TRENDS POINTTO ADEMAND FOR RENTALHOMES— BOTH FROMAN OWNERSHIP STANDPOINTAND FROMARENTER’S VIEW.
GARYBEASLEY CEO ROOFSTOCK
him in the perfect position to help create and run Roofstock. “I’ve been at this intersection of operationally intensive real estate and technology for the majority of my career,” he said. “Roofstock is the culmination of a number of things that I’ve done. It brings together my passion for real estate, technology, growth businesses, and innovative business models. Having been an investor and an operator, I think like an investor, but I can operate like an entrepreneur or manager as situa - tions dictate.” When one has worked in an indus - try as long as Beasley has in real es- tate, it becomes easier to see what is changing and lies ahead. Fortunately for Roofstock, major investments in property technology, or proptech, have become more common than they were in the past. In 2019, $20 billion was invested in proptech, which would have been unheard of just five years ago when Roofstock was getting started. WHAT’S TRENDING TODAY INREI?
their credit up and put them on a program to buy. There’s a lot of cool stuff happening that is ultimate- ly giving consumers more choice, and I think ultimately giving people different ways to get exposure to real estate.” Another reason proptech is seeing more funding? People in the real estate industry are seeing other industries benefit from moving from analog to digital with positive results. “This happened to travel and all these other verticals, so why isn’t real estate moving online? It seems to make more sense.” There is also more pricing trans- parency today in the real estate industry, according to Beasley. That’s partly because any data related to a transaction is more readily available. Pre-Internet, there was an asym-
There’s currently more innovation around real estate financing—that’s one reason investments in proptech have increased so dramatically. There are now rent-to-own and fractional equity models available as well as trade-in models that allow homeowners to trade in their house and companies will help them buy their next one. Additionally, there are models with both short- and long- term rental income components available. “You have a lot of innovation around how people can purchase homes and finance them,” Beasley said. “[Financial Technology] is very good at coming up with innovative ways for transactions to happen as well as innovative ownership structures—things like rent-to-own models that are helping people get
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