#161: Unreal Estate
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Welcome back to another episode of the Richer Geek podcast today. We have Kyle Stoner, he's an experienced entrepreneur with a proven background in building and leading high-performing cross-functional teams. In 2018 he launched Adobe Technologies, IT Technologies DBA, and unrealestate.com. That's what we're going to focus on. It's an end-to-end online real estate marketplace.
In this episode, we’re discussing…
[1:21] Kyle's Background and Journey
Kyle shares his background as an automotive engineer, Wall Street experience, and transition to entrepreneurship.
Co-founded three companies, including Pangea Money Transfer and Alpha Lead.
Recognition of the need for a dedicated platform in the real estate market.
[3:51] Unreal Estate Platform
Overview of unreal estate.com as an end-to-end online real estate marketplace.
Flat fee structure, online listings in less than 15 minutes, and licensed nationwide.
Comparison with competitors, highlighting flat fees and integrated services.
Efficiencies and productivity gains through remote agents and automation.
Discussion on partnering with local agents and technology for showings.
[10:46] Efficiency and Productivity
Increased productivity of agents on unrealestate.com compared to traditional real estate agents.
Appeal to investors, private equity firms, and individuals due to lower fees and streamlined processes.
Advantages in liquid markets where properties sell quickly.
[15:56] Funding and Investors
Discussion on the funding round and openness to discussions with smart investors.
Mention of current investors, including Morgan Stanley and mortgage companies.
[20:45] Future Developments
Teaser about an upcoming groundbreaking feature related to granular data on new transactions.
They are aimed at real estate investors and data enthusiasts.
[21:46] Legal Landscape
Acknowledgment of lawsuits against the National Association of Realtors regarding commissions.
Positioning of unreal estate.com with an emphasis on transparency.
[23:48] Connecting with Kyle Stoner
Kyle's social media presence: @KWStoner on Twitter.
Email for potential investors: kyle@unrealestate.com.
Resources from Kyle
YobeConsulting | LinkedIn | Unreal Estate
Resources from Mike and Nichole
Gateway Private Equity Group | Nic’s guide |
Real Estate Content Marketing: Best Ideas For 6 Real Estate Niches - (reiwords.com)
+ Read the transcript
Mike Stohler
What if you could be doing something smarter with your money that creates income. Now, if you're wanting to get ahead financially, and enjoy greater freedom of choice, if you want a comfortable retirement, and you know you'll have more choices, if you can do more with your money. Now, if you've wondered who else is creating ways to make their money work for them, and you want actionable ideas, with honest pros and cons, and no fluff. Welcome to the Richard geek podcast. Where you here helping people find creative ways to build wealth and financial freedom. I'm Mike Stoller, and in this podcast, you'll hear from others who are already doing these things, and learn how you can. Everybody welcome back to another episode of the richer geek podcast today. We have Kyle Stoner, he's an experienced entrepreneur is a proven background in building and leading high performing cross functional teams. In 2018. He launched Adobe technologies, IT technologies DBA, unreal, estate.com. That's what we're going to focus on. It's an end to end online real estate marketplace. How're you doing, Kyle?
Kyle Stoner
Doing well, thank you for having me today. Yeah, so
Mike Stohler
you know, let's dive in a little bit. We'd love to get a little bit about your background, where you came from, where you're at where you live? And how did you get to where you're at?
Kyle Stoner
All right, where should I start, I grew up just outside of the metro Detroit, Detroit area I grew up dreaming to become an automotive engineer. So I think that's like in our blood gasolines in our veins there and in Detroit. So I did that. I worked designing production systems for General Motors and Delphi. And I then decided, at some point, I really want to go to Wall Street, which is an odd choice. But I did that when I went to business school in New York, I did consumer m&a, they called some mergers and acquisitions for consumer companies. I did that for about three years. And I really hated it. It was not for me that the culture wasn't a fit. You know, people complain about the hours. It's like 100 hours a week, I didn't actually mind the hours. I don't mind working hard, but it just wasn't a fit. And I very quickly decided, okay, what do I really want to do. And I had a passion for entrepreneurialism, I had a passion for being creative. And I want to use my technical background. So I've since co founded three companies. The first one was Pangea money transfer, which exited back in 2019, to a company called a nova, publicly traded company. I then started a company called Alpha lead, which is focused on helping people that have disabilities to connect with attorneys to help them get their disability benefits. We bootstrapped that company, to a five figure monthly revenue pretty quickly. And then as we're doing that, my co founder and I, we were buying and selling real estate, we were flipping it for profit, and recognize that every time we were in a transaction, we're, you know, they're all these fees are flying off, you know, 6%, for the Commission's, it was very manual, there wasn't like an operating system to actually help you manage the transaction. And we were sort of blown away after starting to, you know, sort of software based companies, that there wasn't something to help you in real estate. So we started tinkering with the idea of pivoting alphalisa, over to, to real estate, and then the more research we do, we figured out that real estate is such a big, you know, animals a $2 trillion market, and it's so emotional. And so all these things, let us like, Wait, this, this deserves a dedicated platform. So that's what led us to start on real estate.
Mike Stohler
So let's talk about on real estate, what is it? Is it a brokerage house? Is it an investment platform? Is it a marketplace? What is unreal, real estate?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, unreal estate is is a buying and selling platform that so you know, you can think of like Zillow as as a browsing engine. What we can do there is look at homes. And then at some point, if you get serious they'll you become a lead your your lead generation for Zillow, and they'll connect you with a full service agent that will, you know, kind of run you through a transaction the same way. You know, they did you know, forever for 50 years on our platform, you can get your home listed in less than 15 minutes. And what I mean by that is you'll upload your photos, your up you'll enter the information for the home you want to sell. And within you know 15 minutes at home will be on the multiple listing service and beamed out across every single major website very quickly, right and that's what we do. We've done close to 40,000 of these. We're licensed nationwide. So we are a brokerage behind the scenes underneath we are A licensed brokerage. And that's how you get, you're getting access to the multiple listing service. But everything is done remotely, we're not going to take you out to coffee, we're not going to sit across the dinner, dining room table and talk you through, you know, all that stuff that's happening over zoom over phone, we've automated a lot of the work that a typical real estate agent does. And so what that does is it reduces the fees pretty significantly. average person or institution company, we have both on our platform that sells a house, they save you more than 50% on their fees. And that's why people keep coming back.
Mike Stohler
Do you real quick, do you partner with local agents? Is that how it works? Who's Who's showing the houses? Yeah, good
Kyle Stoner
question. So. So on the sell side, and I think it's important kind of to talk about each type of transaction separately. So on the sell side, you're getting an agent, but they work directly for Unreal estate, and they work remotely. Right. And so, if you didn't think about the showings, you know, we will typically, you know, install a yard sign for you. We'll take all the photos for you, if you want us to, we'll put a lockbox on your house. And then it's usually our sellers themselves that either, you know, they set times when buyer's agents can bring their their clients over, and they'll just access the home via the lockbox. That's the most common thing people do. They don't typically do their own showings. But I'll tell you one, sort of dirty secret open houses. So there is an open house functionality in our platform, you can have one, but I think it's pretty well known real estate industry, the open house is not what sells your house. The open house is a customer acquisition hack that agents use to meet more clients. And so we don't even recommend you do an open house, right. But we really recommend you get great photos up your home on the MLS. Like I said, we've done close to 40,000 of these. If you do that, and you price the home correctly, it will sell we promise.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, that's that's a good point where people because they're so used to everyone doing everything for them and having the local agent and doing that type of thing. And that's it's kind of the E commerce trend as far as real estate's going, people are going more towards that. What sets you apart? You know, there are some other large companies out there that do something similar. What sets you apart from some of those?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, I mean, I think the one that people most often referred or compares to is like a Redfin. Redfin, by the way, is great, you know, they've built a really, I think, nice piece of software, but they're very different. It's, when you go to Redfin, you're almost always going to pay full price. And so the 6% that we talked about, that's typically 3%, to the sell side, 3% to the buy side, you're almost always going to pay that same price on Redfin, unless you both buy and sell a home with them. If you do two transactions with them, then they start to give you discounts and rebates on at least one one side of that transaction. On our platform, it's flat fee and discount all the time, no matter what you're doing, right. So if you sell a home with us, you don't have to buy a home with us, you're still going to pay whatever you want on the buy side and close to nothing on the sell side, that average is close to 2.5% on our platform. So the real, real easy way to think of it as your you're going to pay 2.5% using on real estate compared to sort of 6% with pretty much everybody else. That's the biggest difference right there, because you're just saving so much money. We've also integrated a lot of the services that you need when you buy or sell a home. So we think about title insurance and escrow. And what we do, you can do all of that in one place. Versus if you're working with a traditional real estate agent, or even one of those other websites. There's typically a lot of manual, you know, handoffs being done. We recently just partnered with a large mortgage company as well. So if you think about this, you're sort of soup to nuts experience, from the very beginning when you need to get pre approved and get financing all the way to the end. When you're closing. You knew all of that on platform.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. And that's, that's very handy, especially for people that are extremely busy, like myself and everyone else out there. I don't want to have to say okay, I've got a two point. I've got two o'clock appointment here. I've got this and then someone else wants to meet me here. Everything's done via the website. And that just I think you're going to attract a lot of people just for that reason, that it's not a time suck and people are like, Oh my god, I got to sell my house. And they're just like, stressing out over how much time and effort it's involved. You guys really got it down through the software, correct? That's
Kyle Stoner
right. I mean, it's it's super streamlined. And I would also add, we boast a lot of optionality in the system is Well, so when you're, when you're listing your home for sale, we also have cash offers. And we have that live, I think, at least 40 of our seats now. So if you're somebody who wants to, you know, instead of going through the process of listing the home on the MLS, and waiting and selling, you know, you can get a cash offer within 24 to 48 hours. And so we had that capability now. And then, you know, certainly, if you think about all the other things that you hop out to, you know, you don't want to be context switching, sitting your financial documents across your, your email and text, all it's so, so nice to have it all in one place where you can you can manage the whole process. So that's a lot of the stress that we're taking out of the out of the typical situation.
Mike Stohler
How are firms like yourself in order to do like, a, just a fee based? Is it just a streamlined process? Or you're just not as greedy as the other agents out there? You know, I've always wondered just like, wow, you know, I mean, they're not, is it volume? How are you able to just say, here's the flat fee.
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, and some of that is volume, right? I mean, we're, you know, I, the stat that we have internally, they think our agents are about 15 times as productive as a traditional real estate agent. And that's because they're not doing a lot of the customer acquisition. So like, think about your job as an agent, it's actually not an easy job. I know, people sort of derived real estate agents and say, Oh, that's so easy to watch, you know, selling sunset, and it seems like they just walk around and buy, but it's not, it's actually a grind, right. And a lot of your time, usually about at least 50% of your time is spent simply trying to find the next person that you can transact with because you really kind of eat what you kill that industry is not there don't be salary, right, like you're you're only getting paid on commission. And that's why that commission is so you know, sort of artificially set high as well, on our platform, none of our agents are out selling, we let the platform do the selling, right. So they are only transacting. And in addition, we've automated a lot much of their workflow. And now with all sorts of AI tools that's become even more automated, right? So it makes them hyper productive. And very tenured. I mean, we have an agent on our platform, I think he's top 10 in the in the country for for volume, because all he does is transacting with a team of people supporting him doing that, right. And so it also I would, I would add, we have customers that aren't really necessarily a fit for Redfin, or Zillow, like we have large private equity might be, you know, a company that owns 25,000 houses, right. And they need to sell every year, they need to sell, let's say, 3000 of those houses. Well, they can either go to 15 states, and walk in each of the states and try to hire a couple different agents, new state, right, all of a sudden, you're managing 3040 people, or you can literally just plug your API into, like the plug in indirect and then pushing the homes to us. And then we're taking care of all the heart, you know, the pictures and the yard signs, and we're inspections, all that stuff we can do for them. And for them, it's a click of a button, right. And so that only works if you've built the systems, the infrastructure to kind of do it in an automated fashion. It's not a business that a lot of, you know, agents actually want some time because like, I got this weird kind of private equity company, like they're not set up to accept, you know, API calls and do all these things. Right. So I think that's part of it as well. Now,
Mike Stohler
how are firms like you able to sell a house like three times faster than the normal? Is it because you're just blasting it out? So much? How are you able to do that?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, I mean, it's, it comes down to a few things. Number one, if you just think about just the onboarding, that listing, we, we've done this in demonstrations, I mean, we're talking literally 15 minutes, and they can have their homeless, if you go to hire a traditional real estate agent, they're gonna come they're gonna sit down to with you, it's gonna go through all it's gonna be days before your your house that's listed. So that's number one. Number two, we built in all these sort of automated tools to help you with pricing. So we have multiple Automated Valuation models that you can use, and that helps you price the home more appropriately. We're not I think we're not incentivized one way or the other. How, like how you price your home. And so I think the pricing is done more efficiently. And I think also this goes back to some of our customers are, you know, a typical customer on our platform is someone who's maybe slightly more sophisticated, they've they've sold a home more than once. And they sold that first home and they did it with a traditional agent, they paid the 6% And they said, Okay, however valuable that was, I don't think it was worth the six it was worth something sub that and so they're coming to our platform, having a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more sophistication around the transaction and invest helping to move things along faster. And certainly investors, we have probably 40% of our, our platform is user focused and our customers are probably investors. And so the way they're they're sort of incentivized to sell is very different than a traditional consumer, a lot less emotion around it. They're like, this is the price. And often they may sell to another investor. Right? And so all these people are professionals, and they're just able to move much more quickly.
Mike Stohler
Yeah, you made a good point about, you know, there's a lot of real estate agents out there that I don't know if maybe they have too many listings, but they're just not that good. Of an agent. You know, I've homes in my neighborhood that I haven't seen the paper, the picture? Flyers, they've been empty for a couple months. You know, like on wow, you know, I mean, you're paying sick a lot of money, these million dollar homes, and they can't even keep the flyers in the in the boxes. I've seen somewhere, there's just horrible grammar, mistakes and misspellings in the MLS listings. And I'm like, wow, you know, it's like, you can't even do these things properly. You're gonna have, you know, $60,000 plus commissions on, you know, on one real estate looks like, can you please. And so I can see where someone supposed to be, you know, kind of a pricey house, it's like, let's do it. Right. You know, the first time it's just kind of embarrassing that way. So that's my little rant. But
Kyle Stoner
no, no, we hear this whole time. And I would say, you know, so it's funny you mention the grammar, we have aI right are probably you don't have to use it. But like it's, it's free in our platform. Ai rights to property description, right. And often it comes out better than, you know, we have we have content writers aren't even like, we want to see you, right, this property description want to test it against AI AI, it's actually working pretty good for things like that now, right? So it really cuts down on the chance that you do make, make a mistake, like grammar and things like that. But yeah, you're still selling a million dollar home. And, you know, you spent 60,000 on the it's just ridiculous, I would say, especially if you're one thing I always tell people, if you're in a liquid area, so Phoenix Scottsdale, I've done that a couple times before I've done it a couple times a year. Most of those marks are pretty liquid. Actually. If you list the home, and you price it appropriately, it's gonna sell pretty fast. I don't I don't know the value sometime. Now, if you're in a very illiquid market, like there's some places that were in Chicago, and there's some neighborhoods where the $5 million homes mean, five in our home in Chicago is kind of rare, actually. Right. So that might be a very specific group of buyers you're looking for. And in that time I say try try. I was still trying to flatfeet process first. But if that doesn't work out, then I would understand that okay, go ahead and eat and maybe they know the one you know, kind of high net worth person that's going to buy that house.
Mike Stohler
Yeah. And that is true. You know, here in Scottsdale, you put a house up it's million a half $2 million of sales in three days. You get four offers, and I'm like, okay, that just cost me $60,000 For three days work, you know, so I would be much better. It's like, you know what, we'll blast it that'll still sell it in three days, but I'm paying a lot less with proper grammar
Kyle Stoner
we have plenty of business in that in the valley and exactly describe
Mike Stohler
again, everyone's Kyle stoner unreal. state.com Kyle, someone clicks on Unreal state.com What is the process that they go through? In order to get a listing someone's listening now it's like a you know what I'm thinking about it? They go to your website? What's the process?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, they will go to so there's a section or website that's focused on cell so you click on the cell, you'd enter your address. And then very quickly, we typically have the data for every single home that's ever been sold before. And so we begin to pre fill your forms, your online forms for your house. And then you you create your listing, you can usually get it done again I've seen the fastest I've seen it less than 15 minutes but most people call it less than 30 minutes you finish your your forms you choose your plan we have many different plans. So depending on how much help you need we have all the way from there's a free plan that's you know very light all the way up to there's a deluxe where we're giving you the the yard sign and the lockbox isn't the photos and everything else. So you would choose your plan and then you're sort of off to the races. Yeah,
Mike Stohler
and again, everybody's in today's age, just you know, money is Time Time is money. And this is so much better. Now. Before we hit record you had talked about there's some type of funding aspect of your business that you're going through right now. And no you can't talk much about it but what can you tell us about what you're doing?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, I think what our attorneys say about you know talking to large groups of people with the you know, who is accredited investor who's not you know, certainly we've we've closed a good A good chunk of our funding round already, and there's still some left. For investors that are interested in this space, you can just email me directly at Kyle at unreal estate.com Happy to have a discussion, we specifically look for smart investors that have an edge in real estate. Investors in our company include Morgan Stanley, that sort of, you know, global investment bank, and a couple of mortgage companies as well. So they, you know, their, their executives bring that, that expertise in the mortgage markets, we have some real estate private equity guys on board as well. So they're bringing sort of that edge. So we love hearing from our working with partners that bring an edge whether it be in tech, or real estate, or whatever it is, your your specialty is that when it's related. So
Mike Stohler
everybody, if you're interested in passive investing with Kyle, and unreal estate.com, his company, reach out to him he just gave you his email, before we leave, what is there anything that I missed anything else that you'd like to talk about? About your company?
Kyle Stoner
The only other thing I would I would like to leave on with is there's a coming soon. And that's that, you know, we've we've helped 10s of 1000s of people to transact and the thing that they kept telling us that they wanted it a little bit more, more data, a little bit more granular data on new transactions. And we are soon going to be launching something that I think very few if anyone has seen before, in this space. So I don't I'm just gonna preview it, because it's coming soon. But if you're someone that's a geek about around data around really wanting to especially, you know, real estate investors that really want to understand and analyze what they're what they're buying and selling, we have something for you. And I think it's gonna knock your socks off.
Mike Stohler
Sounds fantastic. And one thing I want to mention is your type of platform, there's been an unprecedented lawsuit in the real estate industry. Yes, of course, that, you know, everyone's probably read or listened to on the news about commissions. And with the the National Real Estate Board, I don't know, whatever it is, that you're kind of immune to that, you know, aren't you because it's more of a flat fee? You don't have that? Three, three? Because I think the lawsuit was more about commission base, right? That's 100%.
Kyle Stoner
Right. So it's funny, I heard, there's a really smart investor who now I'm gonna botch his name. I think he's a big venture capitalist. He talks about how, you know, founders like me, we always talk about the boat. We're trying to sell you this boat, I want you to invest in this boat. But you never talk about the wind. that's driving the sales. Right. And so and so that was such a smart sort of point, because we don't we don't talk about and we look at that lawsuit, DOJ against National Association of Realtors. And I think to to lots of texture, there's another one that happened as well. And we look at that as more wind behind this right tailwinds. Because people are starting to understand what Commission's are, how much they are? And should you be paying them every time? The answer is no. Right? There are times when maybe you can or should, but not all the time. And so yeah, we're really excited about just to add a transparency. I don't know that we're immune from the lawsuit, but we certainly have been left out of it. Because we've never done it. We've always given all of our customers full transparency on pricing and let them choose, Hey, you want to you want to pay 1% to the biotech and you're selling a $10 million house, you don't think it deserves 3% Go ahead. Like it's all it's a toggle in our platform for you to choose. Right. So yeah, we we've stayed out of that, that fray and hope to gain from people finally understanding that there are other options out there and we're one of them. Absolutely,
Mike Stohler
Kyle, it's been a pleasure. How can people get a hold of you in other platforms of social media?
Kyle Stoner
Yeah, so I'm my social usually kW stoner at KW Stoner. Certainly on on Twitter threads and everywhere else. Happy to connect. I'm not a super social media guys. I need to get better at that. But yeah, that's that's where you find
Mike Stohler
fantastic, everybody. Kyle Stoner, unreal estate.com. Thank you so much for coming on the Richard geek podcast calm.
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ABOUT KYLE STONER
Kyle Stoner is an experienced entrepreneur with a proven background in building world-class products and businesses. In 2017 Kyle launched Abode Technologies (dba Unrealestate.com), an end-to-end online real estate marketplace. Unreal Estate is the top flat-fee listing site helping builders, large institutions and DIY home sellers list, market, and sell their homes at a fraction of the cost of traditional brokers. Unreal Estate can rapidly list hundreds and even thousands of homes on the relevant Multiple Listing Services (MLS), and provides clients with a dashboard so they can easily manage these sales.
Prior to Unreal Estate, Kyle co-founded Alpha Lead, a marketplace focused on using data analytics to match clients with Social Security Disability attorneys and senior living facilities.