Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast

14/08/2022

Every once in a while you get to hear a take on an old business that brings a refreshing tone with it. Property management isn’t a new type of business, but its industry is very much in the midst of a transformation. That transformation is being lead by companies such as PURE Property Management. It’s not all just tech though.

Joe Polverari, an accomplished fintech entrepreneur, joins Tech Nest to discuss his latest venture, PURE Property Management. The company started nearly two years ago and has already grown to 50 cities, 18 states, and is managing more than 15,000 rental home units. What’s the secret to this tech-enabled, fast-growing and profitable property management business? Its people.

You’ll hear a lot from Joe on what makes a property management company desirable to acquire and how the PURE playbook increases capacity for each of the PMCs it acquire, but the recurring theme will be how much the PURE team focuses on the people at each company. PURE has already successfully completed the acquisition of 35 property management companies, and given their growth trajectory, there must be something about those people that is enabling this rocketship to stay on course.

Listen in to hear what Joe has to say on property management, technology systems, operations playbooks, and investing in people.

14/08/2022

Almost everyone knows what the check engine light on a car does. It lights up on the dash panel when something isn’t quite right with the motor. It can be something minor like a sensor that’s unplugged or it can be something very significant like you have two cylinders misfiring because water and oil are leaking in.

So if we have that for cars, why not have that for homes? You’ve got a water heater, a furnace, central air systems, pipes or pex for water, all your kitchen appliances, and more devices and equipment that could break, leak, or not be performing properly.

This is what Dan Simpkins at Dwellwell is working to solve. Dwellwell has just emerged from stealth mode a few weeks ago and is ready to share with the world a new system that functions as the check engine light for the home. Dan breaks down how a simple plug and play device in the home can be powerful enough to recognize problems throughout the home and what that could mean for preventative maintenance or spotting a problem that needs to be fixed sooner.

Dan isn’t a first time inventor or entrepreneur. If you’ve ever used VOIP or a smart TV, then you’ve used products he’s directly responsible for bringing to market. Listen in to Dan’s ideas and vision for a smarter home that goes beyond bluetooth door locks.

14/08/2022

Baselane is relatively new to the scene when you compare against other platforms for independent landlords. It’s a very crowded market lots of companies offering some mix of tenant screening, lease signing, and rent collection tools. However, the market has left several gaps that Baselane has been building to fill.

Co-founder and CEO, Mathias Korder, joins Tech Nest Podcast to discuss how Baselane is rethinking rental property finance management. This goes beyond just collecting rent. This gets into rebuilding a way of banking, accounting, and providing additional services that better suit the specific needs of 10+ million mom and pop landlords—those who own and manage their own properties. Baselane believes there’s an opportunity to reduce fees, provide better analytics, and even better incentivize landlords with programs such as cash back on rental related expenditures. All of this is accomplished while reducing manual lift and improving financial organization.

Baselane is still a seed-stage company, but has successfully raised nearly $8M from leading VC firms such as Thomvest Ventures and Conversion Capital, and with Angel investors from Google, PayPal, and BlackRock.

14/08/2022

Jeff Gopshtein has been working in real estate and private equity for more than seven years. Given the trends of the last few years and especially during the pandemic, Jeff noticed a significant appetite for small multifamily properties (2-4 unit type buildings). However, the friction in acquiring these properties for the average mom and pop investor can be high. That all includes finding the deals, getting the right data on the property, and securing the necessary services to fund and these manage properties.

Jeff has set out to change this, starting with his home city of Philadelphia (Philly for those of us from the area). He started a company called Yieldeasy. Yieldeasy is a marketplace, exclusively focused on helping mom and pop investors find and acquire small multifamily properties to invest in. Yieldeasy is very early in its journey, but Jeff has a few ideas as to how this growing slice of the market represents significant opportunities, both on the tech side and for those investing on the ground.

19/07/2022

Hear me out on this...what if security deposits are here to stay?

There's been lots of chatter over the last few years in finding a replacement to security deposits. Much of that has to do with rising rent costs, legislation around compliance, and the labor of managing and refunding deposits. But maybe there's a better way to solve for the challenges around security deposits while giving more flexibility back to renters.

That's something you'll hear Roost CEO, Chanin Ballance, discuss (and more) in this interview. She makes a compelling case that security deposits don't need to be replaced, rather, they need to be re-thought. Roost is doing more than just taking security deposits for rental managers.

Chanin explains more how Roost is focusing on financial wellness for renters and why that's so important today.

16/07/2022

Mapping and delivering real estate data so that it's accessible is nothing short of a massive undertaking. Josh Fraser, CEO of Estated is doing this and is finding a lot of success.

In this episode, Josh breaks down how Estated got started mapping US Real Estate data and how this data may be used to impact the future of housing—both for buyers and renters.

Estated works to deliver data to companies both in and out of real estate, so we'll touch on how they're finding success in data as a service and how the future may be shaped by data companies, such as Estated.

16/07/2022

This is a crash-course episode on what's going on in the market when it comes to tech in the vacation rental and hospitality space.

We have two guests on this episode: Vince Breslin is CEO of Uplisting and Emmanuel Lavoie is CEO of Jetstream. Both work in the vacation rentals and hospitality market, but they are bringing products to slightly different customers and with different approaches.

Uplisting is heavily focused on serving property managers in the short-term rental space, while Jetstream is focused on bringing an all-in-one tech platform, paired with services, to owners and managers of short-term and flex-rental properties.

Hear more behind these startups and where they see the opportunities for innovation in the vacation and hospitality markets.

09/07/2022

As the digital transformation continues in the real estate industry, we need to be thinking about security and safety for the consumer. One of the greatest risks to many consumers today is sending sensitive information, such as banking or payment information, through unsecure channels like email. Yet, this is the experience for the vast majority of consumers today.

Earnnest is working to change this. Chief Revenue Officer and NAR Reach Mentor, Russell Smith, joins Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast to discuss the many issues, challenges, and opportunities in building a better way to move money. Russell's deep knowledge and expertise in fintech and the real estate industry gives him unique perspectives and valuable knowledge as to what the underlying problems are with earnest money payments, security deposits, and wire transfers.

Russell and I had a really fun time recording this episode and I think that comes through in our conversation.

09/07/2022

Currently, one in eight applicants (12.2%) commits application fraud. By detecting this fraud, Snappt helped its customers avoid more than $105 million in bad debt in 2021. Over 1,000 multi-family communities use Snappt, including four of the top five property management firms in the US, helping their leasing teams reduce fraud, minimize evictions and speed up the leasing process. Daniel Berlind is the co-founder and CEO of Snappt.

In this interview, he gets into the details of why detecting fraud in a historically paper-driven industry is only getting more difficult due to the ease at which someone can falsify documents. This further illustrates the need to consider adopting new tech and processes to avoid renting units to those who may not be who they represent themselves as.

Snappt has uncovered a very large problem hiding in plain sight and is building very quickly.

Snappt has raised $100 million to date; giving them the resources to develop and distribute their tech.

09/07/2022

While you might not think of technology that plugs into elevator maintenance record keeping as proptech, my hope is after listening to this interview you'll see how this must be considered proptech. Ashleigh Wilson, CEO of Auditmate, breaks down the massive opportunity her company is capitalizing on, in the world of elevator and escalator maintenance.

The short story is elevator maintenance contracts are too often confusing and difficult for property managers and owner operators to understand and effectively enforce. This leaves contracted maintenance not getting done, but still having to be paid for. Long term, however, maintenance left undone can mean early replacements for expensive parts and systems.

Auditmate tracks and reports maintenance that is performed, per the contract, and when it's not done correctly they seek refunds for their clients.

Ultimately, Auditmate has found a niche slice of the industry that desperately needs to be brought up with the current times and very little competition to battle for market share.

28/06/2022

The idea of co-ownership in real estate is not a new idea. But simplifying co-ownership with many of the legal structure, property management, and logistics headaches solved for—all while making co-ownership opportunities available across the United States and Europe—well, that's new. Oh and did I mention the issues with getting financing—yeh, they're solving that too. You've probably heard of the startup working to make it all possible. It's called Pacaso.

This is an insights-jammed interview with Pacaso Co-founder and CEO, Austin Allison. Austin's leadership has helped Pacaso scale from 30 employees to 300 employees in about a year's time.

To date, Pacaso has raised $221 million in equity. Additionally Crunchbase reports Pacaso has raised an additional $1.250 billion in debt financing.

Austin's previous proptech and industry experience and expert knowledge shines through as he sheds light on how Pacaso has grown so quickly.

We talk about the number of markets Pacaso is in, expansion goals, and something known as "Pacaso Worthy".

You'll hear how Pacaso is focusing on customer experience, applying tech to manage logistics, partnering with real estate agents, and scaling operations.

28/06/2022

Don't skip over this episode because buying and selling vacant land might not be your thing. Michael Leigeber, CEO and Founder of Landsearch.com is out to make buying land more accessible by creating a new marketplace specifically for land.

The reality here is building any type of marketplace is a very tough business. Add to that being bootstrapped and you've got a significant challenge ahead of you.

The current state of finding land for sale is, well, not exactly a great experience with the consumer in mind. When you search for vacant land to purchase, you'll currently have to search through several different types of sites to find what you're looking for. Of course you'll find your way to the residentially focused, most popular ILSs, but you'll also inevitably end up on sites mostly focused on commercial and investment property websites—again—not entirely devoted or focused on the experience of searching for land.

Listen in to hear Michael's approach to solving for this, how he's bootstrapping his way to taking market share, and what he sees as the future for finding land to purchase.

11/05/2022

One of the greatest risks to many consumers today is sending sensitive information, such as banking or payment information, through unsecure channels like email. Yet, this is the experience for the vast majority of consumers today.

Earnnest is working to change this. Chief Revenue Officer and NAR Reach Mentor, Russell Smith, joins Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast to discuss the many issues, challenges, and opportunities in building a better way to move money.

https://share.transistor.fm/s/29b309db

28/04/2022

Can Auctions Bring Transparency to Buying Real Estate?

Listen in as Jordan breaks all this down and more. You’ll also hear us talk about a live transaction that was happening during the interview (which was totally unplanned). The house that sold during the interview, which has yet to be built, sold for more than $150,000 over asking price.

21/04/2022

Commercial real estate is not known for operational efficiency across the board. It's estimated that buildings often operate at 70% efficiency. Think about how expensive that ends up being—not including maintenance costs—which are both often considered fixed and unavoidable expenses. In a world of compressing cap rates and constricting legislation around climate change, operators have to make a change.

This opens the door for technology to improve operational efficiencies and increase financial performance.

Connell McGill, CEO of Enertiv joins Tech Nest to discuss the complicated challenges of implementing a building's operational data dashboard and why it's so important. We're not just talking about saving a few hundred dollars on HVAC expenses.

We're talking about unnecessary energy consumption. CRE is estimated to consume 40% of all global energy. This is expediting the urgency to find solutions and the tailwind of this means a booming businesses, like Enertiv, that can monitor use and provide actionable data to improve efficiencies and meeting regulatory demands.

23/03/2022

The biggest takeaway from this interview with Ian Wong, Co-founder and CTO of Opendoor is that the company is doing much more than just buying and selling homes. The level of technical infrastructure, logistical expertise, and management of a deployed workforce in markets around the country, makes the story of what Opendoor is and could potentially achieve all the more compelling.

I've been vocal about how Opendoor was the company that inspired me to pursue proptech in the past, I've invested in Opendoor, and personally believe this is one of the companies that may have a genuine chance at building a sustainable, innovative business in real estate on a large scale.

In this interview, we discuss the iBuyer business, power-buying, and some future plans of Opendoor. Ian is incredibly thoughtful and brings a lot more to this discussion than simply just doing Q&A.

It's a solid listen!

23/03/2022

The residential real estate appraisals market may not be one you think of when discussing innovation and early tech adoption. But maybe that’s why it could be the perfect segment to focus on.

While the number real estate transactions has increased annually, the count of appraisers has declined. This is only part of the need for innovation and tech in appraisals.

Brian Zitin, CEO and Co-founder of Reggora goes deep into the appraisal industry and why the need for tech is a massively overlooked issue.

22/03/2022

Really stoked to have Connell McGill as a featured guest on Tech Nest tomorrow.

Connell breaks down the significant challenge CRE owners have when trying to implement a good OS for their buildings.

Hint: it's harder than just installing a Nest thermostat.

19/03/2022

Proptech as an industry kicked off 2022 with the turbo turned on full blast.

This will be an exciting year to dig into the industry and Tech Nest will give you in-depth interviews every week.

https://share.transistor.fm/s/0a104ab0

It was about time to bring back the Tech Nest Podcast. After many requests for interviews and a burning desire to connect with proptech founders, the delay is over. Even better is the news of a new partnership for Tech Nest that will increase our distribution and add resources to producing this show...

08/03/2022

Veteran entrepreneur, Co-founder of PowerPay, David Haas, will blow you away when you hear what he's building.

PowerPay has grown from 10 employees to 200 employees in the last two years. They've processed $1.5B (that's billion with a B) in loans, via their network of 7,000 contractors nationwide, so that homeowners can make the improvements and renovations they desire.

David is a head of the curve. Check it out. You know where to find the link.

07/03/2022

Veteran entrepreneur, Co-founder of PowerPay, David Haas, will blow you away when you hear what he's building.

PowerPay has grown from 10 employees to 200 employees in the last two years. They've processed $1.5B (that's billion with a B) in loans, via their network of 7,000 contractors nationwide, so that homeowners can make the improvements and renovations they desire.

David is a head of the curve. Check it out.

https://technest.io/2022/03/financing-1-5b-as-unsecured-loans-through-service-contractors-in-2-years-with-david-hass-co-founder-and-coo-of-powerpay/

Experienced business operator and entrepreneur, David Haas, has quickly built a very fast-growing business leveraging tech, a network of 7,000+ contractors, and increasing demand from homeowners to provide financing to homeowners to the tune of $1.5B in the last two years.

25/02/2022

If you feel like many facets of real estate are seeing lots of change—quickly—you might dig this flashback Friday...

was on Tech Nest to share about his book, which details ways in which we will / need to rethink real estate & tech.

Dror's been ahead of others in much of his writing. He's a great follow for staying current & ahead.

Enjoy --> https://technest.io/2021/10/s6e63-interview-with-dror-poleg-author-of-rethinking-real-estate/

24/02/2022

Radically Rethinking Real Estate Sales and Development Software with Simeon Garratt, CEO of Spark

The complexity of building high-density living is fully understood by few, but most of us can at least recognize from the outside looking in there’s so many moving parts and pieces. Layer on top of the building part, is the sales and marketing needed in order for projects to start performing.

Simeon Garratt, co-founder and CEO of Spark Real Estate Software, has positioned himself and his company to help developers with this very thing. Spark has seen a spurt of growth—even in the midst of the pandemic. They closed a Series A round of funding mid-2021 for just north of $5M and are adding enterprise clients at a quick pace.

In this interview, Garratt shares how the pandemic accelerated the need for Spark’s solutions, organic growth in sales through referrals and word of mouth, and the need for helping developers start to own their own data.

Don’t let the title of this interview fool you into thinking this is only about selling real estate. There’s more to the story.

24/02/2022

AI and Automation Powering Real Estate Development, with William Sankey, CEO of Northspyre

Financial tracking and project delivery company, Northspyre just recently announced a $25 million Series B round of funding.

This may sound like a lot of money (and let’s be real, it is), but in the multi-trillion dollar construction and development industry, this is just a drop in the bucket.

CEO of Northspyre, William Sankey, comes on the show to share why he started Northspyre after working on iconic real estate in New York City. Sankey delves into the massive opportunity for improving project delivery, specific hurdles of the industry, and why AI and automation are key ingredients to bringing a better solution to market.

23/02/2022

It's no secret, industrial warehouses as investments are hot hot hot.

Chunk CEO, Brad Wright and Wharton Equity Partners President, Peter Lewis, breakdown the industry and the innovations that are changing the landscape.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/industrial-warehousing-innovations-with-brad-wright/id1417450939?i=1000548247118

‎Show Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast, Ep Industrial Warehousing Innovations, with Brad Wright of Chunker and Peter Lewis of Wharton Equity Partners - Jan 18, 2022

21/02/2022

When you consider that more than 90% of your time is spent indoors and 95% of those spaces only have temperature as a control, you realize you might not be breathing clean air.

As the pandemic has effected all of us, the importance of our immediate surroundings and the air we breathe has only increased. For instance, if you’ve traveled in the last two years, then you’ve likely seen the signs from airlines proclaiming their advanced filtration systems and HEPA filters. But what about settings such as public schools, manufacturing facilities, and other specialty workplaces?

Michael Driedger returns to Tech Nest to break down this industry and the fundamental problems real estate owners and operators face in measuring air quality requirements to stay compliant and to ensure safety. His company Airsset is the data platform that connects the industry’s best IoT devices to create actionable insights. As he puts it, “We turn data into information and our industry partners turn that into building improvements.”

21/02/2022

Happy Presidents' Day!

Hopefully you have the day off. It's a good time to listen in to & discuss what's coming in proptech & on Tech Nest in '22.

https://technest.io/2022/01/tech-nest-podcast-returns-with-finledger/

It was about time to bring back the Tech Nest Podcast. After many requests for interviews and a burning desire to connect with proptech founders, the delay is over. Even better is the news of a new partnership for Tech Nest that will increase our distribution and add resources to producing this show...

19/02/2022

Construction tech, AI & ML, iBuyer tech, apartment amenities, and asset management—all topics coming up on Tech Nest.

Who do you want to listen to on the podcast? Nominate yourself or a proptech industry leader.

18/02/2022

Flashback Friday featuring David Sullivan, CEO of .

Since appearing on Tech Nest in March 2020, Till has raised an additional $8M to provide more solutions to residential renters in the US at scale.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s7e77-interview-with-david-sullivan-ceo-of-till/id1417450939?i=1000469232292

‎Show Tech Nest: The Proptech Podcast, Ep S7E77 Interview with David Sullivan, CEO of Till - Mar 23, 2020