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Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

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Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#101

Post by wtracy »

graham1776 wrote: post #89
beat wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cruising HN probably isn't the place to find founders, honestly. Where do you live? Is there an established startup community there? Make friends in IT, and get introductions. Go to meetups. Meanwhile, narrow yourself down to a single problem that you think offers maximum opportunity and minimum scope and risk, something that can be tackled with a MVP (minimum viable product). Design workflows. Learn wireframing. Cre…

Orange County. Thanks for the help Beat, and thanks for the support from HN community. Time to get to work.

Cal poly is close-ish to you, and has an excellent computer science department. Start making contacts there.

There is a Cal Poly chapter of ACM, the Cal Poly Linux User's Group (CPLUG) and a Cal poly chapter of WISH (women in software and hardware).

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#103

Post by kajr1212 »

silverbax88 wrote: post #77
graham1776 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the funny thing for me is I'm the one who works in commercial real estate, know the problems deeply, and have little technical experience other than reading HN. So how do you reverse cruise HN to find the technical cofounder to build out the solutions to our RE problems? I literally sit within a company run by excel spreadsheets, talk on a phone with brokers, manage market information via printed pdfs of comps, ma…

I've done a ton of this type of stuff for the medical and insurance industry. I'm not looking to be a technical co-founder but if you need input I could definitely tell you what you need and what to look for.

I have a similar set of questions and would love to get your input - I'm at tzt1212@live.com

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#104

Post by davemel37 »

graham1776 wrote: post #55
gaustin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest adding contact info to your profile and talking about your problems here. Hopefully you'll pique some interest and have some email waiting later.

Contact Info done. Sorry about missing day-one stuff. Since ideas are a dime a dozen: Glassdoor for Apartment Rentals: Tenants give their address and rent amount per month in exchange for access to everyone else's data. Know what other people are actually renting for, not landlord asking rates. Why is there no data on what your neighbor just signed his lease for? Angelist for Real Estate Imgur for Excel Nextdoor for…

Your first idea exists...maybe look at the exhibitor and attendee list of CRE tech intersect...

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#105

Post by davemel37 »

For those that think real estate tech is wide open, here is a guide of 101 tech startups (and some established ones) I found in the Commercial real estate space...

I found these by browsing tags in angellist, crunchbase, and attendee and exhibitor lists of CRE tech conferences, etc...

None of this touches the internal tech many large brokerages build for their own workflows...

http://www.papershare.com/paper/101-technologies

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#106

Post by joshuaheard »

spokenn wrote: post #82
joshuaheard wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this idea. However, the money notaries make is so low, I doubt they would purchase a dedicated device. However, if you made a touch-screen app where the client could sign it, take a picture of their ID, and the rest, you might be on to something. Build it, then get one of the notary associations to adopt it.

Joshua, I think the main clients would be banks and title companies. I can see them wanting to accept documents notarized using ___ because of the security. What do you think?

They could invest in a device, but making an app for a touch screen tablet would be a good first step and it would be more accessible. You could build in good security.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#107

Post by joshuaheard »

mrfusion wrote: post #66
joshuaheard wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have six rental properties as a landlord and I use Bank of America small business accounts which have an email payment system using ACH. The tenant receives an automated email invoice and can pay the invoice by ACH with a few clicks after a one-time setup. I receive an email from the bank when they have paid. It's completely paperless. No other bank was offering this at the time I set it up a few years ago. It's be…

That's interesting about the payment processing. Does BOFA charge a lot for this? Do you think it could also work for a property management company collecting HOA fees from a few hundred homes?

The cost is $15 per month for one account, but you can add other accounts for free if you keep a min bal of $3k. And you can manage all accounts on one page of their website. It can be used by any business, including an HOA.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#108

Post by phantom_oracle »

graham1776 wrote: post #55
gaustin wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd suggest adding contact info to your profile and talking about your problems here. Hopefully you'll pique some interest and have some email waiting later.

Contact Info done. Sorry about missing day-one stuff. Since ideas are a dime a dozen: Glassdoor for Apartment Rentals: Tenants give their address and rent amount per month in exchange for access to everyone else's data. Know what other people are actually renting for, not landlord asking rates. Why is there no data on what your neighbor just signed his lease for? Angelist for Real Estate Imgur for Excel Nextdoor for…

"Tenants give their address and rent amount per month in exchange for access to everyone else's data"

This is a tricky game-theory scenario. It may work if all the tenants find the value in it. It may also implode for tenants or the land-owner.

"Why is there no data on what your neighbor just signed his lease for?"

If the info isn't public, most people that value privacy will not want to share this.

I'm not too sure about the other ideas, but maybe you need to think of something simpler, that helps address a problem that all people like you face.

Maybe the best idea in this case would be the simplest.

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#109

Post by selimthegrim »

triangleman wrote: post #43
mtmail wrote: post #16

Apartment discovery is already well served. There are a dozen new startups that apply innovative methods to search. http://www.apartmentlist.com/ , https://livelovely.com/ , http://42floors.com/ come to mind. Software for estate agents needs to be become more modern though. http://nestio.com/ just rebranded themselves to do that for example. There's a German property portal (number two in the market) which released a…

You know what's great? The Craigslist map search for housing.

Do people not use Zillow anymore?

Re: Why Real Estate Tech Is So Attractive For Founders

#110

Post by silverbax88 »

kajr1212 wrote: post #103
silverbax88 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've done a ton of this type of stuff for the medical and insurance industry. I'm not looking to be a technical co-founder but if you need input I could definitely tell you what you need and what to look for.

I have a similar set of questions and would love to get your input - I'm at tzt1212@live.com

Just email me silverbax@yahoo.com - I am not being aloof I will gladly answer any of your questions I just can't really reach out to everyone.
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