion, down 10% year-over-year and 2% quarter-over-quarter.

On paper, the company posted a $1.17 billion loss in 2021, reverting a $498 million profit in the prior year, which was virtually an impairment of goodwill and intangible assets. The action was needed to align its book value with supportable control premium, due to a sustained decline in the stock price, FoA executives said. The adjusted net income, which excludes the impairment, was $308 million in 2021, down 28% year-over-year.

In the fourth quarter, the company had a $1.33 billion loss on paper due to the impairment, compared to a $50 million profit in the prior quarter and a $152 million profit in the same quarter of 2020. The adjusted net income was $70 million, a 7% decline quarter-over-quarter and down 43% year-over-year.

During a conference call with analysts, Patti Cook, the outgoing chief executive officer, said Finance of America delivered a “solid performance” in its first year as a public company, with the specialty finance and services business standing out while the mortgage industry is facing a tough environment.  

In 2021, the company’s best performance was in commercial originations, increasing from $855 million to $1.7 billion, up 107%. Reverse originations increased 57% year-over-year, to $4.26 billion.

About $29.6 billion of the total funded last year came through its traditional forward mortgage lending arm, which increased 2% in comparison with the previous year ­– in total, 55% of the mortgage volume was in refinancing last year, filings show. In the fourth quarter, however, mortgage originations declined 22% compared to Q4 2020 and 7% in comparison to the Q3 2021, to $6.89 billion.

Margins in the mortgage business declined from 3.88% in 2020 to 2.86% in 2021. Cook said margins are declining because the company is originating more through the wholesale channel than the retail division.

Like many of its competitors, FoA has reduced headcount to account for reduced volumes.

“We have taken steps to position our mortgage business for dramatically reduced refinance volume, while still maintaining our ability to benefit from expected growth in the purchase and nonagency markets,” she said to analysts. “This quarter, our mortgage segment posted a loss, which can be primarily attributed to our nascent home improvement business.”

The company’s strategy is to sell more specialty finance and services products through mortgage channels. It also has a home improvement business. The revenue of these products attributable to mortgage went from $46 million in 2019 to $96 million in 2021. The segments are expected to remain the major driver of profitability in 2022, Cook said.

During the conference call, an analyst asked why the company’s stocks performance is disconnected to executives’ optimism with the business. Cook answered the company has been consistent in telling specialty finance and services products will drive the company earnings during mortgage cycles. “People have to believe that the trend continues. We should start to be distinguished from the peers.”

Finance of America shares were trading at $3.39 around 10 a.m. EST on Thursday, up 4.46% from the prior day. The company made its public debut in April by merging with the special purpose acquisition company Replay Acquisition Company valued at $1.9 billion. It began trading at $10 a share. On Wednesday, its market value was $191.5 million.  

In early February, the company announced that Cook will retire as soon as the company finds a successor. Cook will remain on the board of directors until the annual meeting of stockholders.

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Using Calculated Risk to Acquire 17 Doors In Under a Year


Real estate favors those who value risk. An investor’s willingness to take a calculated risk separates the good from the great. And today’s guest, Grace Gudenkauf, is definitely on her way to greatness. This ambitious 24-year-old has managed to get seventeen doors between eight properties under her belt in less than a year, and she shows no signs of slowing down.

She was first introduced to real estate when her boyfriend decided to flip a house. It didn’t pique her interest until she reviewed the numbers and saw the potential. Since then, hard work and calculated risk have allowed her to have the accelerated success any new investor dreams of. A substantial amount of this success is due to her and her boyfriend making it a point to “never let the money stop them”, they “get the deal first and then find the money.” Most would be reluctant to take this approach, but it has worked phenomenally for Grace.

From talking directly to a VP at a local bank to deciding to leave her W-2, Grace keeps taking risks in the name of real estate, and it keeps paying off. When it came to deciding if she would leave her W-2 or not, Grace looked at the worst-case scenario to weigh her options. After it was all laid out—her worst-case financially, emotionally, and socially—she decided the risk was well worth it. This is an episode you don’t want to miss.

Ashley:
This is Real Estate Rookie, episode 161.

Grace:
Well, how are you going to get loans if you don’t have a W2? You’re never going to be able to buy anything. And I feel like that’s a huge myth and just not true. Yes, you have to sacrifice a little bit, maybe some points, maybe higher interest rate, but am I going to let that completely stop me? No.

Ashley:
My name is Ashley Kehr and I have a story. Today, I am actually in Seattle at the Heaton Dainard office. So if anybody is looking to invest in Seattle, I highly recommend checking them out. No, this is not a paid advertisement, I’m just using their office for free to record a podcast and playing with the cool things they have in the office. So if you guys aren’t watching the sun, you-

Tony:
And apparently they have medieval… Yeah. Ashley’s holding the story that looks like it’s from Game of Thrones or something right now. I’m very nervous for all the people in that office with you.

Ashley:
I know. So I am here with my cohost, Tony Robinson. Tony, you have any weapons in your office?

Tony:
The only weapon I’ve got is, I don’t know, I’ve got a gallon sized water bottle next to me and a fork that I use to eat my lunch, so I could maybe do some damage with that.

Ashley:
But you can waterboard somebody.

Tony:
Yeah. So for those who are joining us for the first time, we’re actually not a podcast about medieval warfare and weapons of times past, we’re real estate focused podcast that shows new investors how to get started. We give you the inspiration, the information, the education you need to get started in real estate investing. So Ashley, I’m excited, you’re like a globetrotter right now. You were in Tennessee with me last week. Now three days later, you’re in Seattle. What’s next on the agenda? Where are you going to next?

Ashley:
Next, I think I’m actually coming back to Seattle at the end of the month, but that is super exciting moment for me today. I am investing in my first out-of-state property. So here in Seattle, I’m going to be doing a house flip and partnering with James Dainard from Heaton Dainard. So that’s why I’m out here doing my first look at the property, going over the rehab for it and writing a check.

Tony:
Awesome. Are you going to share on your Story what the property looks like? Yeah? I’m excited to see what-

Ashley:
Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. And it’s actually not that bad. I’ve toured a couple of properties here in Seattle before that’ve been like hoarder houses and different things like that. Actually, James was just showing us a video of a house he bought that had actually been on an episode of Hoarders. So if you guys Google Seattle hoarder house, you guys might be able to watch that episode on A&E.

Tony:
Yeah. Well, that’s exciting. Actually, I’m excited to see your first out-of-state flip. How often do you think you’ll have to go back to Seattle to manage this project?

Ashley:
So I’m coming back during the middle of rehab, and then I’m coming back towards the end of it when it gets listed for sale to see the finished product.

Tony:
You make it sound so easy. You make it sound so easy.

Ashley:
That’s our duty, right? We’ll see. We’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep everyone updated. You can follow me on Instagram, @wealthfromrentals and check out James at JDainFlips on Instagram too, to see this journey of our first joint venture together.

Tony:
Yeah. I’m excited for you guys.

Ashley:
So Tony, what’s new with you?

Tony:
Yeah. I feel like I don’t have an update as cool as yours. I definitely don’t have any medieval weapons in my office with me right now. Well, what’s new with me? We’re actually closing on another flip tomorrow, so that’s exciting. We’re trying to ramp up that part of our business. And again, we’re still selling these short-term rental turnkey flips. So that way, whoever buys them can take them live on day one. So excited to grow that part of our business. And we’ve actually just added two new folks to our team as well, to the Alpha Geek Capital team. So shout out to Warren and Brian. They’re coming on to help us with acquisitions. So as we ramp up our need for deal flow, they’re going to run point on that. So exciting week for us at the Alpha Geek Capital team.

Ashley:
Yeah, definitely. Definitely adding more team members, taking some work off your shoulders and hopefully providing you a ton of value and exciting for them to get to work with you and learn from you too.

Tony:
Yeah. I hope it’s a mutually beneficial relationship. But yeah, I think things are good. The best part is, I got to hang out with Ashley Kehr for two days, three days in Tennessee, so that’s always a good time.

Ashley:
Yeah, that was so fun. And it was awesome to finally get to see one of your properties in person and get to stay there in the cabin, so thank you very much for having me.

Tony:
Yeah, of course. So your bill for the lodging, it’ll be coming to you soon. So just keep an eye on your inbox.

Ashley:
I’ll make sure to leave a review too.

Tony:
All right. So should we get into today’s guest? Today, we had a Grace Gudenkauf on the podcast. Grace is an investor base out of Cedar Falls, Iowa. I really in enjoyed this episode, she’s a younger investor, 24 years old, just recently graduated from college, I think she said like a year and a half ago, and she’s scaled to almost 20 units in less than a year, which is super, super cool, super amazing. And so she breaks down what that journey looks like. One of my favorite parts of this episode was when she talks about her decision to leave her job and what her thought process was behind that. So I really enjoyed that part of the conversation.

Ashley:
That was my favorite part too. And just how she gives some actionable steps, if you are thinking of doing the same thing, putting your job and jumping into real estate full time, here’s some things you should think about before you actually do that. So a great episode. Let’s get into it.
Grace, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Can you start off with telling everyone a little bit about yourself and how you got started in real estate?

Grace:
Yes. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited. I am Grace Gudenkauf. I’m a 24-year-old investor from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where I was born and raised. And I got started in real estate last fall because my boyfriend had flipped a house while I was still in college, and I had just started my full-time job and I was really looking for ways to maximize my new salary, and it fell into my lap.

Ashley:
So Grace, what did you think when he flipped a house? Was real estate investing anything you even knew about? And how did that conversation happen?

Grace:
I just remember doing like purchase price plus rehab, and then the different with the sale price and being like, “Ooh, that’s good.” I had no clue all the things that went into it. And I went and I painted some. I remember thinking like, this is a good idea and I’ll do it eventually, but it wasn’t like alarm bells going off yet.

Ashley:
Before we dig into too much of your story, can you just give us real quick an overview of your portfolio, what it looks like today and what kind of investing you have done?

Grace:
Yeah. So all of my units are in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. We have 17 doors between I think, eight properties, some single families, some duplexes and a couple fourplexes. And we’ve done all over the place huge rehabs, cosmetic, rent to own, creative, pretty much everything we’ve done except for flipping and short-term rentals.

Tony:
So you said that you’re at 17 doors across several different properties, but you said you started last fall, so like a little over a year into this. Is that timeline correct?

Grace:
Yes. We bought our first single family rental February of 2021.

Tony:
Wow. That’s awesome. What a great growth. And not even a year. It hasn’t even been a whole year yet. So you keep saying we, Grace, so who is this we that you’re speaking of?

Grace:
Yes. So we is my, I say my business partner slash life partner, Brant, and that’s my boyfriend. And we’ve partnered together on everything.

Tony:
Got you. So let’s talk a little bit more about this journey, because to go from falling into this first flip that your boyfriend did to now having a pretty sizable portfolio, there’s got to be a lot that happens in 11 months to be able to make that work. So after this first flip, what happens after that? Are you guys just like you’re on fire? I guess just walk us through that journey of what happens after that first flip.

Grace:
Yeah. So he got the money from that first flip, and I think he was looking for the next thing to do. And I was like, “Well, it’s going to be winter in Iowa, so let’s do a flip together. I’ve got nothing else to do, literally.” And we ended up actually buying something together. We put 20% down and we were going to BRRRR a full gut property. And so we started that first one in February and then took us six months, and we had to DIY the whole thing because we didn’t have… We had some money, but not like a crazy amount of money. And then from there, I was just like, “This is such a good idea. I have to keep doing this.” And we just decided that we’ll never let the money stop us, we will always get the deal and then find the money. And it’s turned into where we’re at now.

Tony:
I want to pause in that one point, Grace, because what you said, I think was very profound, I want to make sure we don’t pass over that. But you said that you’ll never let the money stop you. And if you find a good deal, you’re going to get it under contract and you’ll figure it out afterwards. I think there’s a lot of people who are afraid to go down that same path because they might see a good deal, but there’s too afraid to lock it up because they haven’t figured out the financing.
So just walk us through your thought process on, A, how you haven’t let that fear stop you. And then B, how are you funding all of these deals? Because I think when someone hears you go from zero to almost 20 units in less than a year, people can’t comprehend how you’re able to finance that. So start with how you broke past that fear, and then give us some tactical knowledge on how you actually made it happen.

Grace:
Of course. If somebody scales that quickly in that short amount of time, it’s really important to understand that there are other partners, private money lenders, whatever equity partners out there that are making that happen more than likely. And for us, that’s absolutely true. I remember I probably heard it from a BiggerPockets podcast, someone saying, “I’m not going to let the money stop me. I’m going to find it.” And I just like regurgitated that. And it started just with the very next deal we did, was two duplexes.
And they were 255,000, so that would’ve been like 50,000 and of down payment and we didn’t have that. So I called my small local bank that probably had like 30 employees, and I went straight to the VP and I was like, “Hey, this is a really good deal, I’ve banked here forever. Let me put 10% down.” And he basically got the underwriter on the phone and they decided right then and there that they’d let us put 10% down. I was like, “The tenants have been here forever. They’ve never missed rent payment. These are really worth more like 300. So you have no risk.”
And then I went and I partnered with Brant and my sister to split that 10% down payment three ways. And then each one moving forward was just all different, and I feel like I figured it out as I went.

Ashley:
That is so awesome that you went to the VP of the bank, and that’s the power of these small local banks. And that you asked… What’s the worst they can say? Is no. But putting yourself out there and asking those questions. And not even asking, you knew exactly what you needed, what you wanted, but even going to these banks and asking, “What can you offer me?” It obviously was a very powerful tool for you and kept you moving forward. So when you set up this new partnership with your boyfriend and your sister, what did that look like? Did you guys put together an LLC? Did you keep it in your personal name? How did you structure that?

Grace:
So we should have put it in an LLC, but we actually took title as tenants in common with two thirds being Brant and I’s LLC and the other third being her personal name. I think we might have done that because we needed her W2 to help qualify for that. I can’t quite remember, or maybe it was timing and we just didn’t get our stuff together to create a new LLC. That was the last one that went into any personal names, and from then on out, we’ve always put everything into an LLC.

Ashley:
Can you explain for anyone that doesn’t know the difference between putting in your personal name or putting it in LLC, what are the risks and what are the reasons that you have transitioned from personal name to LLC?

Grace:
Yeah, so we really wanted to get our commercial lending, I guess, relationship started, so we just skipped the whole residential loans, which are going to give you 30-year terms and depend on your W2 and your credit score and be just super favorable. You probably also are going to have to put 20 to 30% down, whereas like I said, we didn’t have a ton of money, so we knew that we needed to stretch basically every give that we could get. So we went to lower down payment commercial loans where we could do 10 or 20%.
Granted, they’re going to be a little higher interest rate and they’re going to be less favorable in terms of how long the loan is. So residential loans are going to be a lot more favorable in terms of interest rate and amortization and they’re going to depend on your credit score, your W2 and all of the personal information about you. whereas a commercial loan is going to be more focused on the property itself and it’s probably going to be higher interest and less favorable in terms of amortization, but they’re more flexible in terms of down payment.

Tony:
Can we just drill down a little bit on the commercial lending process? I think just one comment to make is that it’s definitely not necessary as a first time investor to set up an LLC and go the commercial route. But depending on your unique situation, sometimes it may make more sense. So I just want to caution folks that are listening, that, don’t feel like you can’t go out and get that first deal until you get an LLC and have the commercial lending set up. You can go out and still do it in your personal name. The vast majority of the deals that I’m in, it’s in my personal name and one of my partner’s personal name, and we still have been able to scale our portfolio.
But Grace, I want to talk a little bit about what that commercial lending process looks like, because I think a lot of folks might have some interest in that. So when you say that it doesn’t depend on your W2 or it doesn’t depend on some other things, what exactly is it that they’re using to qualify a commercial loan versus like a loan in someone’s personal name? What documentation do you need to provide? What’s the proof they look for to say, “Okay, this is a good loan”?

Grace:
When I tell my lender I want a new loan, she wants to know the purchase price, how long it’s going to take, the rehab. And then most importantly, what it’s going to appraise for and what it’s going to rent for if I’m keeping it. Because the bank that I work with particularly is also a small local bank, they’re very investor friendly, they’re known for being investor friendly. And they always want to know what is the debt service coverage ratio. I can never remember, the DSCR, whatever.
Basically, what’s the ratio of your rent to your debt payment? And if it looks good, the loan’s good. They don’t care if I have my W2 or if I have an 800 credit score or 600 credit score. They want to know, “Can this deal stand on its own legs?”

Tony:
Can we also talk about the terms that are offered to you with a commercial loan? With primary residents, you can go out, get a really low interest rate, 30-year fixed term. What kind of terms and rates are you seeing on the commercial side?

Grace:
Yeah. Again, not as favorable, but we’re seeing four to 5% with a 5/1 ARM, which I think is pretty standard. Also, that could be good or bad depending on what your end game is. If your end game with the property is only a few years, it doesn’t really matter that it’s an adjustable rate mortgage or if it’s a 30-year loan, because you know you’re either going to 1031 it, sell it or whatever.

Ashley:
Tony, just real quick, what are you seeing on the residential side right now?

Tony:
On our most recent short-term rental purchase, we closed that at think at 3.4% or something like that. And that’s a 30-year fix. Honestly, not a whole heck of a lot lower than four or even 5%. So we’re talking about few hundred dollars per month difference in mortgage payments, so not a huge deal breaker.

Grace:
The other important thing though is since neither Brant, nor I have a W2, a huge thing was, “Oh, how are you going to get loans if you don’t have a W2? You’re never going to be able to buy anything.” And I feel like that’s a huge myth and just not true. Yes, you have to sacrifice a little bit on your 30 year fix versus 5/1 ARM and maybe some points, maybe higher interest rate. But am I going to let that completely stop me? No.

Ashley:
And if the numbers still work, it can still be a good deal even though you’re not paying a lower interest rate, like another investor, that barrier of entry, at least like getting yourself into the deal and making money off of it. Even if it’s a huge amount, you’re still getting your foot in the door and making money instead of having nothing, because you never took advantage of that opportunity and even invested at all. So having some of that opportunity to invest in the property… And that’s almost like the same as taking on a partner, owning 50% of the property than owning 0% of the property is still better.

Grace:
And that was like a huge thing that I initially struggled with as well, is, “I don’t want partners.” Well, okay then, exactly. Like you said, Ashley, 100% of nothing is still nothing.

Tony:
One follow up for me, Grace, you mentioned the 5/1 ARM. Can you define what that means for folks that aren’t familiar with it and how that differs from a traditional mortgage?

Grace:
Yes. So the 5/1 ARM means that for five years, you have your fixed rate, like I said, we’re seeing between four and 5%. And then after that, every year, it can be adjusted, hence adjustable rate mortgage. And I heard, I think one time on a BiggerPockets Podcast, that you can look in the fine print and see if there’s a maximum interest rate that it can hit and just use that number, if your nervous about that, to see if your deal still works. Unfortunately, I could not find that in my deals, but if you can, that’s just another tool to use to not be scared of those types of mortgages.

Ashley:
And if you do really have a good deal, you shouldn’t have a problem being able to refinance your property too once that those five years up and go into another five year fixed rate loan too. So Grace, what’s next for you guys? Your boyfriend did the flip and then you guys did the BRRRR property. What happens from there? How do you gain that traction to keep buying more and more?

Grace:
Yeah, I remember we just had a conversation where like, “Should we just keep buying? Should we just see if we can do it?” And we’re like, “Yeah, okay. Let’s do it.” And that was so scary and so ludicrous, but we’re like, “Whatever, let’s do it.”

Ashley:
Did you have a job at this point? Were you working when you were done with school?

Grace:
Yes. So after I graduated college, I was working as an engineer for an aerospace company, and I was working remotely out of Iowa. I bought my personal residence and the BRRRR and the two duplexes. And right around this time, like spring 2021, I started to realize, if I go back into the office, which is California, San Diego, I will never be able to do real estate. If I move to San Diego, I will be able to maybe buy a garage. Iowa is so low cost of entry, it’s just so easy to make a dent in this market. So I decided since I couldn’t continue to work remotely forever, that I was just going to make the jump and just try real estate and just see where the heck it went.

Ashley:
So how many properties did you have at that point where you decided to just quit?

Grace:
I think five units, but with four of those units being shared between my boyfriend and my sister. So I really did not have that much experience, but I thought, “If I’m going to try this, it should be now I don’t have kids, I don’t have pets, I don’t have student loans and all these other obligations. If I’m going to fail, now’s the time to fail, not down the road when I have way more people, depending on me.” And right now, if I really needed to, I could move into my parents’ basement and would that be worth the risk for me to possibly succeed working for myself? Absolutely. So that’s how I decided to go for it, which seemed so crazy, and it probably was

Ashley:
For someone listening now, that’s maybe is in that same dilemma that you were like, you don’t want to go into the office, you don’t want to be stuck at your you W2 job anymore and they’re thinking of quitting and going full time into real estate, what are a couple action items or things they should do before they decide to actually quit their job? Did you have some money in savings? Did you write out some goals, have a game plan before you actually decided to quit?

Grace:
Yeah. What I did was I sat down and I literally have it right here. I wrote out, what is the absolute worst thing that could happen? And I broke it up into bullet points of, okay, what happens if I can’t afford my mortgage? Okay, I move out to my parents and now I have a cash flowing property. Cool. What have happens if I fail publicly? Okay. I have to admit to like my family and friends that I failed. Okay. That’s not that huge of a deal, I’ll take that risk. And I just went down the line of everything that could go wrong and I looked at it and I was like, “I can handle that. That’s not that crazy. I can handle that. That’s worth the risk of it possibly all working out.” So that’s how I decided to do it.

Tony:
And Ashley, it reminds me of a conversation we had, I think it was with Nick Cooley, who was a guest on one of the previous episodes. And we were talking about the same thing about how there’s so much fear around trying to work for yourself and trying to become an entrepreneur and doing this thing on your own. But a lot of times the worst case scenario is that you end up like the vast majority of people in America today. If you failed, if I failed, if Ashley failed, what would we do? We’d probably just go back and get a job, Get a nine-to-five and just grind it out like everybody else.
And if that’s the worst case scenario, why not take the risk? Why I not see if you can actually make it happen? So kudos to you, Grace, for having that courage in yourself and in your abilities to take that leap. And I guess just really quickly before we move on, how has it been? You’re almost a year removed from having to get up and go to a job every day, what does that feel like?

Grace:
That’s so funny because the other day, Brent and I were at Home Depot, it was in the middle of the day and we’re like, “It’s so crazy that we’re not in an office right now.” Just running around, moving fridges from properties and all that stuff, but it’s been awesome. I love problem solving, and real estate is just like a giant problem to solve with each deal and figuring out how to get it done and make money. And I’ve been able to do so many more things that I wouldn’t have been able to do if I stayed at my job. So it’s been awesome. A lot more stress, a lot more work, but it’s been great.

Tony:
And Nick Cooley was episode 109 if one of you guys that wondering where that came from. Nick’s an awesome guy, had a lot of good times with Nick. So check out that episode if you haven’t yet.

Ashley:
Tony, I have Darrel here, sitting here listening, doing some work and he wanted to correct you and say it was episode 109-ner

Tony:
Well, excuse me. Yes, 109-ner

Ashley:
Okay. Grace, do you have a deal for us today that we could go in and do a rookie review on and just give us the numbers on it, what exactly everything about the property, but strategy, things like that?

Grace:
Yes. And I think I’m going to do my very first deal that we did.

Ashley:
Okay, awesome. So we’re just going to ask you some rapid fire questions first and then you can go into the story of the deal. What strategy was this deal?

Grace:
BRRRR strategy.

Ashley:
Okay. And was it a single family, two family, three family?

Grace:
It was a single family home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

Ashley:
Okay. And what was the purchase price?

Grace:
82,500.

Ashley:
And how was the rehab?

Grace:
36,000.

Ashley:
Okay. And then you ended up refinancing this property. Well first, how did you pay for it? How did you fund the deal, and then did you refinance it?

Grace:
Yep. We put 20% down. Everyone says you need to do BRRRR with cash, but like I said, “We didn’t have the full cash. So we started with the bank loan and we refinanced it, cash out refinanced, six months later and it appraised for 185,000. So we were able to keep 30% equity in the deal. We refined 130,000, which paid off the purchase price, the rehab, and I think put seven or eight grand in our pockets as well. And then the rent, it ended up renting for 1,549, and I believe we cash flow around $350 on this.

Ashley:
Awesome. Congratulations. And on your first deal too.

Tony:
Right. Can we celebrate that because how long did this deal take you really quickly? Just ballpark.

Grace:
It did take six months because we DIYed the entire gut, full gut.

Tony:
It’s six months of your life and you get back all of your capital plus $7,000. So you got paid almost 1,000 bucks a month for doing the work, and now you have this property that’s going to give you, you said $300 a month in cash flow?

Grace:
About 350.

Tony:
350 month in cash flow and perpetuity forever with zero money left in the deal. And that’s the beauty of real estate investing is that you can get creative, you can put in the hard work, and if you do those things, you get rewarded. And 350 might not sound like a lot, but if you can replicate that five, 10, 20, 30 times, that adds up, and especially if you’re recycling that same capital over and over, and over again. So what an amazing job.

Grace:
Thanks. And it’s so easy to look back on it and be like, “Yeah, that was easy. Those numbers were awesome.” But man, it was hard work. Like I said, we DIYed literally everything. And I always remember the story, Brent came home one day and he must have had a bad day, and I’ll never forget that he goes, “We should just sell the property and cut our losses,” because of some unexpected rehab that he found. And I just remember thinking like, “Okay, he’s probably being dramatic, it’s not that bad.” And then look how it ended up. There were so many highs and lows, but yeah, it was worth in the end.

Ashley:
I really want to go into the rehab portion, but first before we do that, how did you find this deal?

Grace:
Yes. We went driving for dollars and I saw for rent sign. So I called it and I quickly realized that it was an investor because he didn’t know the house he was talking about and I could tell he probably has multiple. So then I pretended to be an investor, granted I have never invested in my life. And I got him to send me a list of like 30 houses and we just said, “We want to walk through your grossest one.” And we did. And I guess Brent saw the potential at this point, I still really had no clue what I was doing and we negotiated a little bit. I was horrible at negotiating and we bought it.

Ashley:
So driving for dollars is when you drive around, you look for vacant or distressed properties, write down the address, but how did you find this guy’s phone number or even his name or who to call?

Grace:
Well, it was a for rent sign, so it had his phone number on it.

Ashley:
That’s a great idea is looking for properties that have the for-rent sign out there that maybe the landlord doesn’t want to deal with renting out the units or anything like that.

Tony:
Just really quick though, I also like the strategy of asking, can I look at your worst, grosses property? What a genius way to get that investor to let down their guard or their defenses. If you can say, “Hey, I want your worst property. Whatever the one is that you hate the most, let me look at that one.” So really, really good strategy to break them down there.

Ashley:
And even just asking in general, do you have other properties too?

Grace:
Yep. I remember feeling like I hit the jackpot when he was like, “Oh yeah, I’ll send you a list.” And then speaking of the gross property, I have to say, it was bad, but it ended up being a great deal.

Tony:
Can you tell us what you saw, what made this property so bad and what did you see in it that made you confident that it would still turn out to be a good deal?

Grace:
What made us excited about the location was it was the only residential strip and a big long road of commercial. So we thought eventually this will probably get bought out. So that’s a great exit strategy. And then it was gross because, I think, there was like 15 people living in it according to the neighbors and it was just absolutely trashed. The backyard was like a giant trash hole, and the basement, I think, animals had been living in it for many, many years and probably unfortunately never let out. So it just smelled horrible. People say it smells like money, it sure did.

Tony:
So you guys see this and this is like your first time doing a big rehab on your own, I think a lot of folks will go out and say, “Hey, let me get a professional who’s done this dozens, hundreds of times to take care of this big, big, hefty job.” But you guys made the decision to do it on your own. So first what prompted you guys to do the DIY work? And then second, did you have the skill set already to do that work or were you guys learning as you went? Just walk us through those two things.

Grace:
Yeah. We decided to DIY again, we did not have the money to hire it out, so there was no choice there. We had to DIY it, and my partner definitely had the skillset, I did not, I didn’t know anything, but I learned and for him as well, anything that we didn’t know how to do, it was just YouTube, ask, figure it out because there are no other solution. We figure it out or this property doesn’t get fixed.

Tony:
So with that process of teaching yourself and learning everything, do you guys still self-perform your work now that you have that knowledge or have you started to farm some of those tasks out now in your current deals?

Grace:
Yeah. That is our biggest hurdle right now in our business is moving it away from us so we can do multiple deals. We’re about maybe like a quarter of the way there, we’ve started to hire out some things, but it’s just really hard, especially when you know that you can do it better and cheaper, but it’s not a business when you’re the one that’s showing up, swinging the hammer every day. So that’s what we’re working on. And I’d say we’re like 25% of the way there.

Tony:
Well, kudos again, Grace on an amazing first BRRRR. It sounds like you guys knocked it out of the park. Ashley, anything you want to add before we move on to mindset?

Ashley:
Just when you were finished with the property, how did renting it out go and are you self-managing? Do you guys use property management company?

Grace:
I self-manage and renting it out went well. We tried to rehab it to, this may sound counterintuitive, but to the highest, not highest, but a really nice rental so that we knew we could get the highest rent for it because in Cedar Rapids all the housing is like outdated and old. So we knew we would get high quality tenants with the really nice rehab. So that went really well and yeah, I still property manage everything.

Ashley:
Well, Tony, do you want to take us to our mindset segment?

Tony:
Yes. Grace, we want to get into your psyche, get into understand a little bit more how you’ve grown and matured as a real estate investor. So if we go back to Grace before that very first BRRRR what were some misconceptions you had about becoming a real estate investor? Some things that you thought were true that turned out to be false, some fears you had that turned out to be unfounded, just any misconceptions you had about real estate investing in general?

Grace:
Probably that I would never be able to do it full time, that it would take forever to just get any of our projects done. And I think just scaling in general, I didn’t realize how easy it would be if you just put your mind to it. I don’t want to say easy, but how I could make it happen. And then of course, like we talked about earlier, I was very wary of partnerships until I realized that those were definitely key to scaling as well.

Ashley:
Okay, Grace, are you ready for our Rookie Request Line?

Grace:
Yes.

Ashley:
This is where you guys can call in at 1-885-ROOKIE and leave us a voicemail and we may play your question on our show for a guest to answer. So today’s question-

Joe Gatlin:
Hey Ashley. Hey Tony. My name’s Joe Gatlin. I’m just up to the Austin, Texas, and my fiancé and I are trying to get into our first real estate field. We have a good lump, some of money saved up, but we’re both self-employed so we don’t have the money to show for it. I recently got a W2 job to prove of income, but I have no credit. I don’t have bad credit, I just never built my credit. My fiancé does have credit. Is there any way we can use his credit and my income source to get into our first deal? Or what’s the best way to start building my credit the quickest amount? Thanks guys. Love your podcast.

Grace:
The first thing that my mind goes to is not even the credit question, but finding an investor who has a ton of properties and is willing to sell or finance them. If you’ve got a big chunk of money and you can put up a good down payment, that’s a pretty good argument to have towards a real estate investor who wants to sell easily and make even more money off some interest to another investor. So that’s the route that I would take.

Ashley:
Grace, what would be your advice to approach somebody even with a seller financing option?

Grace:
I would definitely look for investors that have most multiple properties because maybe they’re a little more experienced and have dealt with seller financing. Again, you could look for pulling lists, calling for rent signs, calling for sale signs until you find the person. And then maybe even shooting the first offer for seller financing and just really figuring out what they’re looking for out of the sale of their house. If it’s a certain purchase price, then work around that. If it’s super easy sale, pitch to them how you can make the sale super easy, super short inspection as is or whatever, and just really figuring out the emotions of the seller and creating your pitch around that.

Ashley:
Awesome. Another piece of it, advice for Joe too, is Grace, how you had mentioned too, going on the commercial side of lending when going there and partnering with your fiancé and using both of your resources and getting the commercial loan. So if it’s a good enough real estate deal and the numbers work, the bank is going to look more at the deal than your actual personal finances as we went over earlier. So I think that’s a great example there. Also a quick way to build your credit is to open a credit card and just charge things onto it monthly, but pay it off in full every single month, but using that credit card to build that credit.

Tony:
Just one thing to add into that too here is that there’s always the option of hard money as well. If you can find a hard money lender, they’re not going to look at your W2 income. Just like the bank that you used Grace for your deal, they’re going to underwrite the deal to make sure that the numbers make sense on the property, not so much you as the individual investor. So cool. Awesome Grace, wonderful advice. We’re going to move on to our Rookie Exam. We need to get like some cool like sound effects or something when this comes on to, I don’t know, maybe like a school bell or something. But Grace, are you ready for the exam?

Grace:
Yes.

Tony:
All right. So just you know, this has a past rate of zero, everybody has failed. No, I’m totally kidding. There’s no right or wrong answer here. But question number one is, what is one actionable things rookie should do after listening to your episode?

Grace:
I think writing down worst case scenarios to whatever it is they’re contemplating doing and spelling out what could happen, how would I deal with it? And is it worth it?

Ashley:
Okay, Grace, the second question is what is one tool, software, app or system in your business that you use?

Grace:
Actually two come to mind, Google Voice and creating a Google Suite account to get a customized email address, which I have found goes a long way in showing that you’re maybe a serious investor that you have your together. And just also a Google Voice is great for when people are calling at screens, who they are, and you can choose to let it go to voicemail, to answer it. It’s awesome. And then you don’t have to give your personal number out.

Ashley:
Yeah. I love Google Voice because you can connect it to multiple phones too. So if you’re not available, your business partner will still get the same voicemail or the message too, and so that everybody stays in the loop.

Grace:
Wow. I actually didn’t know that part, but I also love to use it on my computer and go online so I can message on my computer because I hate texting on my phone and you can call on your computer as well.

Tony:
All right. Question number three, Grace, where do you plan on being in five years?

Grace:
Within five years, we would like to have 20K a month passive income and be living on a sailboat. That has been a dream to eventually go and do that and live on a sailboat for part of the year. So we’ll see if that happens. We’re definitely on track.

Tony:
Are you guys already boaters or is that like a new skill you’ll have to develop now?

Grace:
We’ve never been sailing ever.

Ashley:
Don’t you go [crosstalk 00:38:02] sailing in Iowa, Tony?

Grace:
So this year we’re going to go and hopefully this spring take a sailing course and figure out if we like it.

Tony:
Well, that is the beautiful dream I love. This is one of my questions just hearing the different ways people plan their life out, but sailboat, I think that might be the coolest one we’ve heard so far. All right. Last thing before we wrap up here, Grace, I just want to highlight our Rookie Rockstar. So if you guys would like to be featured as a Rookie Rockstar, get active in the BiggerPockets forums, get active in the BiggerPockets Real Estate Rookie Facebook group, you can always slide into Ashley’s DMs because that’s where a lot of these come from as well. But today’s Rookie Rockstar is Ryan L.
And Ryan says, “Finally got my first property, bought it with two partners. After the rehab, we’ll be able to pull out all of our funds and put into the next deal. So they bought this property for $60,000 cash, spent another $20,000 in the rehab, the ARV’s about $125,000, and then plan to cash flow about $130 per month per partner. So each person’s going to bring down a little over 100 bucks. So Ryan, big congratulations to you for knocking it out the park on your first property there.

Ashley:
Grace, can you tell everyone where they can reach out to you or find out some more information about you?

Grace:
Yeah. I think the best place is my Instagram, which is grace.investing. You can reach out and find out more about me on there.

Ashley:
And Grace, you also have videos on the BiggerPockets Rookie YouTube channel, correct?

Grace:
Yes. Amelia McGee and I have been working on a short miniseries that’s been super fun and we’re only about halfway through it. So stay tuned, watch what’s out there and know that there’s more coming.

Ashley:
Awesome. So if you guys haven’t checked them out already, you can subscribe to the Real Estate Rookie YouTube channel and see the videos that they’ve already put out and then continue to watch their miniseries and learn a lot more about real estate. Well, Grace, thank you so much for joining us today, it was awesome to get to know more about you, and we’ve had a great time. We provided lots of value to everyone. So thank you.

Grace:
Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Ashley:
I’m Ashley @wealthfromrentals and he’s Tony @tonyjrobinson on Instagram. But before we close out, here’s something from BiggerPockets that will help you become an even better rookie investor.

 



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Opinion: Don’t let red tape strangle city development


I grew up in Houston, and I’ve seen the benefits and the pitfalls of real estate development in perhaps the most lightly regulated city in the United States — a place where developers don’t fret about complex building regulations, because such regulations simply don’t exist.

The results are uneven, but can be inspiring. In the 1970s, for instance, Gerald Hines famously built the Transco Tower amidst wide-open farmland. The free market liked what it saw, and subsequent waves of development shifted the city’s economic and demographic epicenter.

Two thousand miles west, things look very different. California’s zoning regulations are so cumbersome that they’ve spawned an entire industry of “pre-developers” who have grown fabulously wealthy by obtaining entitlements granting other developers permission to build. This bottleneck has led to significant housing shortages, and left tenants and renters facing ludicrously high housing costs. Unsurprisingly, many low-income residents are now relocating to more affordable, lower-regulation states such as Texas, Arizona, and Nevada.

Of course, regulations perform an essential civic function. Without effective and properly enforced regulations — including peer-reviewed engineering and licensed inspections — we risk catastrophes like the Champlain Towers collapse. But such regulations always represent a trade-off. Too little, and you face a Wild West scenario, with the fate of urban communities entirely in the hands of developers — some of whom, regrettably, might cut corners. Too much regulation, though, and you choke the housing supply, and chase away residents who can no longer afford their city’s high cost of living.

The cost of regulation

Striking a proper balance starts with recognizing that even the best regulations carry a price tag — and that the bill ultimately gets paid not by developers, but by local residents. When planning a project, developers figure out the income it will generate, divide that by the cost to build, and use that yield to recruit investors. Each new regulation raises the cost to build, reducing yield and deterring investment — and as developers build fewer homes, the cost of housing increases. 

Consider, for instance, the following types of regulation, all of which increase the cost to build:

  • Building height restrictions, designed by local property owners to lock in the status quo.
  • Zoning rules, which limit the kinds of properties that can be built in certain areas.
  • Parking rules, which force developers to spend money building parking spaces, even as urban planners anticipate a future in which people won’t own cars.
  • Design standards, which impose costly building requirements and can be incredibly strict in places where beauty is part of the local brand.
  • Energy-efficiency rules, which place the burden of protecting the planet squarely on the shoulders of residents in new developments.

Making sense of all these rules imposes costs of its own. The California Code of Regulations contains more than 21 million words, versus 137,000 words for the average U.S. state, forcing developers to hire a small army of consultants and experts. Because of that, California’s affordable housing now costs an average of $400,000 per unit — three times as much as in Texas — and the state is seeing a serious shortage of blue-collar workers who have been priced out of their over-regulated communities.

A question of survival

That doesn’t mean we should toss out the rulebook. Our cities face enormous challenges, and governmental leadership will be vitally important in coming years. Houston and New Orleans suffer from flooding; Miami is grappling with rising sea levels; Los Angeles and San Francisco are dealing with homelessness. Such problems are real, and demand real solutions. But we can’t solve these problems simply by enacting regulations that shunt the cost of action across to developers. 

In Houston, despite its hands-off reputation, developers of apartment buildings are now required to set aside up to 20% of their land for storm water retention — something that delivers no immediate benefit to the developer. Necessarily, that drives up the cost of development, and also the cost of renting an apartment. Effectively, the cost of flood prevention, which benefits the whole community, is disproportionately being borne by low-income renters — hardly an equitable way to solve the problem. 

More direct action by policymakers also carries a cost, of course. In Miami, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has proposed spending $6 billion to build a six-mile long, 20-foot-high sea wall along the city’s waterfront, potentially lowering property values and driving up local taxes. Such measures are controversial — personally, I believe the Miami sea wall would be a mistake — but they foreground the true cost of action, enabling a meaningful debate about how much should be spent and who should foot the bill.  

A better way

What’s the solution? It’s important to recognize that in the long run, this is a self-correcting problem. People will vote with their wallets. ff regulations choke the housing supply, they’ll move elsewhere. Similarly, if areas are overtaxed, or so under-regulated that they become unsafe or unlivable, people will relocate. One way or another, the law of supply and demand will shape the cities of tomorrow.

Once we accept that, it becomes easier to envision a more balanced approach. One useful step is to use incentives instead of regulatory mandates. Philadelphia recently offered developers a 10-year tax abatement for new construction. The following year, development increased by 39%. In coming years, increased supply will lead to lower rents, attracting more people to the city. That, in turn, will increase the tax base and enable better public services, ensuring both affordable housing and a better quality of life for residents.

Such solutions can be replicated in cities like Miami, Houston and San Francisco, but only if cities bring all stakeholders — including residents, businesses, and developers — to the table when considering new regulations.

Communities that get this right will deal proactively and transparently with future challenges, while avoiding economic contraction and population loss. By working together, and being upfront about the cost of proposed solutions, we’ll ultimately be able to solve the problems we face — while eliminating the red tape that threatens to hold back urban growth.

Daniel Ron is the managing partner at Scarlet Capital, a Houston-based real estate development firm.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Daniel Ron at dr@scarletcapital.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Sarah Wheeler at swheeler@housingwire.com

The post Opinion: Don’t let red tape strangle city development appeared first on HousingWire.



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2022 HousingWire TECH100 Real Estate Honorees


847x330.86_RealEstateBanner_2022

This year’s list of TECH100 Real Estate honorees represent a huge shift in the direction that the real estate industry is heading in. Though real estate may have fallen behind in technological advances compared to other industries in the past, all of that is changing, and this year’s list of Tech100 winners embody that shift. With endless new offerings in the world of fintech and proptech, these organizations have found solutions to every pain point that currently exists in the real estate process.

Below are the Tech100 companies driving innovation in real estate. Click through each profile to learn more about each honoree and see why they were selected as one of the top 100 technology companies in real estate.

Company NameCompany WebsiteMarkets ServedCompany HQ
ActivePipeactivepipe.com/Real Estate SalesAustin, TX
Cole Realty Resourcecoleinformation.com/products/cole-realty-resource/Real Estate SalesOmaha, NE
FoxyAIfoxyai.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CRENew York, NY
Knockknock.comReal Estate SalesNew York, NY
Pacasopacaso.comReal Estate SalesSan Francisco, CA
Showinglyshowingly.com/Real Estate SalesDenver, CO
Usherpausherpa.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREDenver, CO
Agent Imageagentimage.com/Real Estate SalesEl Segundo, CA
Compass Real Estatecompass.com/Real Estate SalesNew York, NY
Framework Homeownershiphow-to-buy-a-house.frameworkhomeownership.org/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRBoston, MA
Knox Financialknoxfinancial.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRBoston, MA
Paymints.iopaymints.io/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CRECharlotte, NC
ShowingTimeshowingtime.com/Real Estate SalesChicago, IL
Xomexome.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRDallas, TX
Alannaalanna.ai/Real Estate SalesMcKinney, TX
CoreLogiccorelogic.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRIrvine, CA
FundingShieldfundingshield.com/Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CRENewport Beach, CA
Landislandis.com/Real Estate SalesNew York, NY
Property Sync Software Systemsgetpropertysync.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREHayden, ID
SimpleShowingsimpleshowing.com/Real Estate SalesAtlanta, GA
Amrock amrock.com/Real Estate SalesDetroit, MI
Curbiocurbio.com/Real Estate SalesPotomac, MD
HomeBinderpages.homebinder.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRBoston, MA
London Computer Systemslcs.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CRECincinnati, OH
PropStreampropstream.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRLake Forest, CA
SmartRentsmartrent.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREScottsdale, AZ
Appriseapprise.us/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREBethesda, MD
Cyrano.aicyrano.ai/real-estate-agents-and-teamsReal Estate SalesNewport Beach, CA
Homebothomebot.ai/Real Estate SalesDenver, CO
Lone Wolf Technologieslwolf.comReal Estate SalesCambridge, ON & Dallas, TX
PunchListUSApunchlistusa.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRCharleston, SC
Smartzipsmartzip.com/Real Estate SalesSarasota, FL
Ark7ark7.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRSan Francisco, CA
DataTracedatatracetitle.com/ Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREAgoura Hills, CA
homegeniushomegenius.com/Real Estate SalesWayne, PA
Luxury Presenceluxurypresence.com/Real Estate SalesSanta Monica, CA
Qualiaqualia.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREAustin, TX
SOA Labshomeiqreport.com/agent/Real Estate SalesSan Francisco, CA
ATTOMattomdata.comReal Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREIrvine, CA
Delta Mediadeltamediagroup.com/Real Estate SalesCanton, OH
HomeSmarthomesmart.com/Real Estate SalesScottsdale, AZ
Market Leadermarketleader.com/Real Estate SalesBellevue, WA
Realogyrealogy.com/Real Estate SalesMadison, NJ
Sprucespruce.co/Real Estate Investment and SFRNew York, NY
Auction.comauction.comReal Estate SalesIrvine, CA
Domadoma.com/Real Estate SalesSan Francisco, CA
Homesnaphomesnap.com/Real Estate SalesBethesda, MD
Modus Titlemodustitle.com/home Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CRESeattle, WA
Realtracsrealtracs.com/Real Estate SalesBrentwood, TN
Stageriestagerie.com/Real Estate SalesClive, IA
BombBombbombbomb.comReal Estate SalesColorado Springs, CO
Earnnestearnnest.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREGreenville, SC
Hometaphometap.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRBoston, MA
MooveGurumooveguru.com/Real Estate SalesRoswell, GA
Redfinredfin.comReal Estate SalesSeattle, WA
Sundaesundae.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRSan Francisco, CA
BoomTownboomtownroi.com/Real Estate SalesCharleston, SC
Evocalizeevocalize.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CRESeattle, WA
Homewardhomeward.com/Real Estate SalesAustin, TX
MoxiWorksmoxiworks.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRSeattle, WA
ReferralExchangereferralexchange.com/Real Estate SalesSan Francisco, CA
Tavanttavant.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CRESanta Clara, CA
BoxBrownie.comboxbrownie.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CRESunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia
eXp Realtyexprealty.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREBellingham, WA
HouseCanaryhousecanary.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRSan Francisco, CA
Myndmynd.co/Real Estate Investment and SFROakland, CA
Relitixrelitix.com/Real Estate SalesLake Geneva, WI
titleLOOKtitlelook.com/Real Estate SalesHampden, ME
Breakthrough Brokerbreakthroughbroker.com/Real Estate SalesDenver, CO
Fathom Realtyfathomrealty.com/company/Real Estate SalesMcKinney, Texas
Inside Real Estateinsiderealestate.com/Real Estate SalesDraper, UT
Notarizenotarize.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR Multifamily / CREBoston, MA
Remineinfo.remine.com/Real Estate SalesVienna, VA
Transactlytransactly.com/platform/Real Estate SalesSt. Charles, MO
Bright MLSbrightmls.com/homeMultiple Listing ServiceRockville, MD
First American Data & Analyticsdna.firstam.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRSanta Ana, CA
Inspectifyinspectify.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRSeattle, WA
Offerpadofferpad.comReal Estate SalesChandler, AZ
RESAASresaas.com/Real Estate SalesVancouver, Canada
TRIBUStribus.com/Real Estate SalesGreenwood Village, CO
CAPE Analyticscapeanalytics.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRMountain View, California
Flipscoutnewsilver.com/flipscout/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFRHartford, CT
June Homesjunehomes.com/Multifamily / CRENew York, NY
OJO Labsojo.com/Real Estate SalesAustin, TX
Ribbonribbonhome.com/Real Estate SalesNew York, NY
Unisonunison.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRSan Francisco, CA
@properties atproperties.comReal Estate SalesChicago, IL
CertifIDcertifid.com/Real Estate Sales, Real Estate Investment and SFR, Multifamily / CREGrand Rapids, Michigan
Flueid Software Corporationflueid.com/Real Estate SalesAustin, TX
Keller Williams Realtygo.kw.com/Real Estate SalesAustin, TX
Opendooropendoor.com/Real Estate SalesSan Francisco, CA
Rocket Homesrockethomes.com/Real Estate SalesDetroit, MI
United Real Estateunitedrealestate.com/Real Estate SalesDallas, TX
3 Data Pulse3datapulse.comReal Estate SalesLake Mary, FL
Chime Technologieschime.me/Real Estate SalesPhoenix, AZ
Flyhomesflyhomes.com/Real Estate SalesSeattle, WA
Kiavikiavi.com/Real Estate Investment and SFRSan Francisco, CA
Orchardorchard.com/Real Estate SalesNew York, NY
Roofstockroofstock.com/Real Estate Investment and SFROakland, CA
UpNestupnest.com/Real Estate SalesSan Mateo, CA

The post 2022 HousingWire TECH100 Real Estate Honorees appeared first on HousingWire.



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