Update: If you’d like to use my system to sell your home, for FREE, reach out to me. Drop a note to chris@empowerowners.com. Here is my FSBO web page https://empowerowners.com/property/floor-through-in-sky-of-lower-east-side-1/
This post is a highlight reel of our first podcast with discussion topics and time stamps.
1:30 — “Why can’t I sell this on my own and save the 6%?”
“How can I save this 5–6% and does it make sense to do it?” “Why don’t we help other people save this 6%”
We get into why we are starting Empower Owners — with the goal to help Owners.
3:50 — “We are going to help people by educating, and helping them through this process…home purchase is usually the largest single purchase in one’s lifetime…it’s not a surprise homeowners are intimidated by this process.”
6:00 — We discuss my most recent sales deal @ 21 Ludlow Street in Manhattan. The background on this deal, when I purchased, and information about the building.
7:34 — “How did you come to that Sale Price?”
“Two ways: Comparable, what are you neighbors selling for?” “The other type of pricing is by SqFt…dollar/SqFt amount.” I dive into his pricing strategy for this apartment.
9:15 — I had tenants in the unit @ 21 Ludlow — they ended up purchasing the apartment. Their lease was up at the point of listing the unit and the wanted to purchase the apartment so the deal was structured month to month until we were able to figure out if the deal would be successful.
10:27 — “Were there any unique challenges to the deal?” “Biggest challenge to really any real estate deal is in the finances.” Convincing the lending bank to let them do the deal. Financials of the building, forecast, insurance, title search — all sorts of things that came out — and the success depends on who is doing the paperwork for the building. Building manager, are they doing a good job?
12:15 — “How did those challenges affect the closing date?” “Getting all the ducks in a row took an extra month longer than I thought it would. Getting paperwork the lending bank for the buyers needed.”
13:20 — “These issues are not one to be solved by the broker. Broker is essentially there to market it to you, then all the work is up to you. Many times they can’t write those letters for me.”
15:24 — “Were you happy with the Sale price?” “Yeah I was happy with the sale price.”
16:00 — Topic of For Sale By Owner — “What do you think about For Sale By Owner, what has your experience been?
“I’m a technologist, I keep track of these things, if you look at the world today, technology has really brought the power to the consumer and all the way down to just the average person…everything was made so the consumer could do it, slowly that creeped into the world of sharing, ride sharing, apartment sharing, all these things are essentially person to person, industry language Peer-to-Peer…cuts out the middle man, this idea is what the world is turning into now…look at this new economy, that’s where the computer sits… as a programmer if I can bring that middle layer so that I can help both sides of this equation to do it, the better…the process is not entirely automated…every deal is different, but it can be assisted by technology to do better.”
When selling 21 Ludlow it was very useful that I keep emails forever, good because I found relevant information from 10 years ago.
“We are building a system where people can retain this information, and if after 10 years you want to sell you could still have that data and use it.”
“I think this is where the world is going — I’d certainly like to be there in the forefront of saying this is how the world is going to change, and I want to be apart of that.”
19:50 — We discuss the importance of end to end deal flow management.
20:00 — We have to make it as easy as someone using Facebook! Has to be self explanatory…its up to us and where we will fail would be in that the software isn’t as easy to use as Facebook, Instagram, etc.
21:10 — Quick look at numbers~7,500 sales listings in Manhattan and only ~60 are For Sale By Owner, so it’s about improving this statistic in favor of Owners listing themselves.
21:30 — “People are not realizing this is something they can do on their own. I’m a software developer, I’m not a real estate professional, but I’ve already gone through many of these deals.”
Everyone is really busy…You might say “This is too much to do.” It really isn’t!
“For a million dollar deal, if you’re able to save 6%, that’s $60,000! That’s a job! You should be able to save the amount an average person makes in a year.”
“Total amount of time spent on my own — 10 email exchanges with my lawyer and a week of my time doing it, where else am I going to make $60,000 in a week?”
“Even if you don’t live in NY and your place is worth $200K, thats still $12K. Anyone should be able to save $12K by doing a week of work.”
23:30 — “What do you think our adoption will be?” “ I think people outside of NY would sign on and do this vs people in NY (NYC), people in NY feel their lives are too busy. People outside of NY will sign on quicker.”
24:15 — “What will be the major driver for adoption?” “Its all word of mouth. If we do a good job people will recommend is to friends of theirs…#1 if we do a good job, good experience, people will recommend to their friends and family.”
25:30 — Chris has been going in and meeting with Owners directly and having these conversations with them when they have open houses about what we are trying to do and what we can currently offer them. These owners have been very receptive to our offering.
26:00 — We have $20 million in listings…we charge nothing, we want people on board, we want to help them.
27:15 — A big component of the EmpowerOwners platform is disseminating information —a particular place for owners to communicate with each other.
“What does it look like when it grows and grows?”
“Build something that people are used to — what you can look forward to is something conversational, similar to Facebook or Instagram...timeline based, time based. When you do a real estate deal its all a conversation. Lawyers, buyer, mortgage bank, insurance company, government officials, buildings department — all conversations, all documents in gmail mailbox and it was just a mess. We’ll build something that’s structured conversationally and in a way that people understand how to use.”
Online learning systems — part of what we want to do is educate people — get advice, communicate with each other —an owner can write, “hey in NY are the sellers responsible for X” — someone also in NY can respond. People will be able to help each other.
29:50 — We discuss adhering to real estate laws — Buyer beware — not a platform that guides through laws. We will help organize documents. Organize this data in a meaningful way, easily retrieve, digital signatures…produce videos on rules, laws, terms, what do they mean, why are they important, what is a reserve fund for a Co-Op of Condo…what is an underlying mortgage?
32:00 — “Any attorney or CPA that needs to access a deal, they will be able to?” “ Yes, you can determine who has access…project management system. People can log in and everyone involved can contribute to the process of closing this deal.”
33:00 — At EmpowerOwners we are not brokers, we are not lawyers, we are a platform to market and compile data tats useful for Owners. Any Owner needs to discuss their specific deals with their attorneys. Useful information can come from other Owners on EmpowerOwners when speaking about specific deals.
34:00 — “What excites you the most?” “ Programming excites me. We are on boarding a lot of users and its something that takes time to build. Day and night 7 days a week, cranking out the code.”
As more features are released we want feedback from owners on what features they want, what their unique experience have been.
Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, our Podcasts, Medium articles — EmpowerOwners!
We’re on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/2ezkEhtEmi8KeJWYaFx9MY
We’re on Stitcher:
https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=507404
We’re on Google Play:
https://play.google.com/music/m/Ic65hwp4tm3imcjlptfbjz4e7ki?t=Empower_Owners_Podcast
